Enron wahrscheinlich pleite - höchstgefährlich!

Enron wird als "quirliger, innovativer, sehr aggressiver" Marktteilnehmer beschrieben. Der Enron-Anteil am deutschen Stromhandel (OTC und börslich) wird auf stolze 30 % geschätzt. Enron hat Pionierleistungen auf dem seit Frühjahr 1998 liberalisierten Strommarkt erbracht. Die Kraftwerkskapazität liegt über dem Stromverbrauch. Der Anteil des Handels dürfte bei unter 10 % des Gesamtmarktes liegen, doch gibt es darüber keine genauen Angaben, da Daten zum OTC-Volumen fehlen. Dies dominiert weiter gegenüber dem börslichen Geschäft.

Der Energiehandelsmarkt ist bisher sehr wachstumsstark. Noch deutlicher in Schwung kommen soll er, wenn die Liberalisierung in der EU überall an Fahrt gewinnt. So ist etwa Frankreich kaum dereguliert. Dort sitzt mit EdF Europas Nummer eins, zu der in Deutschland EnBW zählt, und die sich noch unter dem Schutz des Monopols europaweit mit Akquisitionen ausdehnt.

Als Gewinner der aktuellen Situation gelten das Trading von Eon, RWE und EnBW. Diese Händler können mit den Kraftwerkskapazitäten ihrer Konzerne im Hintergrund je nach aktuellem Preis im Vergleich zu den Grenzkosten ihren Bedarf aus eigenen Anlagen oder am Markt decken. Schon wird hierzulande genüsslich auf die Bilanzmanipulationen des US-Konzerns hingewiesen und im Gegensatz zu Enron die vorhandene "vertikale Wertschöpfungskette" der Ex-Monopolisten hervorgehoben. REW und Eon führen längst auch im Stromhandel.

Per definitonem muss ein reiner Händler offene Positionen eingehen und kann nicht, wie Produzenten, Energiederivate durch physische Gegenpositionen decken. Das Geschäftsmodell des Händlers, der zu Ultimo seine Positionen glatt stellen muss, besteht nun einmal darin, Energie auf dem Markt zu kaufen und zu veräußern. Die Versorger sind dagegen über ihre Kraftwerke und Kunden abgesichert.

Börsen-Zeitung, 1.12.2001

Der Deal platzte, kurze Zeit nachdem drei Kredit-Rating-Agenturen angekündigt hatten, ihre Bewertungen für Enrons Verbindlichkeiten auf "junk"-Status zu senken. Das Unternehmen wird durch die Herunterstufung der Kreditbewertung gezwungen, vier der 13 Milliarden Dollar Schulden unmittelbar zu begleichen. "Keine Frage, das ist das Ende von Enron", prognostiziert Gordon Howald, Analyst von Credit Lyonnais Securities in New York.

Die fehlgeschlagene Fusion löste eine Kettenreaktion aus: An der New Yorker Börse brach der Enron-Aktienkurs dramatisch ein - am Mittwoch um 85 Prozent, am Donnerstag um weitere 41 Prozent. Am Freitag pendelte die Aktie um die 30 Cent; im August 2000 wurde die Aktie noch mit 90 Dollar gehandelt. Investoren warfen allein am Mittwoch panikartig rund 340 Millionen Enron-Aktien auf den Markt - Rekord.

Noch vor wenigen Monaten war das Unternehmen, das weltweit 21.000 Mitarbeiter beschäftigt, im US-Magazin "Fortune" als siebtgrößte US-Firma gelistet worden - mit einem Marktwert von rund 93 Milliarden Dollar. "Enron war schon groß, doch letztlich nicht groß genug, um nicht zu scheitern", sagt Merrill-Lynch-Analyst Steven Fleishman. Heute wird das Unternehmen noch mit 200 Millionen Dollar bewertet.

Doch noch hat das texanische Unternehmen nicht Konkurs angemeldet, was wohl einzig verbliebene Option für den einstigen Giganten ist: Denn Enron braucht dringend Geld, Zeit und eine Restrukturierung.

