Cardoso moves into the hot seat at Andersen Worldwide

Andersen, the troubled Enron auditor, found itself a new global chief executive after the chairman, Aldo Cardoso, moved into the post vacated by Joseph Berardino last week.

Mr Cardoso, a French national and managing partner of Andersen's Paris office, becomes chief executive of Andersen Worldwide, the holding company for the various Andersen auditing partnerships around the world.

The move comes as the partnerships pursue merger talks with rival audit firms after Andersen Worldwide failed to secure the collective sale of its non-US operations to KPMG.

Andersen partnerships must merge to stem an exodus of client defections after the collapse of the US energy giant Enron, which was audited by Andersen's Houston practice.

The international businesses are vulnerable to damages claims from Enron creditors against Andersen's Houston partnership because Andersen Worldwide's member firms share profits and agree not to compete with each other. Andersen has also been indicted by the US Justice Department on obstruction of justice charges for shredding documents relating to Enron.

Mr Cardoso, 46, would be chief executive indefinitely and his objective was to coordinate the orderly merger of Andersen's various partnerships with other auditors.

More than 70 of Andersen's 83 partnerships outside the US, including Andersen's UK arm, are in talks with KPMG.

Deloitte & Touche yesterday dismissed reports that it was pursuing a deal with Andersen's UK partnership. The auditor last month withdrew from talks to buy all Andersen's non-US businesses.

Ernst & Young is in talks to adopt Andersen's Singaporean, Russian and Australasian businesses, while PricewaterhouseCoopers is in talks with Andersen's Chinese operations.