UNLIKE MOST COMPANIES SURVEYED, McDONALD'S
ALERTED INVESTORS TO COMPANY PROBLEMS

New York, NY April 9, 2003 - The recent business overhaul announced by McDonald's Corporation shouldn't surprise its investors. In a recent survey of shareholder letters, McDonald's was one of only 11 companies to report negative news two years running. CEOs that failed to confront problems in both 2000 and 2001 letters, and also saw a significant drop in their year-end 2001 stock prices included Humana and Burlington Resources.

• "Sixty-two percent of the CEOs cited business as usual in 2001," said L.J. Rittenhouse, president of New York-based andBEYOND Communications, which conducts the annual survey. "In a year marked by terrorist attacks, a slumping global economy and weakening stock prices, it's hard to trust companies that ignore the impact of such forces." Other findings:
  
  
• Of the 63 percent of companies surveyed whose stock prices declined in 2001, only eight percent commented on these price declines.

Not one CEO assumed personal responsibility for any company-specific problems, even though operating problems such as shrinking profit margins, lost sales due to 9/11, excess inventories and failed mergers were cited by 21 percent of the companies.

"Berkshire Hathaway's 2002 shareholder letter sets a new standard for balanced disclosure," said Rittenhouse. "CEO Warren Buffett describes a record number of 12 company problems, and also tells investors what could have, but didn't go wrong. For example, if Berkshire had been hit with mega-catastrophe insurance claims in 2002, Buffett estimates that pre-tax earnings could have been $500 million lower than reported. Commenting on his failure to detect underwriting problems at General Re, which was acquired in 1998, Buffett states, "I was dead wrong."

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