Es läuft auf eines der größten und komplexesten Konkursverfahren der US-Geschichte hinaus, das Konsequenzen für hunderte anderer Firmen haben könnte - ebenso für das gesamte Energie-Handelsgeschäft weltweit. Allerdings, so sagen Experten der Branche, sei es noch zu früh, das genaue Ausmaß des Schadens für Finanzmärkte und den gesamten Energiemarkt abzusehen.

Im Strudel der Pleite befinden sich auch die Großbanken. Die Banken, bei denen Enron in der Kreide steht, sind auf der ganzen Welt verteilt: J. P. Morgan Chase aus den USA (500 Millionen Dollar), Credit Lyonnais aus Frankreich (250 Millionen Dollar), Canadian Imperial Bank (215 Millionen Dollar), ING aus Holland (195 Millionen Dollar), Abbey National aus Großbritannien (164 Millionen Dollar), Australia & New Zealand Banking (120 Millionen Dollar) und HypoVereinsbank (100 Millionen Dollar) als einer der deutschen Vertreter.

Enron hatte Schulden der vergangenen fünf Jahre nicht bilanziert - die zuvor verkündeten Gewinne ab 1997 mussten um 586 Millionen Dollar reduziert werden, das wirtschaftliche Fundament des Unternehmens war in kurzer Zeit wie ein Kartenhaus eingestürzt. Unorthodox arbeitete nicht nur die Buchhaltung. Dazu kamen undurchsichtige Geschäfts- und mangelnde Informationspolitik sowie Fehlinvestitionen, Insiderdeals.

Am Mittwoch wurden die Internet-Transaktionen des Unternehmens zunächst ganz eingestellt - derzeit werden über EnronOnline nur auf limitierter Basis Geschäfte abgewickelt. Bitter: 90 Prozent ihres Gewinns machten die Texaner bislang über ihr Internet-Geschäft.

Enron trat bisher nicht nur weltweit als Energie-Zwischenhändler für Gas und Strom auf: Dem aggressiv operierenden Unternehmen gehören Gas-Pipelines, dazu Kraftwerke in New Jersey, Mississippi, Tennessee und im Ausland, außerdem war Enron auch auf dem Kohle-Markt stark vertreten. Die Firma entstand 1985 infolge einer 2,4-Milliarden-Fusion zweier Gas-Companys. "Es handelte sich um eine verschlafene Pipeline-Firma, die sich durch den Einsatz von Technologie zu einem Handelsgiganten entwickelt hat", so Samuel E. Bodily, Wirtschaftsprofessor an der Universität Virginia. "Die Firma war wirklich innovativ und hat die Industrie verändert."

Kenneth L. Lay hatte Enron zu einem rasanten Aufstieg verholfen, auch dank exzellenter Verbindungen zu einflussreichen Politikern. Er spielt Golf mit Bill Clinton, versteht sich bestens mit US-Vizepräsident Dick Cheney und pflegt vor allem eine tiefe Freundschaft mit der Bush-Familie. Lay war in den 80er-Jahren einer der großen Geldbeschaffer für George Bush und diente als Wirtschaftsberater von George W., noch bevor dieser überhaupt an eine Präsidentschaftskandidatur dachte. Seit 1993 sponsorten Lay und Enron Bushs politische Karriere mit rund zwei Millionen Dollar, seine Beziehungen brachten Lay sogar für einen Posten im Finanzministerium ins Gespräch.

Doch in der Krise scheinen die Kontakte nicht viel zu nützen. Es gibt weder vom Weißen Haus noch vom Kongress irgendwelche Anzeichen, Enron bei den hausgemachten Problemen zu helfen. Bob McNair, ein Energie-Unternehmer aus Houston, sagte, Enron sei wie ein Bolide und der Energie-Markt eine unbarmherzige Rennstrecke: "Es ist viel schwieriger, die Spur zu halten, wenn man mit mehr als 300 Stundenkilometern unterwegs ist. Streift man ein Hindernis", so McNair, "fliegt man aus der Spur."

den o.g. Postings nur Banken erwaehnst?
Denke das die Banken sich ausreichend abgesichert hatten, denke mal
ueber den Tellerrand, es gibt auch Versicherungen.

