Matson Inc., the state’s largest ocean transportation firm, announced Thursday a 30.4% increase in its dividend and said its board has approved a share repurchase program totaling 3 million shares.

The Honolulu-based company said the dividend, which is being increased by 7 cents a share, to 30 cents, will be paid Sept. 2 to all shareholders of record as of the close of business Aug. 5. It is the company’s largest dividend increase since it was spun off from Alexander &Baldwin Inc. in 2012.

Matson’s share buyback equates to about 7% of the company’s outstanding shares. As of Thursday the authorization represented approximately $190 million of potential repurchases. Matson said shares will be repurchased in the open market from time to time at the company’s discretion, based on ongoing assessments of the capital needs of the business, the market price of its common shares and general market conditions.

”The substantive increase in the dividend and the initiation of a new share buyback program reflects our Board’s confidence in long-term free cash flow growth,” Matson Chairman and CEO Matt Cox said in a statement. “Last May we successfully launched a second expedited ocean service from China to the U.S. West Coast, the CLX+, to accommodate overwhelming demand for our original expedited China-to-Long Beach service. The success of the CLX+ service is expected to continue to be a driver in free cash flow growth.”

Matson is coming off of a monster first quarter that exceeded its initial expectations, and earned $87.2 million in the first three months of this year, compared with $3.8 million in the same period last year.

The company said in April that its expanded serv­ice from China primarily drove the higher first- quarter profit that topped the $83 million that Matson earned in all of 2019.

“After re-setting our dividend to this new level and providing maintenance capital expenditures to support ongoing operations, we will maintain our investment- grade balance sheet while also continuously seeking to acquire businesses and drive organic growth opportunities that meet our investment criteria,” Cox said in Thursday’s statement. “We will be both disciplined and opportunistic in our capital allocation, including the execution of share repurchases and aligning dividend decisions with growth in our long-term free cash flow. As always, we remain committed to return excess cash to shareholders as another means to create additional shareholder value over the long term.”

Matson announced the dividend increase and share buyback authorization after the stock market closed Thursday. During the regular session the company’s shares rose 96 cents to $63.98. The stock rose an additional 58 cents in after- hours trading.

The company’s stock is up 12.3% this year, based on the close of Thursday’s regular trading session.