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Enron case summary and analysis
Enron case study question and answers
Enron case study question and answers
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Identify an event or series of events that occurred in the financial marketplace falling within the realm of Financial Management, Financial Institutions and Markets, or Investments that raise significant ethical questions. Analyze the events, public policy responses and their impact on the financial markets and economy at large.
Suppose you are the CEO of a well respected, multi-million dollar energy company. You stand at the forefront of innovation and you are world-renowned for your pioneering efforts in the energy industry. However, due to a series of poor financial decisions, your company is on the verge of bankruptcy. You realize that in order to protect your own interests and investments, desperate measures need to be taken. Just exactly how much are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to risk everything? Imagine your company is Enron. Imagine your name is Ken Lay.
Many remember and know of Enron not because of its reputation but because this company filed one of the largest bankruptcies to ever occur in American history. Enron began its reign as a powerhouse company when congress passed legislation that deregulated the sale of natural gas and electricity which allowed Enron to excel among companies in this field. This increased Enron’s stock price up to $90 per share and made it appear to be one of the best companies for stockholders to invest their money into. Enron then decided to create offshore accounts commonly referred to as special purpose entities that would hinder any losses that the company was incurring and also deter taxes since international territories have different laws, and would show how much profit the company was making.
It was then discovered that these offshore companies were solemnly cr...
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...s to finance its operations. The financial manager must decide how much the firm should borrow as well as the least expenses sources of funds for the firm. How and where to raise the money are important decisions that the manager must correctly make so that no financial consequences occur. Companies borrow money from a vast variety of lenders and a variety of ways so the always be aware of the possible options regarding this.
In order for a financial manager to be successful, all 3 of these areas of financial management must be executed properly. Working capital deals with a firm’s short term assets; capital budgeting is the process of planning and managing a firm’s long term investments; capital structure is the mixture of debt and equity maintained by a firm. All 3 of these areas entail different things as explained but together they make up financial management.
On the surface, the motives behind decisions and events leading to Enron’s downfall appear simple enough: individual and collective greed born in an atmosphere of market euphoria and corporate arrogance. Hardly anyone—the company, its employees, analysts or individual investors—wanted to believe the company was too good to be true. So, for a while, hardly anyone did. Many kept on buying the stock, the corporate mantra and the dream. In the meantime, the company made many high-risk deals, some of which were outside the company’s typical asset risk control process. Many went sour in the early months of 2001 as Enron’s stock price and debt rating imploded because of loss of investor and creditor trust. Methods the company used to disclose its complicated financial dealings were all wrong and downright deceptive. The company’s lack of accuracy in reporting its financial affairs, followed by financial restatements disclosing billions of dollars of omitted liabilities and losses, contributed to its downfall. The whole affair happened under the watchful eye of Arthur Andersen LLP, which kept a whole floor of auditors assigned at Enron year-round.
From big financial and ethical scandals like Enron to WorldCom, Wells Fargo may be the next big financial and ethical scandal. Wells Fargo is one of the leading banks and credit lending companies in America. Now, they’re on a slippery slope downhill to one of the worst—and most unethical—banking and credit lending companies in America, maybe even in the world. Wells Fargo has been in an ethical uproar, has questionable ethical values, and questionable principles and practices in culture due to their downhill ethical standards. The company may have been influenced by bad stakeholder judgment, and are now struggling to maintain the company’s culture.
A documentary film released in 2005 called the Smartest Guys in the Room reveals the shocking collapse of Enron. The Smartest Guys, Kenneth Lay, Jeff Skilling, Andrew Fastow, Lou Pai, Clifford Baxtor, and Arthur Anderson, were all involved with America’s ultimate Corporation Scandal. But who do we blame? Enron had over 20,000 employees and was founded by Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron, in 1985. Lay wanted to push his views of deregulation which pushed him to start the company (SGR). The first event that happened leading up to the downfall was the president, Mr. Borget, and his traders manipulating the company’s earnings and exporting the profits to their personal account. When Lay made the decision to not fire them, it definitely raised the
The Enron Corporation was committed to pushing the legal limit as far as possible. Many individuals only seeking to promote their own well-being over any legal or ethical boundaries did this. This was not only isolated with the Enron Corporation, as Arthur Andersen the outside accounting firm and Vinson & Elkins Enron’s law firm were also participants. The key players that led to the collapse of Enron was the founder Kenneth Lay, his successor
Investors and the media once considered Enron to be the company of the future. The company had detailed code of ethics and powerful front men like Kenneth Lay, who is the son of a Baptist minister and whose own son was studying to enter the ministry (Flynt 1). Unfortunately the Enron board waived the company’s own ethic code requirements to allow the company’s Chief Financial Officer to serve as a general partner for the partnership that Enron was using as a conduit for much of its business. They also allowed discrepancies of millions of dollars. It was not until whistleblower Sherron S. Watkins stepped forward that the deceit began to unravel. Enron finally declared bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, leaving employees with out jobs or money.
