Download or read book Power Failure written by Mimi Swartz and published by Currency. This book was released on 2004-03-09 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.” Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode… Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America. Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums. Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades – Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker – as one of the cautionary tales of our times.
Download or read book Enron written by Loren Fox and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2004-01-30 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I'd say you were a carnival barker, except that wouldn't be fair tocarnival barkers. A carnie will at least tell you up front that he's running a shell game. You, Mr. Lay, were running what purported to be the seventh largest corporation in America."-Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) to Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, Senate Commerce Science & Transportation's Subcommittee, Hearing on Enron, 2/12/02 The speed of Enron's rise and fall is truly astonishing and perhaps the single most important story of corporate failure in the twenty-first century. In Enron investigative journalist Loren Fox promises readers nothing short of the most compelling and insightful investigation into Enron's meteoric ascent-regarded by Wall Street and the media as the epitome of innovation-and its spectacular fall from grace. In a lively and authoritative manner, Fox discusses how the biggest corporate bankruptcy in American business history happened, why for so long no one (except for an enlightened few) saw it coming, and what its impact will be on financial markets, the U.S. economy, U.S. energy policy, and the public for years to come. With access to many company insiders, Fox's intriguing account of this corporate debacle also provides an overview of the corporate culture and business model that led to Enron's high-flying success and disastrous failure. The story of Enron is one that will reverberate in global financial and energy markets as well as in criminal and civil courts for years to come. Rife with all the elements of a classic thriller-scandal, dishonest accounting, personal greed, questionable campaign contributions, suicide-Enron captures the essence of a company that went too far too fast.
Download or read book What Went Wrong at Enron written by Peter C. Fusaro and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2002-10-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An easy answer guide to the difficult questions surrounding Enron What Went Wrong at Enron explains the critical steps, transactions, and events that led to the demise of a company that was once considered one of the most innovative corporations in the United States. Energy risk management expert Peter Fusaro gets inside Enron and provides a coherent account of the who, why, where, and when of this corporate debacle, without sacrificing the complexity of what has happened. Enron has been front-page news for months, but confusion still remains about what actually happened. What Went Wrong at Enron is written for readers who find themselves wondering what exactly is an energy trading company, what was the sequence of events that caused the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history, and what does this all mean for me.
Download or read book Pipe Dreams written by Robert Bryce and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2004-01-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the shocking collapse of Enron in fall, 2001 came an equally shocking series of disclosures about how America's seventh-largest company had destroyed itself. There were unethical deals, offshore accounts, and accounting irregularities. There were Wall Street analysts who seemed to have been asleep on the job. There were the lies top executives told so that they could line their own pockets while workers and shareholders lost billions. But after all these disclosures, the question remains: Why? Why did a thriving, innovative company with rock-solid cash flow and reliable earnings suddenly flame out in a maelstrom of corruption, fraud and skulduggery? The answer, Texas business journalist Robert Bryce reveals in this incisive and entertaining book, is that bad business practices begin with human beings. Pipe Dreams traces Enron's astounding transformation from a small regional gas pipeline company into an energy Goliath...and then tracks step-by-step, business decision by business decision, extra-marital affair by extra-marital affair, how, when and why the culture of Enron began to go rotten, and who was responsible. The story of Enron's fall isn't just a story about accounting procedures; it's a story about people. Bryce tells that story with all the personality, passion, humor, and inside dope you'd hope for, and the result is an un-putdownable read in the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Predators' Ball.
Download or read book The Smartest Guys in the Room written by Bethany McLean and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 846 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What went wrong with American business at the end of the 20th century? Until the spring of 2001, Enron epitomized the triumph of the New Economy. Feared by rivals, worshipped by investors, Enron seemingly could do no wrong. Its profits rose every year; its stock price surged ever upward; its leaders were hailed as visionaries. Then a young Fortune writer, Bethany McLean, wrote an article posing a simple question - how, exactly, does Enron make its money? Within a year Enron was facing humiliation and bankruptcy, the largest in US history, which caused Americans to lose faith in a system that rewarded top insiders with millions of dollars, while small investors lost everything. It was revealed that Enron was a company whose business was an illusion, an illusion that Wall Street was willing to accept even though they knew what the real truth was. This book tells the extraordinary story of Enron's fall. 'The best book about the Enron debacle to date' BusinessWeek 'The authors write with power and finesse. Their prose is effortless, like a sprinter floating down the track' USA Today 'Well-reported and well-written' Warren Buffett
Download or read book Innovation Corrupted written by Malcolm S. Salter and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper presents a brief historical overview of Enron's rise and fall and summarizes what the authors currently know about (1) the evolution of Enron's business model, (2) those organizational processes relied upon by senior Enron officials to drive and monitor the business, (3) emergent behavior related to the structuring, management, and valuation of major partnerships, and (4)oversight provided by Enron's management and board of directors. It concludes by posing the question of how Enron's story as anew, post-deregulation corporate model could have escaped critical analysis by the financial community, the business press, and other observers for so long. As such, this paper is an exercise in description, not interpretation. Since many of the facts about Enron's rise and fall have yet to be determined and agreed upon, this description must be considered tentative and incomplete. Nevertheless, the broad contours of the Enron story presented in this paper provide a sufficient basis for developing initial hypotheses about what might have caused such a swift and ignominious fall and what business and public policies might best protect employees, shareholders, and other relevant parties in the future from the kind of injuries experienced in Enron's swift decline into bankruptcy.