Behauptet CBS, da eine grosse Menge Shortseller drinsitzen, die jetzt nach dem Konkursantrag glattstellen wollen. Vor allem soll es sich um Anleihenhändler handeln, welche die Enron-Bonds auf diese Weise abgesichert haben! Siehe unten:


Enron shares now sell for pennies and face de-listing from the New York Stock Exchange. That's fact, not theory.

On Monday, the shares rose more than 45 percent, to 37 cents or so. Pravin Banker at The Financial Network in Greenwich, Conn., says a buying frenzy may be in the works.

"There is a sneaking suspicion that dealers long the bonds might have sold short," Banker said Monday. The Financial Network is a specialist in distress situations and publisher of LDC Bond Watch, a daily market commentary.

The short-selling, if true, was "a frantic attempt" to hedge Enron bond positions, which suffered a free-fall in value last week. "If the NYSE does not de-list, the share price could rally from 29 cents to several dollars per share," he says. "The potential for a giant squeeze exists." Squeezes happen when short-sellers scramble to buy back the shares they borrowed in their short sales.

Banker estimates an Enron share-price decline to zero from $4 provides only $3.6 billion of "hedge" against a bond portfolio that fell in value by $4 billion between Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon. He also says the utility assets held in Enron's trust-issued bonds, such as Osprey Trust, might be permitted to shift around or be sold. This would make Enron's share price far undervalued - but only in a rush by institutions to cover their short-sales, he says.

Thom Calandra - Editor-in-Chief of CBS MarketWatch

Meinen letzten Kauf bei 1,xx habe ich nämlich ausgesessen.

R.

1000 Stück gekauft. Kann passieren, was will, Kurse von mehr als 1 Dollar gut möglich!

gekauft? Trotzdem bleibt Enron natürlich heisses Eisen. Hängt einzig und allein davon ab, wieviele Shortseller drinstecken! Wenn die eingedeckt sind, geht es wieder runter.

Genesis Energy, L.P. (GEL: news, chart, profile): $21 million. If Enron fails to meet its obligation, Genesis Energy could be required to suspend its distributions beginning with the fourth quarter.
XTO Energy Inc. (XTO: news, chart, profile): "minimal" exposure of $30 million, plus long-term derivative obligation that was booked as a liability at market value of $38 million. XTO has given Enron notice to terminate the obligation.
ONEOK Inc. (OKE: news, chart, profile): less than $40 million pre-tax, but if Enron performs its current obligations total exposure would drop to less than $2 million after Jan. 4, 2002.
Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group (MTF: news, chart, profile): pegged Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi's loan exposure at $248 million (30.57 billion yen). Mitsubishi Trust & Banking has outstanding credits to Enron of $38.9 million (4.8 billion yen).
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBJY: news, chart, profile): $210 million.
Principal Financial Group (PFG: news, chart, profile): $171 million, plus another $50 million from investments in Enron-related entities. The company expects to take a charge in the fourth quarter due its exposure.
KCS Energy (KCS: news, chart, profile): around $3.8 million from hedges in the fourth quarter and the year 2002 and oil and gas sold through Enron entities.
Nicor Inc. (GAS: news, chart, profile): under $5 million.
Westport Resources (WRC: news, chart, profile): less than $3.2 million in commodity sales contracts with Enron affiliates, taking into account the $800,000 it owes under an early contract termination provision.
Aegon (AEG: news, chart, profile): gross loan exposure of $300 million.
PPL Corp. (PPL: news, chart, profile): less than $10 million, plus a possible $6 million annually through 2006 under long-term contracts.
Allegheny Energy (AYE: news, chart, profile): less than $5 million.
American Electric Power (AEP: news, chart, profile): less than $50 million.
Abbey National (UK:ANL: news, chart, profile): $164 million (115 million British pounds). Second-half earnings will be hit by $136 million (95 million British pounds) for loan exposure.
ABM Amro (ABN: news, chart, profile): may have to take $98 million (110 million euro) provision in the fourth-quarter, according to Dow Jones.
ING Group (ING: news, chart, profile): $195 million, according to Reuters.
Credit Lyonnais (FR:012529: news, chart, profile): owed $250 million with half the amount guaranteed by assets, according to Dow Jones.
The Royal Bank of Scotland (UK:RBOS: news, chart, profile): likely below $100 million, according to HSBC.
Barclays (UK:BARC: news, chart, profile): likely below $100 million, according to HSBC.
Wiser Oil (WZR: news, chart, profile): has $6.1 million in 2001 and 2002 hedges with Enron.
Energen (EGN: news, chart, profile): sees 2002 earnings-per-share 20 cents to 25 cents lower than expected if Enron doesn't fulfill its contractual obligations.
FPL Group (FPL: news, chart, profile): "minimal" at $2 million.
National Fuel Gas (NFG: news, chart, profile): $10.4 million.
KeySpan (KSE: news, chart, profile): less than $4 million.
TC PipeLines (TCLPZ: news, chart, profile): "no material adverse impact" its financial conditions, but it holds a 30 percent general partner interest Northern Border Pipeline Co., a company that has relationships with Enron.
Range Resources (RRC: news, chart, profile): no material impact on its business, but can't estimate exposure its various counter parties may have with Enron.
NRG Energy (NRG: news, chart, profile): less than $10 million.
Plains Resources (PLX: news, chart, profile): if Enron fails to comply with contractual obligations, Plains sees total fall of $638,000 in 2001 and 2002 revenue.
Encore Acquisition (EAC: news, chart, profile): no material adverse affect on its financial condition, but future hedge settlements through 2003 due for payment from Enron total $4.1 million.
Reliant Resources (RRI: news, chart, profile): about $80 million.
Williams Cos. (WMB: news, chart, profile): less than $100 million.
Duke Energy (DUK: news, chart, profile): about $100 million in unsecured exposure. Company still sees 10 percent to 15 percent in compound annual earnings-per-share growth from a base of $2.10 in 2000 and will likely exceed 15 percent earnings growth for 2001.
Dominion (D: news, chart, profile): $11 million, plus forward commodity sales contracts representing exposure of less than 5 percent of earnings.
Exelon (EXC: news, chart, profile): net exposure less than $10 million, but direct gross exposure for current energy sales is less than $20 million.
Sempra Energy (SRE: news, chart, profile): less than $15 million.
El Paso Corp. (EPG: news, chart, profile): $50 million.
Mirant (MIR: news, chart, profile): $50 million to $60 million.
Denbury Resources (DNR: news, chart, profile): about $26 million under hedge contracts.
Myra P. Saefong is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in San Francisco.

