One of the most entertaining parts of watching former corporate titans under investigation is watching them invoke the "I'm stupid" defense.

When he appeared before Congress to discuss the collapse of Enron and the company's phony accounting, Jeff Skilling's defense consisted of "I'm not an accountant."

Continue reading Ken Lewis Pulls a Jeff Skilling

Ken Lewis Pulls a Jeff Skilling originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

All it takes is a little patience. F. Scott Yeager, a former Enron executive, got some good news from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which ruled that it wouldn't revisit his case. So, he no longer has criminal charges related to financial fraud hanging over him. Yeager has been acquitted on all counts. This follows a June ruling by the Supreme Court, which tossed a previous 5th Circuit Court ruling that could have resulted in a new trial.

The ruling said, "Today, ... it is clear under our initial ... analysis the jury made a finding in acquitting Yeager that precludes prosecution on insider trading and money laundering." Samuel Buffone, who was one of Yeager's attorneys, stated that his client shouldn't have been indicted to begin with and didn't do anything wrong. It has taken them seven years to get to this point.

Yeager landed in hot water because he sold stock in Enron for more than $54 million before it began the plunge that would ultimately end with its bankruptcy in 2001. He faced 125 counts, was acquitted of five (four for wire fraud and one for conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud) and wound up with a hung jury for the remaining 120, which included insider trading and money laundering. He was later indicted again on 13 counts of insider trading and money laundering.

Continue reading Former Enron exec set free

Former Enron exec set free originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Enron's Jeff Skilling will be resentenced after conviction is upheld originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Harvard's business school (HBS) has been celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. And it looks to be at the peak of its power. That's unfortunate because five of its most powerful graduates have made significant contributions to absolutely wrecking the global economy. HBS admits people who are natural leaders. Unfortunately, many of the most powerful of these leaders have followed the path of destruction.

Here are five Harvard MBAs who wrecked the economy:

• George W. Bush ('75). The best thing I can say about Bush is that he said he was sorry for all the problems that occurred while he was in the White House. Unfortunately, he seems to believe he was a victim of events outside his control. One of his HBS professors said of Bush "He showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago."
• Hank Paulson ('70). As Treasury Secretary Paulson has consistently ignored the severity of the financial crisis -- In June 2006 he gave a speech at HBS in which he said, "this is by far the best global economy that I have seen in my career" -- but this September he was able to sell Congress on an ineffective plan to fix what he finally realized was an imploding economy -- a plan has kept changing. The economy has continued to crash despite his bone-headed efforts to save it.

Continue reading Five Harvard MBAs who wrecked the global economy

Five Harvard MBAs who wrecked the global economy originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We recently presented a look at some of the most notorious financial felons of contemporary times.

Since then, news has included the indictment of Mark Cuban for insider trading in a case that is somewhat reminiscent of Martha Stewart's case. According to the SEC, the billionaire entrepreneur asked his broker to sell all his shares of Mamma.com after the company's CEO confidentially told him of an impending stock offering that would dilute the value of all existing shares. By selling before the information became public, Cuban is said to have sidestepped losses of more than $750,000. Cuban insists, though, that no agreement existed to keep the information confidential.

And then there was the indictment in Texas of Vice President Dick Cheney, along with former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others. There seems to be a conflict of interest between the vice president's influence on the federal agency that oversees federal immigration detention centers and his substantial holdings in Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies. But does the lame-duck county district attorney, who was a no-show in court, have the authority to bring charges against federal officials with regard to federally run institutions?

Continue reading Financial Felons: Where are they now and is there a next generation coming?

Financial Felons: Where are they now and is there a next generation coming? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Because a long, holiday weekend can be a great time to pause and reflect -- to take a step back and look at the bigger picture -- here are some highlights from BloggingStocks a year ago today: May 25, 2007.

• Consumers and investors alike were eager for the launch date of Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) ballyhooed iPhone.
• Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) announced its acquistion of Vitaminwater.
• Online retail shopping was on the upswing.
• Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) planned to begin offering its products at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT).
• Declining new home sales in April signalled more weakness in the housing market.
• Home Depot's (NYSE: HD) new CEO began the 2007 annual meeting with an apology.
• Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) denied rumors about its interest in acquiring Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).
• BloggingStocks speculated about the blue chips of 2017.
• Georges Yared reflected on the state of the market conditions and prospects for the future: Part 1 and Part 2.

And two years ago, May 25, 2006:

• Microsoft admitted that there would be delays in the relase of its Vista operating system.
• Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were found guilty of defrauding Enron investors.

A year ago today on BloggingStocks originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 25 May 2008 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Enron's Jeff Skilling has a good chance on appeal? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Jeff Skilling's been arrogant and too talkative since the beginning of the Enron fiasco (testifying before Congress when everyone else took the 5th). Now he's behind bars, but he still won't go away.

In October, Skilling was sentenced to 24 years in prison after being convicted on 19 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading, and lying to auditors.

Now he wants a new trial. According to the Associated Press Daniel Petrocelli filed an appeal today with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. He wrote that:

Profound, inherent weaknesses in the government's case not just gaps in its evidentiary proof, but doubts about its basic theories of criminality motivated the government to resort to novel and incorrect legal theories, demand truncated and unfair trial procedures, and use coercive and abusive tactics.

