Group Expects More to Divest Their Stocks

Leaders of a tobacco divestiture campaign predicted that the movement to dump tobacco stocks will gain momentum in 1997 because legal and regulatory pressures are making them risky investments. “Tobacco is horrific on moral grounds, and there is no longer a compelling case to be made for it on strictly economic grounds,” Steve Schueth, president of the Social Investment Forum, said in a teleconference. Meanwhile, Steven Goldstone, chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. acknowledged the pressures on the beleaguered industry. Goldstone indicated in a speech in Boston that the cigarette companies will “come to reasonable ground” with their adversaries soon. An RJR spokesman said Goldstone did not mean to suggest that the industry was on the verge of reaching a broad-based settlement of all the lawsuits against it.