Enron Scandal - Timeline of Downfall

Timeline of Downfall

"At the beginning of 2001, the Enron Corporation, the world's dominant energy trader, appeared unstoppable. The company's decade-long effort to persuade lawmakers to deregulate electricity markets had succeeded from California to New York. Its ties to the Bush administration assured that its views would be heard in Washington. Its sales, profits and stock were soaring."

A. Berenson and R. A. Oppel, Jr. The New York Times, Oct 28, 2001.

In February 2001, Chief Accounting Officer Rick Causey told budget managers: "From an accounting standpoint, this will be our easiest year ever. We've got 2001 in the bag." On March 5, Bethany McLean's Fortune article Is Enron Overpriced? questioned how Enron could maintain its high stock value, which was trading at 55 times its earnings. She pointed out how analysts and investors did not know exactly how Enron was earning its income. McLean was first drawn to the company's situation after an analyst suggested she view the company's 10-K report, where she found "strange transactions", "erratic cash flow", and "huge debt." She called Skilling to discuss her findings prior to publishing the article, but he brushed her off, calling her "unethical" for not properly researching the company. Fastow cited to Fortune reporters that Enron could not reveal earnings details as the company had over 1,200 trading books for assorted commodities and did "... not want anyone to know what's on those books. We don't want to tell anyone where we're making money."

In a conference call on April 17, 2001, then-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Skilling verbally attacked Wall Street analyst Richard Grubman, who questioned Enron's unusual accounting practice during a recorded conference call. When Grubman complained that Enron was the only company that could not release a balance sheet along with its earnings statements, Skilling replied "Well, thank you very much, we appreciate that ... asshole." This became an inside joke among many Enron employees, mocking Grubman for his perceived meddling rather than Skilling's lack of tact, with slogans such as "Ask Why, Asshole". However, Skilling's comment was met with dismay and astonishment by press and public, as he had previously brushed off criticism of Enron coolly or humorously, and many believe that this lack of restraint symbolized a downward spiral that would unravel the company's deceptive practices.

By the late 1990s Enron's stock was trading for $80–90 per share, and few seemed to concern themselves with the opacity of the company's financial disclosures. In mid-July 2001, Enron reported revenues of $50.1 billion, almost triple year-to-date, and beating analysts' estimates by 3 cents a share. Despite this, Enron's profit margin had stayed at a modest average of about 2.1%, and its share price had dropped by over 30% since the same quarter of 2000.

As time passed, a number of serious concerns confronted the company. Enron had recently faced several serious operational challenges, namely logistical difficulties in running a new broadband communications trading unit, and the losses from constructing the Dabhol Power project, a large power plant in India. There was also mounting criticism of the company for the role that its subsidiary Enron Energy Services had played in the power crisis of California in 2000–2001.

"There are no accounting issues, no trading issues, no reserve issues, no previously unknown problem issues. I think I can honestly say that the company is probably in the strongest and best shape that it has probably ever been in."

Kenneth Lay answering an analyst's question on August 14, 2001.

On August 14, Skilling announced he was resigning his position as CEO after only six months. Skilling had long served as president and COO before being promoted to CEO. Skilling cited personal reasons for leaving the company. Observers noted that in the months leading up to his exit, Skilling had sold at minimum 450,000 shares of Enron at a value of around $33 million (though he still owned over a million shares at the date of his departure). Nevertheless, Lay, who was serving as chairman at Enron, assured stunned market watchers that there would be "no change in the performance or outlook of the company going forward" from Skilling's departure. Lay announced he himself would re-assume the position of chief executive officer.

The next day, however, Skilling admitted that a very significant reason for his departure was Enron's faltering price in the stock market. The columnist Paul Krugman, writing in The New York Times, asserted that Enron was an illustration of the consequences that occur from the deregulation and commodification of things such as energy. A few days later, in a letter to the editor, Kenneth Lay defended Enron and the philosophy behind the company:

The broader goal of latest attack on Enron appears to be to discredit the free-market system, a system that entrusts people to make choices and enjoy the fruits of their labor, skill, intellect and heart. He would apparently rely on a system of monopolies controlled or sponsored by government to make choices for people. We disagree, finding ourselves less trusting of the integrity and good faith of such institutions and their leaders. The example Mr. Krugman cites of "financialization" run amok (the electricity market in California) is the product of exactly his kind of system, with active government intervention at every step. Indeed, the only winners in the California fiasco were the government-owned utilities of Los Angeles, the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. The disaster that squandered the wealth of California was born of regulation by the few, not by markets of the many.

On August 15, Sherron Watkins, vice president for corporate development, sent an anonymous letter to Lay warning him about the company's accounting practices. One statement in the letter said "I am incredibly nervous that we will implode in a wave of accounting scandals." Watkins contacted a friend who worked for Arthur Andersen and he drafted a memo to give to the audit partners over the points she raised. On August 22, Watkins individually met with Lay and gave him a six-page letter further explaining Enron's accounting issues. Lay questioned her as to whether she had told anyone outside of the company and then vowed to have the company's law firm, Vinson & Elkins, review the issues, although she argued that using the firm would present a conflict of interest. Lay consulted with other executives, and although they wanted to fire Watkins (as Texas law did not protect company whistleblowers), they decided against it to prevent a lawsuit. On October 15, Vinson & Elkins announced that Enron had done nothing wrong in its accounting practices as Andersen had approved each issue.