March 5, 2009 (FinancialWire) -- JMP Group Inc. (NYSE: JMP) board has declared a dividend of $0.01 per share for the fourth quarter of 2008, to be paid on April 3 to common stockholders of record as of March 20. The board also authorized the repurchase of up to 500,000 additional shares of the company's outstanding common stock during the next twelve months.

Under JMP's previous buyback authorization, the group had repurchased 1,127,210 shares of stock since March of 2008, leaving around 0.9 million shares still to be repurchased through September 2009. In total, the company is now authorized to repurchase around 1.4 million of its outstanding common shares.

Company chairman and CEO Joe Jolson said, "In light of the unprecedented turmoil in the capital markets and our strong desire to take advantage of the opportunities it presents, we made the difficult decision to reduce our dividend from five cents per share."

He added that, "Our board will regularly review our dividend policy and continues to target a long-term payout ratio of approximately 35% of operating earnings."

San Francisco-based JMP Group is an investment banking and asset management firm that provides investment banking, sales and trading, and equity research services to corporate and institutional clients and alternative asset management products to institutional and high-net-worth investors.

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