Enron

RISE AND FALL OF ENRON CORPORATION

Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities & services company based in Houston, Texas. Enron was listed on the NYSE & was also tagged As a Fortune 500 Company named as “America’s Most Innovative Company” for 6 consecutive years. But what lay beneath this thick skin? Fraud, lies, falsification of accounts, money laundering and much more.

It took Enron 16 years to go from $ 10 b worth of assets to $ 65 b and less than 24 days to go bankrupt. The Enron case was a gigantic scandal that collapsed so quickly as a result of arrogance, pride and money as the sole motive. But who was responsible for the downfall of Enron? It indeed was the Trinity of Chairman Ken Lay, CEO Jeff Skilling and CFO Andrew Fastow. Even so, both Lay & Skilling deny their involvement in the fraud.

Just a few years before its downfall, it was the nation’s 7th largest corporation valued at $ 70 b. What went wrong? ‘Multiple Reasons’ would be the answer. Enron was simply the best at ‘minting money’. However, their inability to foresee future issues led to their downfall. They always had a plan. The magic power of deregulation policies in 1985 pushes Enron to merge with a vast network of natural gas pipeline companies. Lay wanted the government out of the energy business. Enron, through its connections with the Bush Government found solace in them to get government subsidies worth billions to help promote Lay as the ambassador for deregulation. The stepping stone to Enron’s downfall was the misappropriation of money through the Enron Oil Scandal. Enron won the oil gamble with the other oil giants. Louis Borgat, president of the Enron Oil took huge amounts of funds and transferred to his personal account a sum of $ 3 m. They also indulged in money laundering by maintaining phony books, leaking insider info & trailing records to an unidentified Lebanese speculator M. Yass.

Enron had poor risk assessment units as Lay encouraged traders to risk more in...