Enron: The Rise and Fall (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Politicians, journalists, laid-off workers, and curious onlookers milled about Washington, D.C.'s Russell Senate Office Building..." (more)
Key Phrases: program orientation guide, financial trading desk, several confidential sources, Wall Street, Ken Lay, Portland General (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

&overall an excellent introduction to the Enron saga& -- Global Turnaround, December 2002

&struck the right balance and given us a book, which is both entertaining and highly informative& -- AccountingWeb, 19 February 2003

"...a gripping read with plenty of lessons for companies that do not want to become victims of their own success..." -- Lloyds List, 6 December 2002

"...this one impresses by its sheer mass and wealth of detail..." -- Mortgage Finance Gazette, February 2003

"Loren Fox is a business writer who does not shy away from the complexities of Enron's business and financial dealings." -- The Economist, January 11, 2003

"Of the three books, this one offers the most detailed explanation of Enron as a business." -- New York Times, October 27, 2002

Mr. Fox is a business writer based in New York who digs into how Andrew S. Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, set up special purpose entities that ultimately helped cause the company's downfall...this one offers the most detailed explanation of Enron as a business. (New York Times, October 27, 2002)

"...Fox fills the void left by Lay and other Enron top dogs in swift, building-block fashion, producing a ground-up view of why the "Crooked E" colossus rose and fell. A sober and clear-eyed book, it's the more restrained of the two [compared to Pipe Dreams]. But it's not too restrained to pass up the chance to get in some good snarkfests over Enron's outsized egos and swagger—or remind us that its swagger is what most investors bought.... Fox places the unspooling of Enron in its market-history context, and his book has gravitas...." (Barron's)

"...Fox is a business writer based in New York who digs into how Andrew S. Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, set up special purpose entities that ultimately helped cause the company's downfall. Of the three books [including and Anatomy of Greed], this one offers the most detaile d explanation of Enron as a business." (New York Times)

"Enron: The Rise and Fall is the latest and perhaps most impressive of the recent crop of books about the collapsed energy giant . . . [Fox’s] candid, in-depth examination of Enron’s remarkable evolution, corporate culture and ultimate downfall is in itself remarkable for being both scrupulously detailed while remaining a clear and enjoyable read, even when dealing with the Byzantine complexities of the company’s financial engineering." (ERisk.com "Book of the Month" review)

"...a gripping read with plenty of lessons for companies that do not want to become victims of their own success..." (Lloyds List, 6 December 2002)

AFTER the fall come the books. And nothing recently in the corporate world has fallen quite so spectacularly as Enron, the Houston-based oil-and-gas company that flew so high it made Icarus look like a grasshopper. Enron scorched to earth in December 2001 when it was forced to seek protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of America's bankruptcy code. Thousands of employees lost their jobs and their pensions (largely invested in worthless Enron stock) while the designers and polishers of its wings of wax walked away with tens of millions of dollars each.
Not a pretty tale. Of the many tellings of it, these are currently the two most popular. In the absence of any input from the leading characters--the chairman and founder Kenneth Lay, the chief executive Jeffrey Skilling and the chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, all of whom are keeping mum in view of pending lawsuits--authors must tackle their subject somewhat indirectly. These two take rather different routes. Robert Bryce is a Texan journalist with a feel for the place and climate of his subject. He brushes past the (not inconsiderable) technical complexities of Mr Fastow's off-balance-sheet schemes and heads straight for the personalities. This is not "Dallas", but it's not far off. It's dead flat, air-conditioned Houston, where the town's big rich (and they don't get much bigger) live in River Oaks, a district whose architecture was once described as "Ralph Lauren meets Scarlett O'Hara". Enron's top executives all made it to River Oaks, and Mr Bryce obligingly provides us with a map to show where they are.
As he describes them, they are almost unremittingly awful. One of them that he met "reminded me that being a Texas-sized sphincter was valued at Enron". After a while, though, his litany of their adultery and greed seems unbalanced. Surely there were some redeeming features? Surely the whistle-blowing accountant, Sherron Watkins, was not merely seeking to further her own career when she exposed Mr Fastow's accounting tricks? And what about J. Clifford Baxter, the Enron vice-chairman who shot himself a year ago leaving a suicide note for his wife in which he said: "I have always tried to do the right thing, but where there was once great pride now it's gone...please try to forgive me." Mr Bryce leaves no room for atonement.
Loren Fox is a business writer who does not shy away from the complexities of Enron's business and financial dealings. On occasions, though, their details hold up the flow of his story. Especially before he gets really rolling with a perceptive chapter called "Culture of Creativity?" Here he describes the change in Enron's corporate culture, wrought largely by Mr Skilling who once said that he wanted his "best people to wake up at three o'clock in the morning in a cold sweat". And not because they'd left the air-conditioning on.
There is a peek into Enron's notorious twice-yearly Performance Review Committee meetings. Known as rank and yank, they consisted of a group of senior managers getting together in a hotel for a week or so, ranking employees according to various criteria, and then sacking the bottom 10-200f them. But don't worry. The moral of the story is, it didn't work.
On one critical event in the Enron story both books agree. If there was a no-turning-back moment for the company it was the resignation in 1996 of the chief operating officer, Richard Kinder (pronounced "Kinnder" and referred to in one book as Rick and in the other as Rich, suggesting he has not talked to either author). Mr Kinder had been the hands-on counterbalance to Kenneth Lay's networking with the rich and powerful (President George W. Bush called him "Kenny Boy"). Mr Kinder kept a keen eye on the cashflow and frowned on extravagance. But he was replaced by Mr Skilling, whose eyes, as we now know, were elsewhere. (The Economist, January 11, 2003 U.S. Edition)

