It is being called the greatest business calamity in American history. Enron, the seventh largest Fortune 500 company in the nation, [1] disintegrated in a matter of days. Countless executives, employees, and retirees watched helplessly as their fortunes disappeared along with Enron.
Enron, a pipeline company in Houston, was founded in 1985. It profited by promising to deliver gas to utilities or businesses at a fair market price. That changed with the deregulation of electrical power markets. Under the direction of former chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, Enron expanded into an energy broker, trading electricity and other commodities. [2]. It generated revenues of $101 billion in the year 2000. It markets electricity and natural gas, delivers energy and other physical commodities, and provides financial and risk management services to customers around the world. [3].
What happened at Enron was fundamentally a departure from basic business ethics. Enron falsely recorded positive gains each quarter, without considering the effects this propaganda would have on itself and on its constituents.
Enron Downfall
English: Enron Complex in Houston Texas
English: Mug shot of Kenneth Lay.To enrich themselves, Enron's executives lied to shareholders and cooked the books to produce fake profits, ignoring the company's long-term financial problems. In the last year, Enron executives made more than $100 million by exercising stock options and selling shares, while at the same time, the allegedly false numbers were driving up the value of that stock. As the crisis mounted, stocks once worth as much as $90 a share plummeted to near worthlessness, and employees, with the exception of top executives, were prevented from selling it. [4] There are thousands of current Enron employees who are going to suffer greatly from this debacle. They will likely lose their jobs and their retirement savings. What's worse, it goes deeper than that. There are many other investors who will suffer.