Enron was in trouble because of something that almost every major corporation during this time was guilty of. They inflated their profits. Things weren't looking good for them at the end of the 2001-year, so they made a common move and they restated their profits for the past four years. If this had worked to their like they could have gotten away with hiding millions of dollars in debt. That completely admitted that they had inflated their profits by hiding debt in confusing partner agreements. Enron could not deal with their debt so they did the only thing that was left to do, they filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. This went down as one of the largest companies to file for bankruptcy in the history of the United States. In just three months their share price dropped from $95 to below $1.
Based on what you read in this chapter, summarize in one page or less how you would explain Enron’s ethical meltdown.
Enron and Arthur Anderson were both giants in their own industry. Enron, a Texas based company in the energy trading business, was expanding rapidly in both domestic and global markets. Arthur Anderson, LLC. (Anderson), based out of Chicago, was well established as one of the big five accounting firms. But the means by which they achieved this status became questionable and eventually contributed to their demise. Enron used what if often referred to as “creative” accounting methods, this resulted in them posting record breaking earnings. Anderson, who earned substantial audit and consultation fees from Enron, failed to comply with the auditing standards required in their line of work. Investigations and reports have resulted in finger pointing and placing blame, but both companies contributed to one of the most notorious accounting scandals in history. There remains much speculation as to what steps could and should have been taken to protect innocent victims and numerous investors from experiencing the enormous loses that resulted from this scandal.
“When a company called Enron… ascends to the number seven spot on the Fortune 500 and then collapses in weeks into a smoking ruin, its stock worth pennies, its CEO, a confidante of presidents, more or less evaporated, there must be lessons in there somewhere.” - Daniel Henninger.
Prior to 2000, Enron was an American energy, commodities and service international company. Enron claimed that revenue is more than 102 millions (Healy & Palepu 2003, p.6). Fortune named Enron “American most innovative company” for six consecutive years (Ehrenberg 2011, paragraph 3). That is the reason why Enron became an admired company before 2000. Unfortunately, most of the net income for the years 1997-2000 is overstated because of unethical accounting errors (Benston & Hartgraves 2002, p. 105). In the next paragraph, three main accounting issues will identify for what led to the fall of Enron.
Enron was on the of the most successful and innovative companies throughout the 1990s. In October of 2001, Enron admitted that its income had been vastly overstated; and its equity value was actually a couple of billion dollars less than was stated on its income statement (The Fall of Enron, 2016). Enron was forced to declare bankruptcy on December 2, 2001. The primary reasons behind the scandal at Enron was the negligence of Enron’s auditing group Arthur Andersen who helped the company to continually perpetrate the fraud (The Fall of Enron, 2016). The Enron collapse had a huge effect on present accounting regulations and rules.
The Enron Corporation was an American energy company that provided natural gas, electricity, and communications to its customers both wholesale and retail globally and in the northwestern United States (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Top executives, prestigious law firms, trusted accounting firms, the largest banks in the finance industry, the board of directors, and other high powered people, all played a part in the biggest most popular scandal that shook the faith of the American people in big business and the stock market with the demise of one of the top Fortune 500 companies that made billions of dollars through illegal and unethical gains (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Many shareholders, employees, and investors lost their entire life savings, investments,
Finance – To manage the flow of money across the organisation. Finance managers produce financial and management accounts not only to ensure legal compliance but also to contribute to the strategic decision – making process by forecasting financial performance. Budgets enable operations to have the resources (for example,
In simple term, working capital is an excess of current assets over the current liabilities. Good working capital management results in higher returns of current assets than the current liabilities to maintain a steady liquidity position of the organisation. Otherwise, working capital is a requirement of funds to meet the day to day working expenses. So a proper management of working capital is highly essential to ensure a dynamic stability of the financial position
When an ethical dilemma arises within an organization, it is difficult to separate right and wrong with what is best for the majority. Sometimes the answer is not a simple “yes” or “no.” In 2002, Enron Corporation shows us just that. By 2002, the sixth-largest corporation in America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The case of the Enron scandal is one of the best examples of corporate greed and fraud in America.