Anyone lost money because of Enron? (1 Viewer)

[Michael Mathius]

A couple of years ago I lost a few grand because of Sunbeam financial statement padding.

I really feel for the stock holders especially the employees who lost their 401k.

What do think?

 

[Joe_C]

Word around here is that my school (UCLA) lost an absolute shiteload because of them. I also heard they are going to sue to get their money back :rolleyes

 

[MikeAlletto]

I also heard they are going to sue to get their money back

hmmm...does Enron even have any money to take care of these lawsuits?

 

[CharlesD]

I heard on the news tonight that the Enron execs were selling stock "big time" when the stock started going south last fall, all the time telling investors/employees that the future looked bright and the stock would go up.

Execs often exercise options at any time, or even pre-schedule sells to avoid accusations of insider-trading, but execs who really believe that the the stock is going to go up tend to buy when the price goes down...

If this mess turns out to be a scam or a deliberate manipulation, maybe some of these guys should end up in jail.

 

[Kirk Gunn]

I work for a company similar to Enron, but smaller. Thank gawd they don't insist we keep our 401k in company stock ! The 50% contribution match is in company stock, but that's it. I started buying some, but the Enron fiasco has made it tough on other merchant energy companies. Our stock is holding steady, but nowhere near it's high (What stock is ?). I stopped buying it when our management made some "suspect" decisions that could affect the future of the company (i.e. - buyout coming soon ?)

Hope it doesn't happen, but you've got to be prepared.

 

[Dennis Reno]

NBC News (last night) reported that the average Enron employee had more than 60% of their 401k invested in company stock. They also reported that as the stock price began to fall these employees were unable to sell their stock. However, high level execs were moving their shares!

It appears that the upper management of Enron was aware that Enron was floundering. The fact that they sold much of their stake while continuing to send out memos to employees encouraging additional purchases is sickening. If all the stories are true, quite a few people deserve jail time. And NOT at some minimum security, country club styled place either....

 

[Stacy Huff]

Exactly what kind of company was Enron, what did they do?

 

[Brian Perry]

I'd like to hear some more details about the exact restrictions that the employees had with respect to selling their stock. There were some reports that the freeze was only for ten days while the firm switched plan administrators, while others said the freeze was longer.

It is not that unusual for a company to prevent employees from selling certain types of stock, especially if it is part of an award with a vesting schedule. At Goldman Sachs we had varying degrees of vesting, from three to five years. It stinks when you see the stock go down and you can't do anything, but the company wants to give some motivation for staying. Of course, if all the Enron stock was purchased by the employees for their 401ks, that's a different issue.

Based on the information released thus far, I think many Enron executives should have their assets frozen, and they -- along with several people from Andersen -- should be locked up.

 

[SteveA]

Although I feel bad for the Enron employees who lost their life savings, they should have known better than to put all of their 401k money in company stock. I guess they never heard the old saying about not putting all your eggs in one basket.

 

[Michael Mathius]

One thing for certian is that Anderson had to have know about these irregularties. If they say they didn't then they have no business being in the auditing field.
Today's sun sentinel headline "Ex-Sunbeam CEO agrees to pay $15 million". I guess that there is some hope of me getting back some of the money I lost. Maybe I'll be able to pay for that American Pie 2 Dvd after all
.

 

[Darren H]

Based on the information released thus far, I think many Enron executives should have their assets frozen, and they -- along with several people from Andersen -- should be locked up.

Amen, brother. The more I read about this story, the more amazed I become by the corruption of it all. I'll keep my full opinion to myself, though, as I would hate to see this thread closed.

 

[Mike Main]

Yea bot 50 shares at 60 or so sold out at 50 cents for my Y2K1 tax loss.

Those are the breaks-

-Mike

 

[McPaul]

Stacey:

Exactly what kind of company was Enron, what did they do?

I believe they are a typical energy company you get your monthly electricity bill from. As with all big energy conglomerates, they have lots of different side businesses, like transportation and communications.

Take it from me, but this simple Canadian could be wrong.

They also have their name on a baseball field in Houston.

 

[Clinton McClure]

According to the news last night, the NASDAQ (I believe) suspended trading of Enron. I'm thinking about a year ago, it was trading for around $90. Two days ago, it was 60 cents.

I didn't lose money in the Enron deal, but I did lose quite a bit when the tech market dipped last year and my company stocks were suddenly worth a quarter what they had been.

 

[Mark Schermerhorn]

Michael, Anderson is probably in big, big trouble. The economist seems to think that they're doomed because of the investigation that is now going on and the incredible conflicts of interest that exist.
http://www.economist.com/agenda/disp...tory_id=939057
On a more paranoid note, a few other news sites that I read think this could turn into a massive political scandal involving the Bush administration. The whole situation reaks of political corruption.

 

[Scott Hayes]

Makes you wonder what other big companies are doing.

 

[SteveA]

How is this a scandal involving the Bush administration? Some officials in his administration were contacted by Enron seeking favors, but none were provided - despite the fact that Enron contribed to the Bush campaign in 2000. From my vantage point, this PROVES that the Bush administration cannot be bought and paid for. How is THAT a scandal?

 

[Philip Hamm]

Makes you wonder what other big companies are doing.

or "Getting away with"....

 

[David Oliver]

Paul and Stacey,

Enron was a "new' kind of company (at least that is what they used to like to say). Enron started out as a small Natural Gas pipeline company, but under the stewardship of Kenneth Lay, they expanded aggresively into the a new area of sophisticated modelling and finance. They had very little in the way of physical assets, what they did have was a lot of paper. They were making money in risk management and they were turning it up to 11, hiring the brightest folks from the best most cutting-edge schools to employ complex computer and mathematical models to try and sqqueeze every advantage out of various market they could. They would make markets in natural gas, electricity, weather (yes, weather), TV commercial time, bandwidth, anything they could think of. But they would rarely own the commodity, they would simply move it around the market.

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

I heard on the news tonight that the Enron execs were selling stock "big time" when the stock started going south last fall, all the time telling investors/employees that the future looked bright and the stock would go up.

This is a myth. Kenneth Lay still has the most shares of Enron. Enron was suspended from the NYSE(not Nasdaq). Enron actually has more ties to the (Kunte) Clinton administration through Ron Brown and Mac McClaraty(?sp) who were instrumental in getting them huge contracts overseas(one was in India). Enron also lobbied the Clinton administration hard for clean burn standards so that they could require people to buy more Enron natural gas.

Oh, and by the way, Enrons last political donation was $100,000 to the DNC.