WorldCom Acquires Itself; Expects Revenues to Double ImmediatelySAN JUATUINO, CA /DenounceNewswire/ -- September 11, 1997 -- WorldCom Inc. announced today that it will acquire itself in a complex 22.7 billion-dollar deal which the company expects to conclude by Saturday. The announcement comes within days of the complex deal with America Online, ANS Communications, and the CompuServe unit of H&R Block, each of which agreed to sell each other in a transaction already dubbed "spaghetti financing" by knowledgable insiders. This "self-acquisition," the first in U.S. history, will move WorldCom from being the nation's fourth-largest long-distance company to being the second-largest. The deal enhances WorldCom's emerging dominance in the telecommunications industry, especially the hot Internet market, where WorldCom dreams of complete monopolistic control within a few weeks. "We liked ourselves so much, we decided to own ourselves twice" said John Sidgmore, WorldCom vice chairman. "And overnight our market value doubles, which should please shareholders of which I am one, correction, two!" "A creative, gutsy strategy," said Indu Strypundit, an industry pundit. "Nobody else has ever dared try this." The deal may be delayed pending approval by the Securities Exchange Commission, itself a recent acquisition target by a number of companies.
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