With profits recovering, many a board of directors saw fit to pass on to stockholders a traditional holiday treat: an extra year-end dividend. P. Lorillard Co., still riding high on the sales of Kent cigarettes, voted a 95¢ extra, bringing dividends to $4 v. $1.95 in 1957. Extra dividends and 2-for-1 stock splits were approved by Pet Milk and Kellogg Co.; growing drug sales gave Chas. Pfizer & Co. stockholders a higher dividend, a year-end extra of 60¢ and a proposed 2½-for-1split.
Not all stockholders fared so well. Du Pont chopped its year-end payment from $2 to $1.50 per share. United Fruit,...
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