ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060043
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
Journal refuses to run ad on Dow Jones ills
NEW YORK - The Wall Street Journal has refused to run a Fortune magazine advertisement in which Fortune draws attention to its recent story about shareholder unrest at Dow Jones & Co., the Journal's parent.
Fortune reported last month that two members of the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones, are dissatisfied with the publisher's sluggish stock performance.
Fortune created a full-page ad that includes a reproduction of a Journal story on the purchase of a stake in Dow Jones by investor Michael Price. The story said Price bought the stock after reading in Fortune about dissatisfied Dow Jones shareholders.
The ad also shows the cover of a recent Fortune issue that featured Price and described him as ``The Scariest S.O.B. on Wall Street.'' It asked: ``How does this guy keep his edge?''
The ad had been slated to appear in Tuesday's editions of the Journal, but it was rejected late Monday by Journal publisher Peter Kann, also chairman and chief executive of Dow Jones, a spokesman said. Fortune would have paid $110,000 to run the ad.
-Associated Press
WMX shareholders to seek new blood
CHICAGO - Under a restructuring plan, the new Waste Management will look a lot like the old Waste Management. But major shareholders say the company must do more to avert a revolt in their ranks.
One large shareholder group said Wednesday it will press ahead with plans to force the company to sell more assets and elect new outside directors to the 12-member board.
``They've become too insular,'' said Nell Minow, a principal of Lens Inc., which owns nearly 500,000 shares of WMX. ``Management clearly needs to do more, and that means putting some outsiders on the board.''
WMX Technologies Inc. said Tuesday it would shed 3,000 jobs over the next three years and drop businesses unrelated to its core garbage and toxic-waste hauling operations. The company is parent of Waste Management of Virginia-Blue Ridge in Roanoke.
-Associated Press
Wisconsin joins tobacco-suit parade
MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin on Wednesday became the 21st state to sue for smoking-related profits and health costs.
The lawsuit accuses eight tobacco companies and three industry groups of conspiring to mislead, deceive and confuse the public about the negative health effects of tobacco use and secondhand smoke.
In addition to recouping money spent treating smoking-related illnesses, the state is seeking all profits the companies have made in Wisconsin since 1953, the year a possible link between smoking and lung cancer was widely reported.
Philip Morris Inc., one of the defendants, countered that tobacco is licensed and taxed by the state, and ``it is the height of hypocrisy for the state to receive these funds and sue the manufacturers of the product they have long embraced, and continue to embrace, as a source of income.''
-Associated Press
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB