...The Collapse of Enron Who were the stakeholders involved in, or affected by, the collapse of Enron? How and what degree were they hurt or helped by the actions of Enron management? Some of the stakeholders were directly responsible for Enron’s collapse. The deregulation of the 1980s presented an opportunity to become the “gas bank” reducing market risk. After this success Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fallow became the market makers, buying and selling over 1,800 products. These top executives’ unethical practices and their internal control system manipulated the law to keep the company’s reputation but were responsible for the collapse. After the collapse the management continued to lie to employees who invested in Enron stock; the rest of shareholders thought that the company was in great shape. The accounting records and balance sheets information were manipulated to reflect an image of success prior to the collapse to attract and mislead investors, the public and shareholders. Andersen’s accounting consultants responsible for Enron’s accounting records destroyed thousands of documents to manipulate such information. This misleading information allowed Enron to acquire the loans necessary to expand its investment even when the company had a huge debt. After the collapse those banks were sued by shareholders and investors for the bad loans written up. At the end of Enron’s collapse, the employees who invested in the company, investors and stockholders were...
Words: 1122 - Pages: 5
...The Rise and Collapse of Enron: Financial Innovation, Errors and Lessons Elisa S. Moncarz* Raúl Moncarz* Alejandra Cabello** Benjamin Moncarz*** Abstract Recent collapses of high profile business failures like Enron, Worldcom, Parmlat, and Tyco has been a subject of great debate among regulators, investors, government and academics in the recent past. Enron’s case was the greatest failure in the history of American capitalism and had a major impact on financial markets by causing significant losses to investors. Enron was a company ranked by Fortune as the most innovative company in the United States; it exemplified the transition from the production to the knowledge economy. Many lessons can we learn from its collapse. In this paper we present an analysis of the factors that contributed to Enron’s rise and failure, underlying the role that energy deregulation and manipulation of financial statements played on Enron’s demise. We summarize some lessons that can be learned in order to prevent another Enron and restore confidence in the financial markets, as well as in the accounting and auditing professions. Keywords: Enron, Corporate Ethics, Corporate Bankruptcy, Creative Accounting. Introduction T he rise and fall of high profile businesses like Enron, WorldCom, Parmlat and Tyco has been a subject of great debate and research among regulators, investors, government and academics in the recent years. Enron, for one, was the greatest failure *Professor-investigator...
Words: 7654 - Pages: 31
...THE COLLAPSE OF ENRON & THE INTRODUCTION OF THE SARBANES OXLEY ACT BY TREVOR GARRETT 02/25/2011 Abstract Enron Corporation was one of the largest energy trading, natural gas and Utilities Company in the world that was based in Huston, Texas. The downfall of Enron is one of the most infamous and shocking events in the financial world, and its reverberations were felt around the globe. Prior to its collapse in 2001, Enron was one of the leading companies in the U.S and considered among top 10 admired corporations and most desired places to work at. Its revenues made up US $139 to $184 billion, assets equaled $62 to $82 billion, and the number of employees reached more than 30,000 people in 20 countries around the world. While on the surface it seemed like the perfect Corporation, internally it had highly decentralized financial control and decision-making structure, which made it practically impossible to get coherent and clear view on corporations' activities and operations. Enron manipulated its books and assets to help it report steady profit growth to Stock Exchanges and Credit-rating agencies. Investors generally are not willing to pay as much for the stock of a volatile trading operation, and this gave rise to manipulations. This paper briefly describes the legal and ethical breaches by Enron, the key factors and events that led to its collapse and the passing of the Sarbanes Oxley Act as a consequence of such a catastrophe. The paper also discusses the key components...
Words: 1033 - Pages: 5
...The Collapse of Enron Assessment Task A brief introduction outlining the key facts in the selected case On December 2nd 2001 the largest bankruptcy in US history was filed by energy trader, Enron Corporation. Once regarded as one of the fasted growing, innovative and best managed businesses in the United States, the collapse of the energy giant highlighted a series of corrupt and criminal activities that were, according to several investigations, rife throughout Enron’s operations. Enron Corporation was formed in 1985 from a merger of Houston Natural Gas and Internorth. Enron held the title of operating the first nationwide network of natural gas pipelines in the United States as a result of the merger. Created on the basis of operating a regulated network for the transport of natural gas, Enron’s operating aim shifted during the early 1990’s to a new central focus. The corporation’s new focus was now in the unregulated energy trading markets of the United States. Until late 2001, nearly all observers- including professional Wall Street analysts- regarded this transformation as an outstanding success. (Jickling 2002, p1) Throughout the 1990’s Enron’s annual revenues grew significantly. In the early 1990’s, Enron’s annual profit was reported to be under $10 billion before ballooning to $101 billion in the lead up to 2000. By autumn of 2000, Enron was starting to crumble under its own weight. (Seabury 2003, p1) Enron’s CEO, Jeffery Skilling, who oversaw the company that...
