Enron Case Study
The Enron Collapse
By: Jeff Porter Kevin Clark Jared Sabelhaus
February 18, 2005
Introduction Companies have mission statements that often read like inspirational leaflets. Enron’s mission was at first to be the world’s greatest energy company then later revised in early 2001 to be the “world’s greatest company”. In the late 1990’s, Enron seemed to have accomplished their mission accumulating vast amounts of assets, had the intellectually elite at the helm, a political climate in their favor and numerous opportunities to expand. Enron gave all appearances of a vastly superior company that could do no wrong. The thing about king of the mountain is that the ones on top never seem to stay there for very long and in Enron’s case the fall from corporate mountain was spectacular and felt all over the world. Over the course of three short years Enron went from the seventh largest company in the U.S. to financial ruin. However deep and impressive their intelligent managerial pool was; internal flaws led to a slide of epic standards. In our report, we will analyze these internal flaws that include inadequate control measures, a hostile environment and flawed accounting and financing methods. Because of the financial severity which the company was in we concluded that Filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy was the only option for Enron and therefore will be assumed in our report. When we asked Rich Kidwell if there was anything Enron could have done to keep from filing Chapter 11 he said “I don’t know if there was anything that they could do. Enron was like a house of cards and it was only a matter of time before they were blown down.” We examined different ideas on how to transform these flaws and then suggest which idea we feel is best suited to the needs of this company.
Assumptions While writing this paper we assumed the following points: • • Enron has already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Enron is unique in regards to size and operations (accounting methods and
By: Jeff Porter Kevin Clark Jared Sabelhaus
February 18, 2005
Introduction Companies have mission statements that often read like inspirational leaflets. Enron’s mission was at first to be the world’s greatest energy company then later revised in early 2001 to be the “world’s greatest company”. In the late 1990’s, Enron seemed to have accomplished their mission accumulating vast amounts of assets, had the intellectually elite at the helm, a political climate in their favor and numerous opportunities to expand. Enron gave all appearances of a vastly superior company that could do no wrong. The thing about king of the mountain is that the ones on top never seem to stay there for very long and in Enron’s case the fall from corporate mountain was spectacular and felt all over the world. Over the course of three short years Enron went from the seventh largest company in the U.S. to financial ruin. However deep and impressive their intelligent managerial pool was; internal flaws led to a slide of epic standards. In our report, we will analyze these internal flaws that include inadequate control measures, a hostile environment and flawed accounting and financing methods. Because of the financial severity which the company was in we concluded that Filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy was the only option for Enron and therefore will be assumed in our report. When we asked Rich Kidwell if there was anything Enron could have done to keep from filing Chapter 11 he said “I don’t know if there was anything that they could do. Enron was like a house of cards and it was only a matter of time before they were blown down.” We examined different ideas on how to transform these flaws and then suggest which idea we feel is best suited to the needs of this company.
Assumptions While writing this paper we assumed the following points: • • Enron has already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Enron is unique in regards to size and operations (accounting methods and
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