In the months and years following the demise of Enron that began in November of 2001, many of our friends and former colleagues who had worked (however briefly) at Enron spoke of the "Enron stigma." Some coined it the "scarlet E," for the large "E" that became Enron's symbol and logo. Of course, most of our friends were attorneys and accountants. However, the former Enron traders have found that the employment market for financial services may be more forgiving and possibly more efficient than the employment market for legal services. In this WSJ article, former traders at Enron tell of the enormous demand for their talents, which are seen as both substantial, due to their recruitment by Enron, and tempered, due to their experiences at Enron. In fact, some of the former traders have started their own trading operations.
The most interesting part of the article details the current project of Lou Pai, an executive who sold his Enron stock for hundreds of millions of dollars and retired before any of the problems surfaced. Pai attempted to buy at auction Enron's pollution credits from the bankruptcy estate. Because of his obvious insider status, the credits were sold to a third-party, who then sold them to Pai. Pai is now involved in a Houston-based trading firm that creates markets in pollution-emission credits.
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1. Posted by NickBranch on November 15, 2006 @ 1:36 | Permalink
Never in the history of financial innovation had one company taken the commanding heights of a business as did Enron in energy risk management. The "house of cards" baloney was convincingly put to rest in the Lay Sklling trial. Much to the consternation of the government, Enron was highly profitable in it's core risk management businesses. The government quickly fell back to an "earnings management" case where they were oddly arguing that Enron UNDERSTATED income during the relevant time frames.
The concept, technology and people were outstanding and were absolutely leading edge in the energy risk management field.
No surprise an Enron Mystique among people in the know. More surprising is the Enron Stigma popularized by 29 year old Fortune magazine writers who have no understanding of how the business worked, and clearly, no particular interest IN understanding how the business worked.
Long live the new Enron
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