American Financial Group, Inc. (AFG) will pay a special dividend of $2.00 per share. Earlier this year the company raised its quarterly dividend by 11.1 percent to 50 cents per share. Last year the insurance holding company paid a special cash dividend of $1.80 per share in the fourth quarter of 2019, following a $1.50 per share special dividend paid earlier in 2019. The regular dividend was also hiked by 12.5 percent to 45 cents per share quarterly in 2019.

The dividend is payable on December 29, 2020 to holders of record on December 21, 2020. A regular annualized dividend rate of $2.00 per share yields 2.3% at a stock price of $88. This special dividend is in addition to the Company’s regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.50 per share that was last paid on October 26, 2020.

In the press release dated December 10, 2020, announcing this special dividend, AFG Co-CEOs Carl H. Lindner III and S. Craig Lindner stated: “Returning excess capital to shareholders in the form of this $2.00 special dividend is an important and effective component of our capital management strategy; it reflects AFG’s strong financial position and our confidence in the Company’s financial future. Following the payment of this special dividend, our excess capital remains at a level which affords us the financial flexibility to grow our business organically and through acquisitions and start-ups that meet our target return thresholds, and to make opportunistic repurchases of AFG’s stock.”

American Financial Group is an insurance holding company, based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Through the operations of Great American Insurance Group, AFG is engaged primarily in property and casualty insurance, focusing on specialized commercial products for businesses, and in the sale of fixed and fixed-indexed annuities in the retail, financial institutions and education markets. Great American Insurance Group’s roots go back to 1872 with the founding of its flagship company, Great American Insurance Company. American Financial Group has paid an uninterrupted dividend to its shareholders every year since at least 1986.