Altria increases quarterly dividend by 8.3% to $0.52 per common share

Richmond, va.--(business wire)--altria group, inc. (altria) (nyse:mo) today announced that its board of directors voted to increase altria’s regular quarterly dividend by 8.3% to $0.52 per common share versus the previous rate of $0.48 per common share. the quarterly dividend is payable on october 10, 2014 to shareholders of record as of september 15, 2014. the ex-dividend date is september 11, 2014. the new annualized dividend rate is $2.08 per common share, representing a yield of 4.9% based on altria’s closing stock price of $42.46 on august 20, 2014. 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 48 times in the last 45 years.
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