Altria Group, Inc. (Altria) MO today announced that its Board of Directors voted to increase Altria's regular quarterly dividend by 8.2% to $0.66 per common share versus the previous rate of $0.61 per common share. The quarterly dividend is payable on October 10, 2017, to shareholders of record as of September 15, 2017. The ex-dividend date is September 14, 2017.
The new annualized dividend rate is $2.64 per common share, representing a yield of 4.1% based on Altria's closing stock price of $63.69 on August 18, 2017.
Today's dividend increase reflects Altria's intention to return a large amount of cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and is consistent with Altria's dividend payout ratio target of approximately 80% of its adjusted diluted earnings per share. Altria has increased its dividend 51 times in the past 48 years.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170824006150/en/
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.