...Plot Alex Gibney, who wrote and produced Eugene Jarecki's The Trials of Henry Kissinger, examines the rise and fall of an infamous corporate juggernaut in Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, which he wrote and directed. The film, based on the book by Fortune Magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, opens with a reenactment of the suicide of Enron executive Cliff Baxter, then travels back in time, describing Enron chairman Kenneth Lay's humble beginnings as the son of a preacher, his ascent in the corporate world as an "apostle of deregulation," his fortuitous friendship with the Bush family, and the development of his business strategies in natural gas futures. The film points out that the culture of financial malfeasance at Enron was evident as far back as 1987, when Lay apparently encouraged the outrageous risk taking and profit skimming of two oil traders in Enron's Valhalla office because they were bringing a lot of money into the company. But it wasn't until eventual CEO Jeff Skilling arrived at Enron that the company's "aggressive accounting" philosophy truly took hold. The Smartest Guys in the Room explores the lengths to which the company went in order to appear incredibly profitable. Their win-at-all-costs strategy included suborning financial analysts with huge contracts for their firms, hiding debts by essentially having the company loan money to itself, and using California's deregulation of the electricity market to manipulate the state's energy supply...
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...Re: Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room is a movie about one of the US largest corporations, Enron, that went bankrupt in 2001. The movie starts with the story of Enron Corporation founder who was the chief executive officer of Houston Natural Gas, Kenneth Lay. Kenneth Lay established Enron in 1985. He had a close relationship with George Bush senior and his son, George W. Bush. While George W. Bush was Texas’ governor, he helped Kenneth Lay in subsidizing Enron International. Kenneth Lay successfully built natural gas power energy in East Texas. At that time, Enron stocks increased sharply from before. Enron involved in government energy market deregulations. Two years later, Enron committed in a scandal which known as oil scandal where two traders was betting in Enron stocks. Even though Enron stayed in stable share and obtain high profit, the bets put Enron in danger. Those two traders were fired by Enron after they gambled in Enron’s reserves. On the other hand, Kenneth Lay refused to admit his involvement in this act, but in fact he attended the meeting that discuss about oil scandal issue. Another scandal which is presented in the first part of this documentary film is Louis Borget, Enron’s CEO fraud in diverting company money into his personal account offshore. Auditors tried to uncover this problem and Kenneth Lay also encouraged him to keep making millions for Enron. However, Louis Barget was put in jail by the court for a year...
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...Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, is a documentary based on the rise and fall of one of the world’s major electricity, natural gas, communications and paper companies. By 2001 Enron filed for bankruptcy, leaving citizens and shareholders all over the nation in a financial mess. With a single share costing over ninety dollars in August 2011, it was a shock when shares fell bellow a dollar by January of 2002. However, the failure of Enron was not a surprise to everyone and although millions of people lost their lifetime savings as well as over twenty-thousand employees losing their jobs, directors of the company had put aside millions of dollars for themselves, disregarding the negative impacts they were leaving on society. Numerous incidents that occurred throughout the company’s existence could have been prevented and today citizens across the nation could be living completely different lives....
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...At the heart of Enron’s story are its flashy, macho culture and its disputed inability to control expenditures. With being named one of the most innovative companies of its time, one would assume Enron would promote equality among the sexes and diversity. Every top Enron executive (excluding Rebecca Mark and Amanda Martin) was a white male with a top-notch education. Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Andy Fastow, and Cliff Baxter all came from Ivey League schools or prestigious business institutions. These men were the backbone of Enron’s culture and operations. Skilling had a reputation of hiring blunt, hardball executives who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. They had a reputation of going on adventurous company trips that encouraged risky behavior. This mirrored the approach these men took towards there work. Whether it was striking up a deal or coming up with the best new idea, everything was about taking risks and neglecting consequences. Enron believed making money came from taking big risks. And boy were they able to spend it faster than it came in. Executives had free access to company jets, catered lunches were served many times throughout the year, and huge sums of stock were handed out regularly (many of them cashing in on the stock before the company’s collapse). They spared no expense when it came to proving Enron was a company to be reckoned with; one ex-executive was once quoted saying: “Don’t do business with Enron. They’ll steal your wallet when you...
