Altria Group Inc. (NYSE:MO) is Determined to Keep the Dividends High

On January 30, 2015, Altria Group Inc. (NYSE:MO) posted the earnings reports of the year 2014 together with the financial reports of the fourth fiscal quarter. The reports were disclosed before the market opened. The diluted EPS (earnings per share) of the tobacco company came to a total of $0.66 with total revenues of around $4.61 billion for the 4^th quarter. It is important to mention here that the amount excluded excise taxes; total excise taxes were reported to be around $1.65 billion.

The diluted EPS of the company was recorded to be at $0.57 for the same quarter a year back. As far as the revenues of the same quarter are concerned, the figures came to $4.4 billion. The results of the fourth quarter met the consensus estimates of Thomson Reuters. The consensus revenue and EPS were $4.53 and $0.67.For the year 2014, the company posted revenues of $17.95 billion with an EPS of $2.57. This amount excluded the excise tax of $6.58.

The figures of 2014 were more or less the same as the numbers of 2013. In 2013, the company posted total revenues of $17.88 billion with an EPS of $2.57.Altria Group Inc. (NYSE:MO) posted the guidance report for the year 2015 as well. The company expects the EPS to be in the range of $2.75 to $2.80 for the current year. Altria will be spending $200 – $250 million for capital expenditures. Market analyst companies have given the company a consensus revenue estimate of $18.18 billion with an EPS of $2.80 for the year 2015.

Altria Group Inc. (NYSE:MO) improved its quarterly dividend to $0.52 from $0.48 in the month of August 2014. The dividend yield for the company has come to 3.8 percent now. Altria paid more than $3.9 billion in the year 2014, and it paid more than $1 billion in the 4^th quarter alone. The management of the company announced that it would be looking forward to returning huge sums of cash to the stockholders by giving out dividends.

Moreover, the company is determined to maintain a target ratio of dividends to adjusted EPS as 0.8 to 1. What is more interesting to note here is the fact that the company bought some 5.3 million of its common stock shares last year 4Q, for a total of $260 million. In the year 2014, the company repurchased around 22.5 million of its shares for a total of $939 million. Altria(NYSE:MO)allocated a total budget of $1 billion for the share buyback program.

It still has $518 remaining and the company will be completing its repurchase cycle by the end of the year 2015.The stocks of Altria (NYSE:MO) are currently being traded in the range of $53 to $54.06. It has a market capitalization of $$104.95 billion with a P/E (price to earnings) ratio of 20.75. The company saw a decline of 2.37 percent in its stock prices on Friday.