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Saturday, September 14, 1996
Permanent school fund investors get rid of
tobacco holdings
By PEGGY FIKAC
Associated Press
AUSTIN - Texas' $13.4 billion public school trust fund no longer
has any money invested in tobacco.
Private companies managing part of the Permanent School Fund said
Friday they have sold their Philip Morris holdings, which represented
the last of the fund's investment in such stock.
The sale came on the urging of education board Chairman Jack Christie
of Houston and Attorney General Dan Morales, who has sued the
tobacco industry to try to recoup money spent by Texas on tobacco-related
illness.
Company officials said they made their decision for financial
reasons.
"Whether they saw it from a moral stance or a business stance,
I'm just tickled that they saw the light," Christie said.
"You can't try to teach the children the evils of tobacco
and the heavy addiction to tobacco and at the same time make money
off the stocks," he said.
Morales spokesman Ron Dusek called the sale a "wise choice."
Philip Morris spokeswoman Darienne Dennis didn't have an immediate
comment.
The Permanent School Fund once had $99 million in tobacco investments.
But it sold those stocks before hiring three external money managers
last year to invest $3.5 billion of the fund's assets, officials
have said.
Officials said they sold the Philip Morris stock at a profit in
August.
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