For year after year, it was voted the most innovative company in America. Its peers also put it top of the list for the quality of its management. Business gurus, investment analysts and the media described it as one of the great companies of the 21st century. It had a heavyweight board of directors, which appeared to tick off all the boxes for good practice in corporate governance. Its auditors and financial advisers seemed beyond reproach.

This week the full scale of the wreckage became apparent. Congress is digging deep into its affairs and big questions are being asked about the integrity of its accounting systems. The lawsuits have started.

The collapse of Enron is in many ways more shocking than other big corporate failures of recent times. Drexel Burnham Lambert, the Wall Street firm that went down in the late 1980s, revolutionised the capital markets in the same way that Enron rewrote the rules for energy trading. But it was regarded with suspicion by its peers and they rejoiced at its failure. Long-Term Capital Management had a big impact on the financial markets when it collapsed in 1998 but did not affect many people's lives.

Enron is different. Its failure is devastating for large numbers of investors, employees and pensioners. And the question is this. If a company held in such high esteem can go under, who is safe? Did the failure come out of a clear blue sky, or were there warning signals? With the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, half a dozen lessons can already be pulled out of the wreckage.


Cash is what matters. Enron reported dazzling profits growth in recent years but its ability to generate cash was much less clear. The cashflow statement in last year's accounts called for a wet towel and more hard work than seemed worthwhile.

It appears to show an increase in cash, and what it calls "cash equivalents", for the year. But that is only after a sharp fall in the amount of money tied up in working capital, which looks surprising in a year when revenues jumped by $60bn to $101bn (£42bn to £70bn).

One possible explanation is that the cash figures benefited temporarily from a sharp increase in energy prices towards the end of the year - money that has drained away as the price has declined in 2001. The one thing we know for sure is that interest payments on Enron's debt were moving sharply higher at a time when it appeared to be generating surplus cash.