Download or read book Financial Oversight of Enron written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Conspiracy of Fools written by Kurt Eichenwald and published by Random House. This book was released on 2005 with total page 742 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a study of the Enron scandal, the author goes behind the scenes to profile the players and expose business practices involved in the financial and political debacle that had a profound impact on both Washington and Wall Street.
Download or read book Final Accounting written by Barbara Ley Toffler and published by Currency. This book was released on 2004-04-13 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A withering exposé of the unethical practices that triggered the indictment and collapse of the legendary accounting firm. Arthur Andersen's conviction on obstruction of justice charges related to the Enron debacle spelled the abrupt end of the 88-year-old accounting firm. Until recently, the venerable firm had been regarded as the accounting profession's conscience. In Final Accounting, Barbara Ley Toffler, former Andersen partner-in-charge of Andersen's Ethics & Responsible Business Practices consulting services, reveals that the symptoms of Andersen's fatal disease were evident long before Enron. Drawing on her expertise as a social scientist and her experience as an Andersen insider, Toffler chronicles how a culture of arrogance and greed infected her company and led to enormous lapses in judgment among her peers. Final Accounting exposes the slow deterioration of values that led not only to Enron but also to the earlier financial scandals of other Andersen clients, including Sunbeam and Waste Management, and illustrates the practices that paved the way for the accounting fiascos at WorldCom and other major companies. Chronicling the inner workings of Andersen at the height of its success, Toffler reveals "the making of an Android," the peculiar process of employee indoctrination into the Andersen culture; how Androids—both accountants and consultants--lived the mantra "keep the client happy"; and how internal infighting and "billing your brains out" rather than quality work became the all-important goals. Toffler was in a position to know when something was wrong. In her earlier role as ethics consultant, she worked with over 60 major companies and was an internationally renowned expert at spotting and correcting ethical lapses. Toffler traces the roots of Andersen's ethical missteps, and shows the gradual decay of a once-proud culture. Uniquely qualified to discuss the personalities and principles behind one of the greatest shake-ups in United States history, Toffler delivers a chilling report with important ramifications for CEOs and individual investors alike.
Download or read book Following the Money written by George Benston and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brookings Institution Press and American Enterprise Institute publication A few years ago, Americans held out their systems of corporate governance and financial disclosure as models to be emulated by the rest of the world. But in late 2001 U.S. policymakers and corporate leaders found themselves facing the largest corporate accounting scandals in American history. The spectacular collapses of Enron and Worldcom—as well as the discovery of accounting irregularities at other large U.S. companies—seemed to call into question the efficacy of the entire system of corporate governance in the United States. In response, Congress quickly enacted a comprehensive package of reform measures in what has come to be known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ followed by making fundamental changes to their listing requirements. The private sector acted as well. Accounting firms—watching in horror as one of their largest, Arthur Andersen, collapsed after a criminal conviction for document shredding—tightened their auditing procedures. Stock analysts and ratings agencies, hit hard by a series of disclosures about their failings, changed their practices as well. Will these reforms be enough? Are some counterproductive? Are other shortcomings in the disclosure system still in need of correction? These are among the questions that George Benston, Michael Bromwich, Robert E. Litan, and Alfred Wagenhofer address in Following the Money. While the authors agree that the U.S. system of corporate disclosure and governance is in need of change, they are concerned that policymakers may be overreacting in some areas and taking actions in others that may prove to be ineffective or even counterproductive. Using the Enron case as a point of departure, the authors argue that the major problem lies not in the accounting and auditing standards themselves, but in the system of enforcing those standards.
Download or read book Enron and World Finance written by P. Dembinski and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-12-16 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four years after the debacle, the term 'Enron' has earned its place in the everyday vocabulary of business ethics. Hardly anyone understands the business intricacies of what really happened with the sophisticated energy conglomerate. Even fewer are those able to envision, beyond the business case, the ethical questions and dilemmas facing actors at any one stage of the drama. Using the collapse of Enron as a case study, this book not only shows how and where ethics came into play, but also draws lessons and discusses possible remedies that may prevent the whole financial system from falling apart as a result of either excessive greed or over-regulation.
