James River Group announces big dividend cut in 2022

James River Group Holdings (symbol JRVR), a Bermuda-based insurance holding company that owns and operates a group of specialty insurance and reinsurance companies, will lower its quarterly dividend from 20 cents to 5 cents per share.

For James River this is the first dividend cut since a quarterly dividend was initiated back in 2015. The company did not raise its dividend since 2016 but did pay two special dividends since 2016 ($1.35 per share) and 2017 ($0.50 per share).

On March 1, 2022, the Company announced that its Board of Directors declared a cash dividend of $0.05 per common share. This dividend is payable on Thursday, March 31, 2022 to all shareholders of record on Monday, March 14, 2022. The dividend yield for JRVR is 0.9% at a stock price of $21.83. Year-to-date the stock price is down 28%.

Based on calculations by dividendcut.com the annual dividend payment of James River will drop to approximately $7 million annually. The last dividend hike was announced in 2016, with a total increase of 87.5 percent (2 hikes that year) to 30 cents quarterly.

James River Group Holdings, Ltd. is a Bermuda-based insurance holding company that owns and operates a group of specialty insurance and reinsurance companies. The Company operates in three specialty property-casualty insurance and reinsurance segments: Excess and Surplus Lines, Specialty Admitted Insurance and Casualty Reinsurance. The Corporate and Other segment consists of certain management and treasury activities of James River Group, Inc., James River Group Holdings UK Limited and JRG Holdings. It owns six insurance companies focused on specialty insurance niches and a reinsurance company.