Enron Case

Finance and accounting remain the core of the Enron story, but the company's cowboy culture -- and the way top bosses such as Mr. Fastow and former Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling inspired it -- are also key to understanding what happened in this historic business debacle. Only now is the full scope becoming apparent, amid government probes and a growing willingness by some former and current employees to speak about it.

Enron’s annual stockholder meeting in January 2001 was a study in corporate egotism. Executives met at a San Antonio, Texas hill country resort, and champagne and cigars were free for the taking. At this meeting, Lay boldly asserted that he expected Enron to become “the world’s greatest company.” On February 5, special bonus checks worth tens of millions of dollars were prepared for Enron executives. However, in what might have been the first outward sign of the trouble to come, Lay resigned as CEO in February 2001, keeping his position as chairman of the board, while Skilling was tapped to be his replacement.

This now bankrupt company, misappropriated investments, pension funds, stock options and saving plans after deregulation and little oversight by the federal government. However, with deregulation an increasing competitive culture emerged as the CEO Jeffry Skilling motto to his organization was to “do it right, do it now, and do it better” this was the rally cried that pushed ambitious employees to engage in unethical behavior as Enron use deceptive “accounting methods to maintain its investment grade status” (Sims, & Brinkmann, 2003, pp.244-245). As Enron continued to flourish and received accolades from the business community this recognition drove executives to continue the façade of bending ethical guidelines before their public fall from

Enron was an energy trading and communications company located in Houston, Texas. During 1996-2001 Enron was given the name of America’s Most Innovative Company by Fortune magazine as it was the seventh-largest corporation in the US. The problem that led this company to bankruptcy was due to the fact that fraudulent accounting practices took place allowing Enron to overstate their earnings and tuck away their high debt liabilities in order to have a more appealing balance sheet (Forbes.com, 2002). Enron’s accounting team “cooked” the books to every meaning of the word so that their investors would not see anything wrong with the failing organization. This poorly structured company led people to jail time, unemployment, and caused retirement stocks to be dried up. Enron had a social responsibility to its stockholders and rather than being up front and honest about the failing company they hid every financial flaw in order to keep receiving money from its investors. By Enron not keeping a social

Skilling began to change the corporate culture of Enron to match the company’s transformed image as a trading business. He set out on a quest to hire the best and brightest traders, recruiting associates from the top MBA schools in the country and competing with the largest and most prestigious investment banks for talent. In exchange for grueling schedules, Enron pampered its associates with a long list of corporate perks, including concierge services and a company gym. Skilling rewarded production with merit-based bonuses that had no cap, permitting traders to “eat what they killed.”

Even the small profits reported by Enron in 2000 were eventually determined to be only a illusion by court-appointed bankruptcy examiner Neal Batson. Batson’s report reveals that over 95% of the reported profits in these two years were attributed to Enron’s misuse of MTM and other accounting techniques. But while financial analysts could not be expected to know that the company illegally manipulated the earnings, the reported profit margins in 2000 were so low and were declining so steadily that they should have merited ample skepticism from analysts about the company’s profits.

The first important factor in the Enron case advanced interests on share price. The second factor how the company was liberalized over the past 20 years along with the reduction of legal responsibility of investment banks and accounting firms. The third factor, which is the most important, was the immediate alteration of pay packages given to investment bankers, executives, and accountants (Barreveld, 2002). In this case, the factors mentioned above was a result of the culture implemented by the executive leaders whom were influenced by unethical behaviors they engaged in. One could agree that Enron was definitely reaping the bad seeds that the

Andrew Fastow was the CFO and created the financial infrastructure for Enron. He, like Skilling, was hailed as one of the top executives in the country as evidenced by his Excellence in Capital Structure Management award presented to him by CFO Magazine. As the CFO of Enron, Fastow should have known better than to do what he did with the creation and operation of the SPEs. His brass was at such a high level that he even named several of them after his children. He, like Kenneth Lay, refused to take any accountability by refusing to testify before Congress in 2002.

