Remove duplicates based on criteria

I have over 600,000 lines (client entries) in my excel 2007 file I run reports on. In order to run some reoprts on the entire list I need to remove duplicate entries.

Each line represents one person. Each person has an owner assigned to them, but they can also be entered as having seen another representative (they have their sales rep, but sometimes make purchases from other reps).

I need to remove the duplicate clients but with the criteria that the retained record is the one which shows the client has an assigned sales rep, if one is assigned.

In each record all the client detail is identical, only the sales person supplying the service information changes. The sales rep displayed for each client will be their assigned rep or if none is assigned then any rep they have seen. The field in the spreadsheet for assignment of a rep is boolean - 0 for not owner, 1 for owner.

When this is complete I should have about 500,000 lines (unique entries), so still a great deal of information. The list should show each client and the information of their encounters with our sales rep.

thanks for any advice!

Thanks, I thought of that but I had a concern (can't recall now what it was). As I hit post the lightbulb came on for an easy solution. I sort by the assigned owner boolean field (1, 0) the use the excel remove duplicates tool. Since the record with an assigned owner (the 1 in the owner field) will be read first it will be kept and the non-owned records for the same client, if exisiting, will be removed.
jeff