Enron : The Financial Statement

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was the result of a number of large financial scandals in the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s. One of the most well-known corporate accounting scandals was the Enron scandal, which was exposed in 2001. Enron, an energy company that was considered one of the most financially sound corporations in the United States before the scandal, produced false earnings reports to shareholders and kept large debts off the accounting books (Peavler, 2016). Enron executives also committed fraud by embezzling corporate funds and manipulating the stock market. Enron shareholders lost around $74 billion dollars, Enron employees lost their retirement accounts, and some Enron employees even lost their jobs (The 10 Worst Corporate Accounting Scandals of All Time, n.d.).

This would serve to guarantee the SPE's value [2]. The SPE, in exchange, would use the stock to hedge the value of various investments on Enron's balance reports [2]. Enron stock prices had been consistently on the rise and, counting on this trend to continue, the false assumption was made that they would never have to pay on any of the guarantees [2]. These complicated financial maneuvers generated huge sums of money for Enron. Several people were getting rich from these dealings, especially Mr. Fastow. They were given enormous amounts of compensation to continue promoting the use of the SPEs [2].

In the summer of 2001, questions began to arise about the integrity of Houston energy company Enron’s financial statements. In December, they filed for bankruptcy as their fraud came to light and the United States government froze all of their assets and began prosecuting their executives and their external auditing firm Arthur Anderson (Franzel 2014). Enron was not the only company using accounting loopholes to mislead stockholders though; Global Crossing, Tyco, Aldephia, WorldCom, and Waste Management all underwent investigation for similar

The rapid decline in Enron’s gross profit margin exposed a main drawback. The combination of merchant model and MTM accounting allowed Enron to book the whole value of the commodity traded as revenues, rather than just the trading fees or commissions.

Not only was Enron a huge scandal at the time but also now WorldCom was coming into the picture, with this the public questioned as to how corporations were being governed (Welch. M. (2006)). In the wake of these scandals something major needed to happen to prevent any more corruption to occur. Both the Senate and the House in the summer of 2002 passed Sarbanes-Oxley Act with popular vote (Bumgardner.L. (2003)). After the Act was passed it called for changes in how companies run. Companies really had to look at how the roles of the companies’ top associates were going to change. Now when a company sends out financial statements, the managers of the company have to take ownership that the information being presented to the public and shareholders is correct. This can put an enormous amount of pressure on the company to report accurate numbers as to how the company is preforming, without Sarbanes-Oxley this would of never happened. Companies would not have to take ownership of what is being shared with the public and shareholder. Also now a clear picture is show as to how a company is truly preforming. It can be said that this is a

On October 16, Enron announced a $638 million loss for the third quarter, and Wall Street reduced the value of stockholders’ equity by $1.2 billion. Enron announced November 8, that it had overstated earnings over the past four years by $586 million and that it was responsible for up to $3 billion in obligations to various partnerships. A $23 billion merger from rival Dynegy was dropped November 28 after lenders downgraded Enron’s debt to junk bond status.

Imagine over $60 billion of shareholder value, almost $2.1 billion in pension plans, and initially 5,600 jobs - disappeared (Associated Press, 2006). One would have to wonder how that is possible. These are the consequences the investors and employees of Enron Corporation endured after the Enron scandal started to unravel. This paper will focus on the infamous accounting scandal of Enron Corporation. It will also discuss how the company was able to fool investors by producing misleading financial statements, why they were not caught sooner, and new regulations enacted in response to the scandal.

Besides hiding results, they also created affiliated companies (SPEs - special purpose entities) to transfer liabilities and expenses camouflage. On balance, not consolidated Enron statements together with the related companies SPE`s. They used improperly accounting technique mark-to-market. The main reasons for the financial and accounting transactions Enron seemed to increase revenue and cash flow reported at a high level, the amount of inflated assets and liabilities off the company's accounts. The combination of all these factors eventually lead to giant bankrupt.

Enron was one of the largest electricity and natural gas companies in the world located in Houston, Texas. On December 2nd 2001, Enron filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy when it was found by the SEC that they were misstating their income and their equity value fell below what their balance sheet had stated. The stock of the company was once selling around $90 per share and had a net worth of $70 billion dollars. At one point, the company stood as the 6th largest energy company in their world known for their innovativeness and is now known as one of the largest accounting scandals in history.

Any time an enterprise guarantees the indebtedness of another in material amounts, the enterprise must disclose the nature and amount of the guarantees in the notes to the financial statements. When Enron's SPEs sought credit, the lenders often required that Enron guarantee the debt. On several occasions, Enron guaranteed amounts that various SPEs borrowed by promising to pay cash or to issue additional common shares to repay the debt if the market price of Enron's common shares dropped under a set amount or if Enron's bond rating fell below investment grade. While the notes to Enron's financial statements disclosed guarantees of the indebtedness of others, Enron did not mention that its potential liability on those guarantees, which shared common debt

Enron then started using mark-to-market accounting so they could get investors to sign a long-term contract with them. They would have them sign a contract with them and then lie to their investors about how much money they were making and how the company was doing. When the investors would sign the contracts then Enron would use special purpose

Enron's entire scandal was based on a foundation of lies characterized by the most brazen and most unethical accounting and business practices that will forever have a place in the hall of scandals that have shamed American history. To the outside, Enron looked like a well run, innovative company. This was largely a result of self-created businesses or ventures that were made "off the balance sheet." These side businesses would sell stock, reporting profits, but not reporting losses. "Treating these businesses "off the balance sheet" meant that Enron pretended that these businesses were autonomous, separate firms. But, if the new business made money, Enron would report it as income. If the new business lost money or borrowed money, the losses and debt were not reported by Enron" (mgmtguru.com). As the Management Guru website explains, these tactics were alls designed to make Enron look like a more profitable company and to give it a higher stock price.

Though the numbers looked good, the process behind them was questionable. Unbeknownst to many, Jeff Skilling, a top Enron executive, was able to persuade the SEC and their accounting firm, Arthur Anderson & Company, to approve the use of mark-to-market

Although there were many immediate factors, such as admissions of massive accounting malfeasance, there were also more complicated factors which had led to the company’s demise. There is a strong reason to believe that Enron’s misuse of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s 2004 Exposure Draft, fair-value measurements played a large part in the misrepresentation of accounts. Fair value measurements require

Enron executives and accountants cooked the books and lied about the financial state of the company. They manipulated the earnings and booked revenue that never came in. This was encouraged by Ken Lay as long as the company was making money. Once word got out that they were disclosing this information, their stock plummeted from $90 to $0.26 causing the corporation to file for bankruptcy.