CORPORATIONS: Two Men on a Horse

Two of the men who know tobacco best—Philip Morris' Board Chairman Al Lyon, 67, and Benson & Hedges' President Joseph Cullman Jr., 71—have the same hobby: horseback riding. Last week they decided to ride the same horse, i.e., merge their fast-growing companies. The new company will keep the Philip Morris name and officers, absorb Cullman as chairman of the executive committee, his son Joseph III as a vice president. But the Cullmans will continue to run Benson & Hedges as a separate division.

Under the merger, which stockholders of both companies must still...