In order to believe that Skilling is innocent of any wrongdoing, you essentially have to buy that former CFO Andy Fastow went deep into the bowels of Enron and cooked the books all by himself -- and no one knew about it. You also have to think that Skilling decided to dump shares of Enron because of his uncertainty surrounding the events of September 11th -- 5 days before it happened. Move over Nostradamus! Free Jeff Skilling! The CIA can use him to predict the next terrorist attack!

There's no question that the Enron Task Force made some pretty boneheaded blunders in its pursuit of justice, and maybe Skilling should and will get a new trial. But he belongs in jail, and hopefully that's where he stays for a long time.

Enron's Jeff Skilling files appeal originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

And you thought that the 2006 Home Depot (NYSE: HD) annual meeting showed a lack of respect and contempt for shareholders. Jurors in the trial of disgraced former Hollinger International CEO Conrad Black heard some choice comments from that company's 2002 and 2003 annual meetings. He told one disgruntled shareholder that "We haven't been sitting here and feathering our nests." Well, that turned out to be true. They were extremely busy... looting the company and committing fraud.

In emails that Black wrote during 2002, he referred to the shareholder revolt as an "epidemic of shareholder idiocy" and said that he wanted to "blow their asses off."

It's interesting that one of the common threads among so many of the embattled former titans of industry is arrogance and a disdain for shareholders and critics -- Jeff Skilling called a hedge fund manager on a conference call an "a-hole" after the man raised eerily prescient questions about the company's balance sheet.

I think there's a reason for this pattern of behavior. When faced with tough questions, reasonable people who are right can simply explain the situation to investors and hopefully win them over with a logical argument. Of course, when your critics are right, you can't do that. You have no choice but to launch into personal attacks and other diversionary tactics.

The lesson here for shareholders is this: When a CEO is testy with shareholders who raise questions about the company or, even worse, blames short-sellers or hedge funds for their lagging performance, you may want to sell the stock.

Conrad Black talkin' dirty about shareholders originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 May 2007 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst of 2006. Vote for it as the Money Story of the Year or check out the other nominees in the category.

The demise of Enron will likely turn out to be the biggest business story of the decade -- maybe even the century. The once $60 billion market cap energy trading giant dissolved into worthlessness in an ugly morass of accounting fraud and human greed in late 2001.

But 2006 was the year in the long, sad saga that some justice was finally meted out to Enron's top executives. Former chief executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were both convicted in the spring on charges including securities fraud, making false statements, and conspiracy. Enron's former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow was sentenced to six years in jail after he pleaded guilty to several charges of securities fraud and agreed to testify against his former bosses.

But the Enron story continued to provide shocking twists, even at this stage. Ken Lay died suddenly of a heart attack in July. BloggingStocks readers not only doubted that he had died of natural causes (many suspected suicide), but others doubted he had died at all.

Lay's conviction was vacated in October because he died before his sentencing. That seems to have preserved his wealth for his heirs.

Jeff Skilling was sentenced to 24 years in jail in late October. When we wrote about the sentence, 64% of readers responding to a poll said the jail time was too short. Skilling, at his sentencing, continued to profess his innocence.

Best & Worst: Enron's ugly end game: Skilling's sentencing, Lay's untimely death originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 14 Dec 2006 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yesterday's 24 year jail sentence for former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling reminded me of a question that popped into my mind four years ago: Was Harvard University an unindicted co-conspirator in Enron's rise and fall?

I first noticed all of Enron's Harvard connections back in June 2002 while Enron was still winding down. It was then that Enron announced the resignation of Herbert S. Winokur Jr., chairman and chief executive of Capricorn Holdings Inc. of Greenwich, Connecticut, from Enron's board on which he had served since 1985. Winokur's resignation drew my attention to the many ties between Harvard and Enron.

Enron's collapse was also the inspiration for my book, Value Leadership, which highlighted eight Value Leaders, including The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV), and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), which earn superior returns for shareholders -- growing revenues 35% faster, earning 109% higher profit margins and increasing shareholder value at five times the rate of their peers between June 1992 and June 2002 -- by following seven principles that are the antithesis of those that Skilling used to manage Enron.

How did Harvard help Enron?

Continue reading Enron's Harvard connections

Enron's Harvard connections originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 24 Oct 2006 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It was a long time coming, but today's Enron verdict -- Ken Lay guilty on all six counts, Jeff Skilling guilty on 19 of the 28 counts he faced -- is a victory for all shareholders. Now it looks like these bozos are going to jail for a long, long time and they deserve it.

The thing is, I really thought they  might get off. Lay in particular seemed to be doing a good job acting like he wasn't party to the financial fraud. But now they are convicted felons and we see real proof that top executives can't get off while their lieutenants (many of whom have already pled guilty and served time) take all the heat.

The U.S. legal system doesn't always work and it takes a long time for the wheels of justice to turn. But in this case, at long last, the system worked.

The damage to the financial markets that was done back in late 2001 when Enron imploded still hasn't healed. There are other corporate scandals still simmering and more, no doubt, will surface.

But at least for today, investors can digest news of justice being done, breathe a sign of relief, and return to the markets with renewed confidence.

Enron: Guilty verdict is a victory for investors originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 May 2006 12:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.