"...this one impresses by its sheer mass and wealth of detail..." (Mortgage Finance Gazette, February 2003)

“…struck the right balance and given us a book, which is both entertaining and highly informative…”(AccountingWeb, 19 February 2003)

“…overall an excellent introduction to the Enron saga…” (Global Turnaround, December 2002)

Review

". . . Fox fills the void left by Lay and other Enron top dogs in swift, building-block fashion, producing a ground-up view of why the "Crooked E" colossus rose and fell. A sober and clear-eyed book, it's the more restrained of the two [compared to Pipe Dreams]. But it's not too restrained to pass up the chance to get in some good snarkfests over Enron's outsized egos and swaggeror remind us that its swagger is what most investors bought. . . . . Fox places the unspooling of Enron in its market-history context, and his book has gravitas . . . ." Barrons

". . . Fox is a business writer based in New York who digs into how Andrew S. Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, set up special purpose entities that ultimately helped cause the company's downfall. Of the three books [including Pipe Dreams and Anatomy of Greed], this one offers the most detailed explanation of Enron as a business." New York Times

"Enron: The Rise and Fall is the latest and perhaps most impressive of the recent crop of books about the collapsed energy giant . . . [Foxs] candid, in-depth examination of Enrons remarkable evolution, corporate culture and ultimate downfall is in itself remarkable for being both scrupulously detailed while remaining a clear and enjoyable read, even when dealing with the Byzantine complexities of the companys financial engineering." –ERisk.com "Book of the Month" review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 408 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471237604
• ISBN-13: 978-0471237600
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,453,579 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than the Cruver book, November 18, 2002

By A Customer

I am a former Enron employee from the mid-1990s. I do not hold any bitter or bad feelings from my exeperience there and firmly believe that I have benefitted from the experience. I have also previously read and reviewed the Cruver book stating that there would be other books giving a better perspective of the issues. Loren Fox's Enron: The Rise and Fall is one of those books.

Like a good non-fiction business writer, Fox takes a global approach in helping the reader understand what happened at Enron. He immediately lays out the working thesis that the collapse of Enron was symptomatic of the corporate culture at Enron but also reflective of the business environment at-large throughout the eighties and nineties. Even with this viewpoint in mind, he too acknowledges that he lacks all the answers because many of the outcomes from Enron's collapse are still in flux (e.g. Will Fastow go to jail? Will Lay and Skilling get indicted) and the ultimate impacts on corporate America are unclear (e.g. Where is Sbarnes-Oxley taking us?).

To support his thesis, Fox presents a well-researched book presenting the key players in the evolution of the energy giant. He provides the background information on the deregulation of the natural gas industry that led to the formation of Enron. He anlayzed the dueling business strategies of ECT and EI run by Skilling and Mark. With Skilling winning the political infighting, the off-balance sheet shennanigans became more important to obtaining the capital needed to support his grandiose visions. That is where Fastow and Kopper come in. Relative to other journalists including Pulitzer Prize winner Rebecca Smith, Fox better understands and explains the nature of the off-balance sheet transactions (e.g. often a form of Islamic financing but also more complex structures) created by these two but always adding color to story with his inside look at the key personalities (e.g. Kaminski saying, "This is so terminally stupid only Fastow could come up with it.").

It is obvious that Fox has had access and discussions with some very senior managers at Enron in completing this project. Despite that, it still feels as if he has only gotten part of the story. Still I must commend him for the best effort to date.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful!, August 30, 2004

By	Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract.com" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Enron's story seems to have happened all at once. There was a big company with a stock price shooting for the stars and, then, suddenly there was a massive fraud, and the two things came so close together it was like hearing the explosion from a fireworks display after you've seen the light in the sky. Loren Fox's account was one of the first books about Enron and remains one of the best. The author is a skillful, diligent reporter who managed to get the story first and get it right, although Enron did not authorize his book or cooperate with him. His discussion of the company's complex, illegal accounting maneuvers is thorough and, if not quite clear, certainly complete. The book was written during the relatively early stages of the legal proceedings against the architects of the Enron fraud, so a lot of the material uncovered by Justice Department and SEC investigators was not yet available. The demerit of this is that Fox was not able to include much that is now common knowledge about Enron. However, we find that there is an advantage as well: Fox was not excessively guided or directed by common knowledge and conventional wisdom, but instead carved his own path through the thicket of Enron's weird and instructive history.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read in conjunction with Smith/Emshwiller, January 20, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Enron: The Rise and Fall (Paperback)

This book, plus "24 Days," together tell you everything you need to know about the fall of Enron. This one covers the "rise" better, that one covers the "fall."

What one ought to take away from both books is the realization that, despite the failure and indeed despite the evident criminality, Enron (as Fox says in his epilogue), "wasn't a complete hoax. The company deserved admiration for its early forays into trading gas and electricity, and for its plunge into the innovative financing of energy projects. It out-maneuvered the old-line energy companies to expand the use of derivatives in the energy industry. This introduced new ways of managing risk, which lowered the costs of energy-related transactions for an array of businesses."

Another reviewer has said that the Fox book is a cure for insomnia. The fact is that if you need to have material on Enron MADE interesting for you by dramatic presentation, by a well-shaped narative flow, then you may have trouble with Fox, simply because he lets the material speak for itself.

Sometimes it speaks in ambiguous tones.