Words: 1366 - Pages: 6
...Enron: The Fall Of A Wall Street Darling Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/09/enron-collapse.asp?partner=basics120111#ixzz1fiw28U4O Enron is a company that reached dramatic heights, only to face a dizzying collapse. The story ends with the bankruptcy of one of America's largest corporations. Enron's collapse affected the lives of thousands of employees, many pension funds and shook Wall Street to its very core. To this day, many wonder how a company so big and so powerful disappeared almost overnight. How did it manage to fool the regulators and the Wall Street community for so long, with fake off-the-books corporations? What is the overall lasting impact that Enron has had on the investment community and the country in general? Tutorial: Introduction To Accounting Collapse of a Wall Street Darling By the fall of 2000, Enron was starting to crumble under its own weight. CEO Jeffrey Skilling had a way of hiding the financial losses of the trading business and other operations of the company; it was called mark-to-market accounting. This is used in the trading of securities, when you determine what the actual value of the security is at the moment. This can work well for securities, but it can be disastrous for other businesses. In Enron's case, the company would build an asset, such as a power plant, and immediately claim the projected profit on its books, even though it hadn't made one dime from it. If the revenue from the power plant was less...
Words: 1067 - Pages: 5
...ANALYSIS Of Enron SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF MBAC422: Business & Society Case 2 BY RAHUL DADA 2011H149219 UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF Prof. Anil K Bhat & Dr. Sarvesh Satija Management Department BIRLA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE PILANI, RAJASTHAN – 333031 1 Introduction Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and Services Company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 20,000 staff and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies, with claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion in 2000. Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years. At the end of 2001, it was revealed that it’s reported financial condition was sustained substantially by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud, known as the Enron scandal. Enron has since become a popular symbol of willful corporate fraud and corruption. The scandal also brought into questions the accounting practices and activities of many corporations throughout the United States and was a factor in the creation of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002. The scandal also affected the wider business world by causing the dissolution of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm. The Enron scandal, revealed in October 2001, eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston...
Words: 949 - Pages: 4
...The Enron and Corporate Governance Company Enron Corporation Industry Energy Founded Omaha, Nebraska, USA (1985) Founder Kenneth Lay Employees approx. 22,000 (2000) Fate Bankruptcy, 2001 Website enron.com To write about Enron I was inspired by documentary movie “Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room”. It explains in details how negligence and ‘cheating’ in corporate governance can lead to disaster for whole nation. The case of Enron became classical example of the company where executives can manipulate whole industry using ‘creative accounting’ and corporate governance. Enron bankruptcy is the greatest knowing corporate failure in the US from the time when the crash of numerous savings and loan institutions in the 1980s. This scandal showed the necessity for important improvements in accounting and corporate governance in the country, along with a tight control at the moral values in the culture of business in whole and of enterprises in the country. Actually, one can find a lot of reasons why this collapse happened. And there is the problem of interest between the two roles played by Mr Andersen, as auditor but also as consultant to Enron; the lack of attention shown by members of the Enron board of directors to the off-books financial entities with which Enron did business; and the lack of truthfulness by management about the health of the company and its business operations. In some ways, the culture of Enron was the primary cause of the collapse...
Words: 1256 - Pages: 6
...Parth Vyas Econ- 312 Enron bankruptcy Enron Corporation was an American energy company based in Houston, Texas, United States. His company was formed in 1986 through the merger of two natural gas pipeline firms, Houston Natural Gas. Enron started out as a natural gas company put together by Kenneth Lay. Enron's natural gas pipeline brought the company much success. Supplying natural gas was a lucrative business. Enron senior management falsified accounting records to make it look like they made a lot more money than they actually made. Stock prices don't continue to rise unless Net Income is increasing every quarter and every year. Enron did a fraud in stocks. Enron established to shield itself from mark-to-market losses in its growing equity investment business. Enron and all publically traded companies are required to report on their finances to the public and to the Securities and Exchange Commission who regulates financial reporting over publically traded companies. The problem for Enron was that after some successes the traders began to have some financial failures and Enron was no longer really making a profit. The market traders, who were effectively just high-stakes gamblers, were no source of profits but instead a major source of loss themselves. People formerly involved with the company, such as creditors, auditors, the SEC and accounting regulators, it’s a nightmare for them. Enron essentially failed because the executives did not want to admit defeat. They had...