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...CASO ENRON THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM ¿Cuál es la principal problemática del caso? La principal problemática del caso Enron parte en base al orgullo, la arrogancia, la intolerancia y la codicia de los los gerentes y altos directivos de la empresa; ellos se preocupaban más por sus ganancias personales que por el verdadero crecimiento de la empresa y de los trabajadores. Los problemas económicos de la compañía eran prácticamente invisibles para el público general ya que por muchos años Enron manipuló sus estados financieros con tal de presentar números favorables para todo aquel que invirtiera en la empresa. Las consecuencias fueron graves, ya que los empleados de Enron así como algunos empresarios de alto calibre decidieron invertir todo su capital, pensando que en un par de días se triplicaría su dinero, sin imaginar nunca lo que vendría después . Es importante mencionar que la ética que manejaban entre colaboradores era totalmente corrupta y un tanto agresiva. Por ejemplo, mediante el sistema de calificaciones entre empleados, más del 15% del staff era despedido y aquellos que obtenían buenos resultados, eran recompensados con bonos equivalentes a millones de dólares. Esto a su vez provocó una competencia feroz y poco amigable entre los corredores. Se puede deducir con facilidad que el principal problema de Enron radicó en sus ganancias inexplicables y más adelante en sus pérdidas fugaces. La ambición, el orgullo, la avaricia y el egoísmo infectó de raíz al sistema de...
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...Enron – “The Smartest Guys in the Room” Who were the smartest guys in the room? Kenneth Lay, the founder of ENRON. Louis Borget, the CEO who diverted company money to offshore accounts. Jeffrey Skilling, the CEO who implemented the mark-to market accounting. J. Clifford Baxter and Lou Pai, the executives who Skilling hired. Andrew Fastow, the CFO who created companies solely to do business with Enron. The auditors, who turned the head when the money came rolling in. Are these the smartest guy in the room? In the beginning ENRON was a natural gas supplier in Houston Texas moved gas through pipelines to locales throughout the United States. In 1984 Kenneth Lay joined the company. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it started trading. It became one of the largest energy companies in the world. But it was scandalous from the beginning. Within a few years after the company was found the first scandals began. This scandal involved two traders betting on the oil markets which resulted in consistent profits. It was also discovered that the CEO, Louis Borget, had been diverting company money to offshore accounts. Lay encouraged them to continue making money for the company after the auditors discovered their schemes. Only when it was discovered that the traders gambled away ENRON’s reserves did the traders get fired. Lay denied knowing anything about the issues. After Borget leaves the company Lay hires Jeffrey Skilling who implements mark-to market accounting...
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...money from the stock exchange by trading their own shares and earning profit from the difference in buying and selling prices. Deregulation gave permission to Enron to be creative, for the first time in history a firm that was required to operate within in the guidelines could be creative and test the limits the way they want. As time went by Enron’s products and services evolved, so did the culture of the company. In this newly deregulated and creative platform, Enron embraced a culture that welcomed cleverness, it opened the industry up to experimentation and the culture embraced by Enron was one that expected their employees to explore this new playing field and make most out of it whether it be in ethical limits or not (The Smartest Guys in the Room, 2005).. Jeff Skilling the CEO and former president of Enron actively enforced a culture that would push...
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...Enron’s Impact The movie Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is an informative documentary exposing an unprecedented level of corruption in the business industry. This movie is based on a book written by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, who are also the primary interviewees in the film. This movie captures the tragedy in an incredibly detailed and emotion-jerking way, from the beginning of Enron to the end. Enron is well known to anyone familiar with economics, accounting, or business. For many, the name Enron evokes harsh feelings and leaves a sour taste in the mouth. For those who are not familiar with Enron, a few key terms might be helpful in understanding the type of business Enron was: Deceptive, Dishonest, Insolent, Corrupt, Blatant Disregard for Humanity, and Business Failure. Enron strategically and criminally manipulated market-to-market accounting, where projected earnings were allowed in the profits reported; however, market-to-market accounting was not necessarily the problem. The problem lay in the carefully crafted deceptive projections by top executives, which initially no one cared to question. This allowed Enron’s stock price to maintain elevated, even though the money was never there. Enron Oregon Corp. and Enron Corp., a Delaware corporation merged on July 11, 1997, surviving entity, Enron Corp. Recorded puppeteers at the time: Kenneth L. Lay, Chairman of the Board/Chief Executive Officer and Director/Principal Executive Officer; Richard A....
