Word: fastow
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Dates: during 2002-2002
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...trader, Jim Schwieger, challenged Lay. Why, he asked, was chief financial officer Andrew Fastow sharing the stage--and gainfully employed--considering that he had just blown half a billion dollars mismanaging several Enron partnerships and earned $30 million doing it? Lay put his arm around Fastow and proclaimed his "unequivocal trust" in the CFO. The partnership accounting was complex stuff, Lay explained, but Fastow was on top of it--or he'd be in big trouble. A day after that buddy-buddy display, Fastow was history...
...knew all along about the possible ethical conflicts posed by the involvement of Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow in off-the-books partnerships with shell corporations, according to a confidential study conducted at Lay's request by the Houston law firm Vinson & Elkins. On Nov. 5, 1997, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal, the executive committee of Enron's board voted to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in loan guarantees to a partnership known as Chewco. Then, in June and November of 1999, the board waived the company's ethics code to allow Fastow to serve...
...Texas energy executive attending an industry conference in Vail, Colo., a year ago groused to a senior Enron v.p. His dinner companion's startling reply: "You're more right than you know." Even people who believe that Lay was not involved in the dubious dealings of Skilling, Fastow and chief accounting officer Richard Causey concede that Lay had laid the foundation by encouraging Enron's ruthless, winner-take-all culture. A band of cocky, inexperienced young M.B.A.s was left alone to do whatever it took to structure a deal, regardless of the consequences. "Pushing the limits was what you were...
...Fastow became so convinced of his own importance that he told the board of directors the partnerships couldn't exist without his working both sides of the table. He "presented his participation as something he did not desire personally but was necessary to attract investors," states the Powers report...
...financial man, this is the height of hubris. Money seeks its highest reward. If Fastow's deals were really good enough and transparent enough, investors would have come running. And Enron's stock would still be flying. You don't have to be a financial genius to understand that...