Friday, December 2, 2011

"Arthur Andersen Ex-CEO: Enron, Europe Are Similar" (ENE)

We have a ridiculous number of posts on the Crooked E, might as well pile on.
First up CNBC:
A number of similarities exist between the collapse of Enron in 2001 and the current sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone, Joe Berardino, CEO at Alvarez and Marshall and the former CEO of Enron's accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, told CNBC.

"If you look at the Enron story at its most simplistic, you had a really successful company that was a bricks and mortar company, that became a trading company, that was very successful as a trading company… levered up," he said, using the term popular in business parlance for borrowing. "And then we found that leverage is really good, until it's bad," Berardino said.

Enron filed for bankruptcy 10 years ago on Friday. The scandal surrounding the energy trading firm also effectively brought down Arthur Andersen as a going concern. 

Asked whether lessons had been learned since Enron filed for bankruptcy, Berardino said, "we're still learning" and pointed to the sovereign debt crisis currently engulfing the euro zone.

"(Enron) ran out of time in terms of its liquidity and a lot of the same elements — leverage, the need for liquidity, crisis when you lose confidence — are repeated in all those examples. And I would argue we're now living through it with the sovereign crisis in Europe," he said. "There are a lot of the same elements."...MORE
If you have an interest the easiest way to plow through our Enron archives is this Google search term:
site:climateerinvest.blogspot.com enron
Some of the posts that turn up on the first page (Google returns 3120 hits):
Enron:The Musical (ENE)
Pt. I:: GE and the Enron Playbook (ENE; GE)
"Is McKinsey & Co. the Root of All Evil ?"
Former Enron trader calls for setting commodities limits
Trading: "Was Enron Right?"
 Fun With Enron Emails
California's cap-and-trade won't work
 Magical Markets, Enron and GE and a New Word
The long arms of Enron reach beyond the grave
From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought You the Enron Loophole: Obama's CFTC nominee supports carbon market oversight

And on and on.