RAI Announces Dividend, Board Changes

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 12/08/2008

The board of directors of Reynolds American Inc (RAI) yesterday declared a quarterly cash dividend on the company's common stock of $0.85 per share ($3.40 per share annualized). The dividend will be payable on January 2 to shareholders of record on December 15. RAI said that this was the 18th consecutive quarterly cash dividend that it had declared since it became a publicly traded company on July 30, 2004. RAI's policy was to return about 75 per cent of the company's current-year net income to shareholders in the form of dividends, it added. Meanwhile, Nicandro Durante was elected during yesterday's meeting to serve on the RAI board as a designee of Brown & Williamson Holdings. Durante, the current COO of British American Tobacco plc, succeeds Antonio Monteiro de Castro, the recently retired COO of BAT, who resigned from the RAI board yesterday. With Durante succeeding Monteiro de Castro, the RAI board will continue to have 13 members, including five B&W designees. Through its B&W indirect subsidiary, BAT is RAI's largest shareholder, with an ownership interest of about 42 per cent. Enditem