Harvard to Benefit From Suit Results

University financial officers believe that the value of Harvard's $71 million of stock in American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) and International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) will increase as a result of the Justice Department's settlement of cases against those companies last week.

AT&T agreed Friday to divest 22 of its phone companies in an out-of-court settlement with the government, which also dropped all charges against IBM in a similar suit on the same day.

George W. Siguler, associate treasurer of the University, said this weekend that the decisions "remove a cloud" over the companies and are good for the businesses and stockholders, but Harvard officials said the University will examine the results of the AT&T settlement before deciding what to do with the University's 386,550 shares.

Walter M. Cabot, president of the Harvard Management Company, said this weekend that "IBM can go ahead now" with technological development without fear of being split up by court order.

All charges of monopoly were dropped in the IBM case because the government believed that the case was "without merit and should be dismissed," William F. Baxter, assistant attorney general in charge of anti-trust for the Justice Department, said Friday.

Stock in Both

Harvard will own stock in both parts of AT&T after the split, because stockholders will receive proportionate shares in the local operating companies and the parent company, the company announced.

With the divestiture of the local operating companies, telephone bills for local calls will rise significantly once the split takes effect starting six months from now, industry experts said.

Analysts predict that the decisions over the long term will be profitable for both companies. AT&T, despite divesting two-thirds of its $125-billion business, is retaining the profitable long-distance business in addition to Bell Laboratories, its high-technology research and development division.

And IBM, cleared on all charges, is freed from the legal distraction and expense it has faced since the suit was filed in early 1969.

Harvard professors speculated that the influence by the Reagan Administration in facilitating these decisions may have been significant. Joseph P. Kalt, assistant professor of Economics, said this weekend that the move probably is indicative of a general administration trend toward a "much more lenient attitude" regarding big business.

John Kenneth Galbraith, Warburg Professor of Economics Emeritus, said that "the Reagan Administration is continuing to take care of its own."

However, John R. Meyer, professor and industrial organization specialist at the Business School, said that the head of the Justice Department's anti-trust division under the Carter Administration had also been considering dropping charges against IBM