STATE OF N.J. IN 43 MLN DLR PROGRAM STOCK SALE
The State of New Jersey said that it
sold 23 stocks in a program trade worth 43 mln dlrs this
morning.
    Roland Machold, director of the Division of Investment for
the state of New Jersey, said, "the sale was part of our
ongoing divestment program."
    Under N.J. state law enacted in August 1985, the state must
divest all securities, stocks and bonds, of companies that do
business in, or with South Africa by August 1988, Machold said.
    He said "in order to be fully divested by August 1988, we
will probably have to sell an average every week of between 50
mln and 75 mln dlrs of stock."
    The stocks sold in today's program sale include Abbott
Laboratories <ABT>, Allied Signal Inc <ALD>, CitiCorp <CCI>,
Ford Motor Co <F>, General Motors <GM>, Gillette Co <GS>, H.J.
Heinz <HNZ>, IBM <IBM>, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
<MMM>, Mobil <MOB>, Monsanto Co <MTC>, NCR Corp <NCR>, Pepsico
Inc <PEP>, Pfeizer <PFE>, Union Camp <UCC>, USX <X>,
Westinghouse Electric <WX>, Weyerhaeuser Co <WY>, American
International Group <AIG>, CBS <CBS>, Coca-Cola <KO>, Merck
<MRK> and Upjohn <UPJ>.
    Machold said that one brokerage house handled today's sale
but seven houses bid on the deal. He would not disclose the
brokerage house that handled the sale.
    "The total value of the sales to date," Machold said, "are
about three billion dlrs in book value and about four billion
dlrs in market value."
    He said that because of the difficulty of defining
companies that do business with South Africa, it is difficult
to determine exactly how much future sales will be worth.
Machold estimated the book value of future sales to August 1988
will be in the range of 1.2 billion dlrs to 5.2 billion dlrs.
 Reuter