Download or read book Innovation Corrupted written by Malcolm S. Salter and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contrast to the time-line narratives of previous books on Enron that offer interesting but largely unsystematic insight into individual actions and organizational processes, Innovation Corrupted pursues a more methodical analysis of the causes and lessons of Enron's collapse.
Download or read book The Whole Truth So Help Me God written by Cindy Kay Olson and published by Tate Publishing. This book was released on 2008-08 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her new tell-all book, The Whole Truth, So Help Me God, Cindy Olson, a twenty-three year Enron employee and the first Enron executive to testify in front of both the United States Senate and House, sheds new light on the countless half-truths purveyed by the media and the justice system. As a protg and confidant of the vilified Ken Lay, Olson reveals what kind of person he was behind closed doors. As a member of Enrons 401(k) administrative committee, Olson reveals the tenuous conversations and dubious actions that transpired during the companys plight.
Download or read book Anatomy of Greed written by Brian Cruver and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Young, brash, sporting a shiny new MBA, and obscenely overpaid, Brian Cruver epitomized the Enron employee when he first entered the company's Houston office; and from day one he found himself a cog in the wheel of a venal greed machine. For the next nine months, he would witness firsthand the now-infamous corporate tragedy that he relates in these ruthlessly honest, often hilarious, and frequently disturbing pages. Here are the accounting tricks, insider stock trades, grossly lucrative fraudulent partnerships, and death dance to bankruptcy. Equally revealing, though, are Cruver's descriptions of everyday life at Enron: the cocky wheeling and dealing, intraoffice relationships, casual conversations at the shredder, and the insidious group-think that committed Enronians to the propaganda of flawed executives like Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andy Fastow. Out of their wreckage, Cruver has fashioned an arresting and cautionary morality tale for our time. Anatomy of Greed was the basis for the CBS-TV movie The Crooked E: a behind-the-scenes chronicle of the last days in the strange life of one of the world's richest, riskiest, and most corrupt corporations. Eight pages of telling photographs are included.
Download or read book Business Analysis and Valuation written by Sue Joy Wright and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Business Analysis and Valuation has been developed specifically for students undertaking accounting Valuation subjects. With a significant number of case studies exploring various issues in this field, including a running chapter example, it offers a practical and in-depth approach. This second edition of the Palepu text has been revitalised with all new Australian content in parts 1-3, making this edition predominantly local, while still retaining a selection of the much admired and rigorous Harvard case studies in part 4. Retaining the same author team, this new edition presents the field of valuation accounting in the Australian context in a clear, logical and thorough manner.
Download or read book The Enron scandal and the Sarbanes Oxley Act written by Andreas Bauer and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2009-07-28 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: keine, University of Applied Sciences Hof, language: English, abstract: The downfall of Enron was one of the most momentous corporate scandals and bankruptcies in the history of the United States of America. This assignment deals with the timeline of Enron’s collapse and introduces the main charges against the company and it’s Board of Directors. Ultimately, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will be presented as major legislative response to this corporate fraud, before concluding with weighing the costs and benefits of this large-scale legislative project. -This paper provides a fundamental overview of Enron's collapse and the effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley-Legislation-
Download or read book Enron Ascending written by Robert L. Bradley, Jr. and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 826 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great fall cannot be understood apart from the rise that preceded it. Enron Ascending is the only book to date that examines in detail the first two-thirds of that iconic energy company's life. Thus, it is the only book to date that exposes the deepest causes of Enron's stunning collapse. Nobel economist Paul Krugman predicted that history would look upon Enron's plummet as a greater turning point than the fall of the Twin Towers. Enron Ascending explains the shock of the company's fall by recalling the astounding achievements of Enron’s birth, childhood, adolescence, and early maturity. It sets forth the once-celebrated but now-forgotten industry and innovation that caused the company and its reputation to soar stratospherically. At the same time, always conscious of the company's fate, the book highlights throughout the developing habits of thought and behavior that later evolved into self-destructive acts of desperation and deceit. Written fifteen years after the firm’s demise, Enron Ascending offers the long perspective of a uniquely positioned insider, Robert L. Bradley, Jr., the company's director of public-policy analysis and Chairman Ken Lay's personal speechwriter. The book also offers a library of previously unavailable information, drawn from Bradley’s innumerable corporate documents and unrepeatable interviews, which he collected in his capacity as the company's prospective historian. Most important, however, Enron Ascending offers an antidote to the unending stories, studies, and books about Enron that are presented as just-the-facts but are in reality shaped decisively by the worldview of their authors. Bradley shows, beyond dispute, that the early habits which set precedents for Enron's history-making demise were directly contrary to the free-market behaviors and capitalist attitudes generally blamed for Enron's fall.
