NEWSFLASH! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1997 11:32:00 EST The Big Two? In a shock anouncement earlier this morning leading accountancy firm Arthur Andersen Binder Hamlyn KPMG Deloitte & Touche announced that it had entered negotiations in a complex deal to acquire Microsoft, Nike and McDonalds. AABHKPMGD&T World Chairman Hiram J Smith III, speaking from New York, announced that this would make AABHKPMGD&T the leading professional services firm in the world. Products Group News accountancy editor Bobette Spruce writes: AABHKPMGD&T have succeeded in their global ambition to be the world's leading professional services firm, a position they held recently until being leap frogged by Coopers Ernst Lybrand Price Waterhouse & Young on their acquistion of Pepsi, Sony and Exxon. However in a shock revelation later in the day CELPW & Y announced a revolutionary outsourcing deal to acquire the Chinese People's Revolutionary Army. Speaking from New York, CELPW & Y World CEO John Walton IX said the new merged firm would have 15 million professional staff, 15.000 main battle tanks, 4.500 fixed wing combat aircraft and 85 hunter-killer attack submarines. He added "We would very strongly warn AABHKPMGD&T not to threathen our position as World No. 1 Professional Services Firm." /// Newsflash!!! Correction: AA is not in!!! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1997 08:49:00 EST NEW YORK: Quick to respond to the recent consolidations amongst the superpower international public accounting and professional service firms previously known as the "Big-8" and then "Big-6", Arthur Andersen & Co. (AA) has announced today that it will be merging with itself effective immediately. Andersen had been the largest of the remaining "Big-6" firms until the mergers of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand announced in September and then last week's mega-merger between Ernst & Young and KPMG Peat Marwick. AA had prided themselves on their unique, rigid corporate culture, and its oversized ego so large that it had to be two firms within one--Arthur Andersen (traditional auditing and tax) and Andersen Consulting. Dick Dickowitz, Chief Executive Officer of the new "Arthur Andersen Arthur Andersen & Company," was quoted as saying, "We felt that we couldn't just sit by as our competitors formed around us, squashing us in size. We couldn't find any other suitable firms willing to merge with us, so we decided to merge with ourselves. After all, we're just responding to market forces. We've been hearing clients and non-clients, as well as our competitors, telling us to go (explicative) ourselves for years." No representatives from any of the other Big-4 firms were willing to comment.