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...FORENSIC ACCOUNTING ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room Movie Summary Gerald Prayogo ------------------------------------------------- 342858 Enron: The Smartest Guys in the room is a documentary movie based on the book of the same name. Essentially, it tells us about one of the biggest fraud ever performed in the US. It tells us of the downfall of Enron: its scandals, the prosecution of its perpetrators, as well as its role in California electricity crisis. The film describes the biggest names on the fraudulent corporation. First is Kenneth Lay, the founder of Enron. Kenneth, nicknamed ‘Kenny Boy’ by his spouse, got the company into scandal in just two years after its establishment, after Enron’s managers bet on oil markets. The second is Jeffrey Skilling, the man who utilized mark-to-market accounting, which allow Enron to appear as being a profitable company, even if the reality might not be so. He also applied the Darwinian philosophy on Enron by establishing a ‘rank and yank’ system, a system of which a group of review commitees grades employees and fires the bottom fifteen percent. Skilling was also described as having a soft spot for “guys with spikes”; which made him recruit J. Clifford Baxter, a manic-depressive; and Lou Pai, the CEO of Enron Energy Services which was known for using shareholder money to pay strippers. Enron managed to get a myriad of profits during the dot-com bubble by using the process known as “pump and dump”: pushing up their stock prices and...
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...Written Report on Documentary: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room For this assignment view the video, ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room [1 hr. & 50 min]. Write a critique of the film in 4-5 page double-spaced paper; number the pages. Answer each of the following questions in your essay. The written assessment of Enron is due according to Syllabus. Submit a paper copy in class and also post it on BB website SafeAssign. It is worth 50 points. 1. The date and time I viewed the Enron video is: _________________________ 2. Describe the dominant culture of ENRON and the subculture of Enron’s trading group. 3. What did Jeff Skilling say is the only thing that motivates people? Do you agree or disagree? 4. What did ENRON executives mean by “pump and dump”? Do you think this is ethical behavior? Why? 5. What was Arthur Andersen’s role with regards to Enron? Was this a conflict of interest? What could have been done to prevent this? 6. How did Skilling treat Fortune author Bethany McLean when she started asking questions about Enron’s financials? Do you think this was a tactic, and if so, what did he hope to achieve by it? 7. Describe which ethical norms were violated at ENRON. How and why? 8. Do you believe that Enron’ failure is a result of the behavior of “a few bad men”, or a demonstration of the downside of the market system and self-interest? Explain 9. What are the three most important “takeaways” messages you learned...
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...was just two years ago that Enron was thought to epitomize a great New Economy company, with its skyrocketing profits and share price. But that was before Fortune published an article by McLean that asked a seemingly innocent question: How exactly does Enron make money? From that point on, Enron's house of cards began to crumble. Now, McLean and Elkind have investigated much deeper, to offer the definitive book about the Enron scandal and the fascinating people behind it. Meticulously researched and character driven, Smartest Guys in the Room takes the reader deep into Enron's past—and behind the closed doors of private meetings. Drawing on a wide range of unique sources, the book follows Enron's rise from obscurity to the top of the business world to its disastrous demise. It reveals as never before major characters such as Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andy Fastow, as well as lesser known players like Cliff Baxter and Rebecca Mark. Smartest Guys in the Room is a story of greed, arrogance, and deceit—a microcosm of all that is wrong with American business today. Above all, it's a fascinating human drama that will prove to be the authoritative account of the Enron...