Words: 1006 - Pages: 5
...Mark-to-Market: The Fall of Enron John Smith State University Mark-to-Market: The Fall of Enron Enron was the face of business in the 1990’s. Rising to meteoric heights never seen before in the business world, to having just as epic of a fall. The core reason behind this meteoric rise and epic fall? Mark-to-Market (M2M) accounting principles. This paper will be presented in four sections. The first section defines and explains the term of M2M. The second section discusses the way M2M was used in the business environment before and after the Enron collapse. The third section focuses on the views of the current business environment on using M2M, both for and against its use. In the fourth and final section, the author gives their opinion on the practice of M2M, and if it is still a viable accounting principle. Mark-to-Market Defined In the private sector all accounting principles and standards are gathered together and organized by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). They are then put into what is called the FASB Codification. The FASB Codification (2015) defines M2M as a valuation method that uses current market prices and other useful information that is supplied by market exchanges between similar items such as assets, liabilities or a similar business (“FASB Codification,” 2015). Basically what this accounting principle does is use the fair value of the current market price to determine what an asset or liability is worth. Using traditional...
Words: 1762 - Pages: 8
...What is Enron? Until its decline into bankruptcy in 2001, Enron was the United States’ seventh-largest corporation. Enron grew from a natural gas pipeline company into a trading and marketing giant, moving first into the business of acting as a broker between energy suppliers and buyers, then expanding its role as a broker of non-energy transactions, and later adding a variety of diverse investments to its portfolio. Enron was a leading advocate of restructuring energy markets in the United States and the largest player in the energy trading business. What led to Enron’s collapse? The company’s most recent troubles can be traced to revelations in October 2001 of massive amounts of unreported debt and steep losses incurred in non-energy and oversees energy partnerships established between Enron and other companies. In accounting arrangements now under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Enron for several years had kept the debt and losses off its balance sheet. When these losses and the level of debt became known, the marketplace lost confidence in Enron; shareholders sold the stock and credit agencies slashed the company’s credit ratings. In addition, domestic trading partners required increasing amounts of collateral due to Enron’s impaired credit-worthiness. This drained Enron’s cash reserves, forcing them to take on more debt, creating a death spiral. By the end of November 2001, credit agencies had downgraded Enron’s debt to “junk”...
Words: 1076 - Pages: 5
...Lessons from the Enron Scandal On March 5, 2002, Kirk Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, was interviewed about Enron by Atsushi Nakayama, a reporter for the Japanese newspaper Nikkei. Their Q & A appears below: Nakayama: What do you think are the most important lessons to be learned from the Enron scandal? Hanson: The Enron scandal is the most significant corporate collapse in the United States since the failure of many savings and loan banks during the 1980s. This scandal demonstrates the need for significant reforms in accounting and corporate governance in the United States, as well as for a close look at the ethical quality of the culture of business generally and of business corporations in the United States. N: Why did this happen? H: There are many causes of the Enron collapse. Among them are the conflict of interest between the two roles played by Arthur Andersen, as auditor but also as consultant to Enron; the lack of attention shown by members of the Enron board of directors to the off-books financial entities with which Enron did business; and the lack of truthfulness by management about the health of the company and its business operations. In some ways, the culture of Enron was the primary cause of the collapse. The senior executives believed Enron had to be the best at everything it did and that they had to protect their reputations and their compensation as the most successful executives in the U.S. When some of their...
