Alcoa Revamps Formula for Dividend Payments

Alcoa Inc. eliminated the variable portion of its dividend based on earnings and increased the fixed part by 20% after the company had its lowest profit since 1998.

The fixed part of the quarterly dividend was increased to 15 cents a share from 12.5 cents, the aluminum maker said. While it also paid 15 cents a quarter last year, 2.5 cents of that was a variable based on profit in 2000. Alcoa wouldn’t have paid a variable dividend this year because of lower profit.Alcoa (AA) fell 25 cents to $35.65.