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.