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...Jessica Snyder 2-13-14 Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room CEO Jeff Skilling took advantage of accounting loopholes and questionable practices to increase Enron’s profits. There were unethical decisions made and unethical accounting practices at almost every level of the organization. Even though they had the legal OK from the SEC to use mark-to-market accounting, doesn’t mean it was an advisable or ethical thing to do. Mark-to-market accounting let Enron post profit from future deals on their current books. For example, Enron posted a $53 million dollar deal with Blockbuster Video as soon as they announced it. Unfortunately, the deal never went through and the profits were never made. So while the deal was technically legal, it was far from ethical. The “If it’s legal, it must be ethical” consensus trickled down to lower-level employees and soon the whole company became corrupted and unethical. One energy trader was recorded calling a power plant and asking them to shut down power for a couple of hours. As a result, California had rolling blackouts and energy process skyrocketed. One top level employee was overseeing multiple subsidiaries and Enron ignored the conflict of interest. That top level employee shifted Enron’s debt to the subsidiaries to ensure profitability for the parent company. According to the documentary, the formula for a winning company in the 90s was to beat your projected quarterly earnings. Enron made sure to beat them, any way possible...
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...Heugas Alexis 9/3/2013 Cases in financial management Enron’s Downfall A strong ethical conduct is a key requirement in all facets of society today. It defines who people are and usually pays off in the long run. It is especially important in a business setting and must be adopted by companies hoping to sustain consistent and continuous growth for an indefinite time period. In this paper I am going to dive into one of the most well-known and infamous examples fraud in the modern era, I will try and unravel the details of who the beneficiaries were, what they had to gain for their actions, the consequences of their actions and what has been done to prevent such an occurrence in the future and how it has revolutionized the financial reporting standards. There is no greater example of fraud than that of the Enron scenario which occurred in October of 2001. Enron was once one of the energy giants in the world and was deemed ‘too big to fail’. Enron was once very successful and provided thousands of jobs, however, due to a few key executives who driven my their own greed, the company collapsed, causing many people to lose a lot of their money and for many of them their life savings. There came a point in time when Enron began struggling to generate profit and cash flow from the regular business transactions. The company launched many projects which became write-offs and Enron found themselves a massive debt pit. Due to the greed of a few key executives namely Jeff Skilling...
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...great corporate America. Many say it was the result of greedy money minded immoral people, others do not understand complicated transactions and then there are those who blame the government and law makers. At the end of it all, no matter what caused it, people’s lives was destroyed, retirement plans were washed away and most of all the system was toyed with. There were many ethical codes set by our corporate minds, which were either neglected or taken advantage of. This paper is going to analyze the movie Enron: the smartest guys in the room by Magnolia Pictures and also try to better understand the ethical issues that lead to the collapse of the largest natural gas merchant in North America. A firm ethical conduct can be analyzed by first analyzing its key players and how their personal ethic conduct played a major role in sheltering this fraudulent company (CEO, president, board of directors). Kenneth Lay founded Enron in 1985 (Enron: the smartest guys in the room) by merging the Houston Natural Gas company with InterNorth. The goal was to develop a national pipeline system for natural gas. In 1987, two of Enron’s traders put bets in the market on the oil prices for Enron. Having insider information and playing the game is called ‘cheating’. But when time comes to interrogate and fire, Mr. Lay decides to write a rewarding letter to his fraudulent...
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...Emily Escobedo Professor Kimberly Gleason BA 3300 3 April 2016 EXTRA CREDIT: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room https://freedocumentaries.org/documentary/enron-the-smartest-guys-in-the-room#watch-film 1. Explain the concept and rationale behind mark to market accounting and its significance to Enron. (19:35) Jefferey Skilling was hired by Ken Lay. Skilling had agree to work with Enron if he was able to use the mark-to-market accounting which was approved by SEC. This accounting allowed them to book future potential profits on the day the deal was signed, no matter how little cash came in. 2. Describe the Enron culture. (23:28) Enron was a tough and aggressive culture. The traders considered this work ethic an economic religion. They turned Lay and Skilling’s beliefs and turned it into an ideology. They were very competitive as well. 3. What is Andy Fastow's significance to Enron? (48:36) Andy Fastow ran partnerships that were doing business with Enron. (50:50) He was Enron’s Chief Financial Officer. His job was to cover up the fact that Enron was becoming a fantasy financial land. He was the master of structure finance. 4. What is Sherron Watkins significance to Enron? (1:28:15) She was the Vice President of Enron. She notified Ken Lay about the accounting irregularities. 5. Why did Wall Street wait until the collapse of Enron to investigate the company? Was there a diffusion of responsibility whereby the executives at Enron told themselves that...
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