The longer and more boring the balance sheet footnotes, the more they are worth reading. Enron is a classic of its type. Within the acres of turgid prose is buried a clutch of bombshells, which have now exploded. For example, the notes to last year's accounts showed that the company would be in big trouble if the investment rating agencies ever decided that its long-term debt did not warrant investment grade status. That turned out to be on the button. The rating agencies at last got round to doing their job at the end of November and the game was over within a few days.

The notes also gave bare details of a web of vague but substantial relationships with various unconsolidated equity affiliates and a bunch of limited partnerships that had been formed with third-party investors "for various purposes". A number of these, the company has subsequently disclosed, should have been fully consolidated and they have required big write-offs.


Watch out for potential conflicts of interest. There are at least two lulus in the Enron story. Last year's accounts disclosed that the company had done business with an unidentified third party whose "general partner's managing member is a senior officer of Enron". Not to worry: we were told it had all been done on an arm's-length basis. Enron now believes that Andrew Fastow, its former chief financial officer, earned more than $30m from these activities.

Then there is the role of the auditors, Andersen. Last March it was disclosed that Andersen's fees for doing the books came to $25m. Its fees for consultancy and other work for the company came to a further $27m. These numbers make the firm's sanctimonious comments since the collapse especially irritating. "We can't long maintain trust in our capital markets with a financial reporting system that delivers volumes of complex information about what happened in the past but leaves some investors with limited understanding of what's happening at the present and what is likely to occur in the future," it observed, as though the problem lay elsewhere.

The question that must be asked is whether Andersen's enormous consultancy fees affected the rigour of its audit.


Remember Warren Buffett's golden rule. If you don't understand what the company does, don't buy its shares. Even the company's website is a little tentative. "It's difficult to define Enron in a sentence but the closest we come is this: we make commodity markets so that we can deliver physical commodities to our customers at a predictable price." It is all rather complicated stuff, though. For example, if you are interested in how Enron estimates value at risk for commodity, interest rate and foreign exchange exposures, you are assured that it uses a model based on Monte Carlo simulation of delta/gamma positions. So that's all right.


Be wary of new paradigms in old industries. Only a very few years ago, Enron was a dull utility, a gas distribution company. Then it got religion and saw its mission as being to make markets and deliver commodities to all kinds of customers. Metals, forest products, bandwidth capacity, steel, weather risk: everything seemed possible.

What no one, including the company, seems to have understood was the scale of the risk that it was taking on in these areas. And for what? Last year's return on capital employed was less than 10 per cent - and it now seems that figure was overstated. They would have been better off putting the money into US Treasuries.

Part of the problem seems to have been that where Enron led, others followed, putting a sharp squeeze on profit margins and forcing the company to look for new growth markets outside its core business. One example: its hugely ambitious plans for broadband services. Enron invested $1.1bn in this business over two years and made no money.

Gurus, analysts and the media must take some blame for what happened. The fact is that doing business in new ways is both interesting and exciting to outsiders. No one ever wrote a bestseller about gas pipelines.

It is extremely unfair to pick out just one example of excessive enthusiasm for the company - but what the heck. On October 23, Lehman, the investment bank, rated the shares a strong buy with a price target of $38. On December 7, it announced it would no longer cover the company. "Bankruptcy filing has complicated outlook for stock," it explained curtly.

* Keep doing reality checks. At the beginning of this year, Enron was selling at a multiple of more than 60 times the earnings it was to report for the year 2000. Other groups that relied heavily on trading activities, such as investment banks, sold at under a third of that multiple at the time. Again, with hindsight, the numbers simply look crazy.

Was Enron's failure the result of hubris, incompetence, or worse? Did it stem from faulty execution of a basically sound business plan, or was the whole model flawed?

One answer is that the company appears to have built its own doomsday machine. It created a financing structure that was critically dependent on an investment grade rating for its debt and then propped up that rating through off-balance sheet entities that were critically dependent on the share price.

While things worked well, the results were impressive. But as a highly leveraged market-maker in all kinds of commodities, Enron could survive only on the goodwill and trust of its financiers, customers and shareholders. When it turned out that those qualities had been betrayed, the company was lost.