In 1990 Enron market value increased from $3.5 billion to $35 billion by the end of 1999 (Ivey Business Journal, 2016). During this time Andrew Fastow was the chief financial officer of the Enron Corporation and the pioneer of the financial implication that brought Enron crumbling down. In this nine-year time frame this feat was admired by companies around the globe. Andrew received a CFO Magazine award for his work at Enron and had lavish parties celebrating the results of the quarterly earnings (Ivey Business Journal, 2016). Unbeknownst to Andrew Fastow, just three years after raising the value of Enron by nearly $32 billion, his ethical decisions would cost him his freedom.

By doing this, it would raise their stock prices to look more profitable and desirable to shareholders. The first CEO of Enron was Kenneth Lay, who later resigned and was replaced by Jeffrey Skilling, although Lay stayed on the board of directors. Soon, Kenneth Lay found himself back into the CEO position when Skilling resigned less than a year after he took the position from Lay. The CFO of the corporation was Andrew Fastow, who would later find himself in the middle of this historic case. The accountant in charge of Enron’s financials was Arthur Andersen, who played a significant part in this as well. These men were critical to the operation that Enron was trying to hide from the public, and were very successful at doing so for some time. They were able to make it look like Enron was one of the most successful companies since the turn of the century (Investopedia).

Kenneth Lay was the founder of Enron in 1985 and was the chief executive officer for over 15 years. In 1990 Jeffery Skilling joined the company and later on became the chief executive officer in February 2001. However quickly resigned months later for “family reasons.” In despite of Skilling leaving the company, they were both credited in building Enron into a powerhouse in its creative management. In the near future when the company started going down hill both their names were associated with the culture of corporate scandals that followed Enron’s death. In late

It seems that Fastow, Enron’s CFO, along with Skilling, Enron’s COO/CEO, played the biggest roles in the demise of the company; although the intricately complicated transactions being completed could not have been done by only one person, it has been alleged, and found to be true in court, that Fastow was a key player in creating the ‘off-the-balance-sheets’ entities to hide debt and inflate the true picture of Enron’s financial soundness. (Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. 2009)

The story of Enron begins in 1985, with the merger of two pipeline companies, orchestrated by a man named Kenneth L. Lay (1). In its 15 years of existence, Enron expanded its operations to provide products and services in the areas of electricity, natural gas as well as communications (9). Through its diversification, Enron would become known as a corporate America darling (9) and Fortune Magazine’s most innovative company for 5 years in a row (10). They reported extraordinary profits in a short amount of time. For example, in 1998 Enron shares were valued at a little over $20, while in mid-2000, those same shares were valued at just over $90 (10), the all-time high during the company’s existence (9).

With Enron, the responsibility and blame started with Enron’s executives, Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andrew Fastow. Their goal was to make Enron into the world’s greatest company. To make this goal a reality, they created a company culture that encouraged “rule breaking” and went so far as to “discourage employees from reporting and investigating ethical lapses and questionable business dealings” (Knapp, 2010, p. 14). They insisted the employees use aggressive and illegal

Prior to Enron’s fraud scandal coming to light in 2001, they were the seventh largest company in the United States by revenue, this was the same year Enron filed bankruptcy (da Silveira, 2013, p. 315). In addition to being one of the largest companies, Enron received numerous awards for their positive business role. Enron received the award for being the most innovative company from Fortunes magazine, ranking Enron as one of the most admired companies. Enron received this award six year in a row by the year 2000 (da Silveira, p. 316). Furthermore, in 2001, Enron was noted on the United States list of being the largest company of the top 50 fastest growing companies (da Silveira, p. 316). Not only did Enron receive awards as a company, but their Chief Finance Officer (CFO), Andrew Fastow also received the award as the most creative CFO from CFO Magazine in 1999 (da Silveira, p. 316). According to da Silveira, Enron was considered a high-profile company and viewed as a role-model company by other stock analysis, investment analysts,