Words: 1583 - Pages: 7
...SUMMARY This report will analyse the groupthink’s concerns in the collapse of Enron. The collapse of Enron is less than three months, which Enron from a very prosperous company to a bankrupt enterprise. The collapse of Enron is one of the most grievous business failures in United States. This disastrous business failure had causes a large number of employees lost their jobs and retirement savings. Groupthink leads groups to make faulty judgments. Groupthink occurs when a group make wrong decisions as the pressures of group lead to deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment”. There are several symptoms of groupthink. The issues to be resolved for Enron are collective rationalization, stereotypes of out-group, illusion of invulnerability, deceit to increase shareholders’ investments and self-censorship. The causes of the case study are illusion of unanimity, self-appointed mindguards, complicated transactions, belief in inherent morality of the group and direct pressure in dissenters. The solutions to the case study are challenge the norms, discuss with trusted associates, forbid related-party transactions for the senior officers, monitor the power of CEO and assign the role of critical evaluator. When there are symptoms of groupthink, there must be solutions to prevent and solve. TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Purpose of the report 1.2 Company Background 2.0 SUMMARY OF THE CASE STUDY 3.0 GROUPTHINK ...
Words: 4778 - Pages: 20
...2012 LOCAL LAWSUIT Enron was a corporation founded in 1985, when a merger combined Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth (Thomas, 2002). Throughout the first years of Enron’s existence, they had many struggles. According to Salter (2005), the first five years had many “near death” experiences. Eventually Enron was able to prevail over their many “near death” experiences. In 1989, “Enron locked in its first fixed price contract to supply natural gas, to Louisiana aluminum producer” (Salter, 2005, p.2). They continued to promote and gain success by recruiting employees from MBA schools. Only the biggest and best were hired to maximize the success of Enron. Enron expanded to trading electricity in 1994. Since the breakthrough of trading electricity, Enron continued to grow a continued to become an incredibly successful corporation. However, due to unfortunate decisions both within and outside of the company Enron declared bankruptcy on December 2, 2001 (Salter, 2005). Workforce Enron was a company made up of the elite group of workers. Enron focused on hiring the “best and brightest traders” (Thomas, 2002, p.42) to maintain their status of being the top energy trading company. MBA schools were the sole focus of recruiting for Enron. However, there was a screening process that each recruit was required to go through. Enron screened for a sense of urgency, intelligence, a strong work ethic, and problem-solving ability (Salter, 2005). The company set the standards high to...
Words: 1384 - Pages: 6
...Enron---The Complete Perspective Introduction Ken lay founded Enron almost fifteen years ago and the foundation which was laid in a Houston town is now almost a $100 billion a year corporation. Top ten in the Fortune 500 list it runs in the same league as International Business Machines Corp. and AT&T Corp. Like all Multi National Corps. Enron has subsidiaries in India, China Philippines, a water company in Britain, pulp mills in Canada and gas pipelines across North America and South America. But the real power lies in the Houston area where it is the leading supplier for electricity and natural gas. As it rose to power it had plans to enter the fiber-optic cable, TV advertising time and wood pulp and steel market. Further, it also had political interest in the nation and like all MNC's lobbied behind its candidates in this case being Bush, who is now President. This seemed to pave the way for Enron's success and put it in a prime position for pulling the strings of power. Now, however, suddenly the power dynamics have changed. From being the top Corporation in the US and the world it is now fighting to retain its stock value. Assets have been pledged to the bank, creditors are scrambling for blood and company lawyers planned to file for bankruptcy. Most of the customers that Enron boasted off have long gone. From the point of creating power it has come down to the mercies of those in power. The company had approximately 21,000 employees all in dire straits as their future...
Words: 2100 - Pages: 9
...ENRON AND UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR By SHERNITA JONES INSTRUCTOR ALFRED GREENFIELD ACC 557 FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING 10/27/2013 This paper will describe the following: 1) Corporate ethical breaches in recent times, assess whether or not one believe that current business and regulatory environment is more conducive to ethical behavior. 2) Describe the organization, the accounting ethical breach and the impact to the organization related to ethical breach. 3) Determine how the organization ethical issue was detected and how management failed to an ethical environment. 4) Analyze the accounts impacted and / or accounting guidelines violated and the resulting impact to the business operation. 5) As CFO, recommend which measures could have been taken to prevent this ethical breach and how each measure should be implemented in the future. Establishing principles for ethical behavior frequently starts with a policy on ethics. Businesses acquire a policy on ethics to guide their measures and to set up a general meaning of correct versus incorrect. According to the American Library Association, code of ethics is a handbook for suitable behavior (2012). Given the corporate ethical breaches in recent times, existing businesses and regulatory environment is more conductive behavior because some companies and managers feel as though they can get away with it. The unpredictable increase and collapse of the Enron Company set off a...
Words: 1224 - Pages: 5
