This post is part of a feature in which he wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial felons. See all 17.

There was one company that I believed in during my journalism career. It was a scrappy underdog challenging the establishment and made scads of money. Back in the day, it was sure easy to root for Enron, and Andrew Fastow was one of the reasons why.

Fastow was not suave like his boss Jeffrey Skilling -- whom I met several times -- and lacked the people skills of President Bush's pal Chief Executive Ken "Kenny boy" Lay. No, Fastow was a humorless number cruncher. His importance to Enron can not be overemphasized. As Time magazine notes, "Fastow had a skill Skilling needed; he did asset 'securitization,' a means for banks to sell off risk in the form of securities backed by mortgages or other obligations."

Wow, the roots of today's financial difficulties can be traced back to Enron!

There is nothing evil. about special-purpose entities. At first, Enron's initial investors did well because the deals were straightforward. CalPERS, put $250 million into an spe called jedi i, which invested in natural gas projects. Four years late, the California State Pension Plan CalPERS got back $433 million, a 73% return over four years.

Continue reading Financial Felons: Andrew and Lea Fastow

Financial Felons: Andrew and Lea Fastow originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Today's funeral of Ken Lay puts to rest his physical presence. Where his soul will end up has been commented on many times and there does not seem to be any controversy. The fact that his family wanted to cremate his body (beating Satan to the punch or hiding the evidence?) is ironic in the sense that when he was alive his company (and my company too), crashed and burned from a financial height that I do not believe has been achieved before in such a short period of time.

The pain of his (and Fastow's, Skilling's and others) financially and morally corrupt adventures spread far and wide affecting a very broad swath of the nation and will be reviewed for decades in business schools, board rooms, Federal Commissions and more.

I crashed with the rest of the shareholders, workers, lenders and affiliated companies. To me the amazing thing is that in one day I made the best sell decision of my investing career and the worst buy. When Cisco Systems hit an all time high of $82 and was the highest "valued" company in the world at a capitalization of $450 billion, some idiot analyst prognosticated that it would be the first trillion dollar company. At the time Cisco was touting 50% annual growth for years out and my alarm bells began flashing. I decided it was time to abandon ship. I sold.

So what did I do with the money from the sale? I decided it would be a good idea to diversify more and moved the money from Internet/tech to energy. The sector was lagging at the time and I thought it might be ready for a rebound.

Continue reading Enron and Ken Lay ended with a crash and I was along for the ride

Enron and Ken Lay ended with a crash and I was along for the ride originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 12 Jul 2006 18:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.