Pipe Dreams: Greed, EGO, and the Death of Enron

by RobertBryce (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2003

  $27.32

  After the shocking collapse of Enron in fall, 2001 came an equally shocking series of disclosures about how America's seventh-largest company had destroyed itself. There were unethical deals, offshore accounts, and accounting irregularities. There were Wall Street analysts who seemed to have been asleep on the job. There were the lies top executives told so that they could line their own pockets while workers and shareholders lost billions. But after all these disclosures, the question remains: Why? Why did a thriving, innovative company with rock-solid cash flow and reliable earnings suddenly flame out in a maelstrom of corruption, fraud and skulduggery? The answer, Texas business journalist Robert Bryce reveals in this incisive and entertaining book, is that bad business practices begin with human beings. Pipe Dreams traces Enron's astounding transformation from a small regional gas pipeline company into an energy Goliath...and then tracks step-by-step, business decision by business decision, extra-marital affair by extra-marital affair, how, when and why the culture of Enron began to go rotten, and who was responsible. The story of Enron's fall isn't just a story about accounting procedures it's a story about people. Bryce tells that story with all the personality, passion, humour, and inside dope you'd hope for, and the result is an un-putdownable read in the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Predators' Ball.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.29

  This text presents an investigative reporter's inside story of one of the most spectacular business failures in decades: how Enron, one of the world's biggest, most innovative and most politically influential companies, undermined itself with greed, arrogance, hubris and mismanagement. Enron was the seventh largest company in America, an innovator, an energy Goliath with operations on four continents, trading nearly $3 billion worth of natural gas, electricity and other commodities every day. Yet in November 2001, after a month of turmoil and embarrassing disclosures, Enron agreed to be bought by its cross-town rival, Dynegy, for about $23 billion in stock and assumed debt. Soon thereafter, the deal fell apart when it was revealed that Enron's debt was so massive it couldn't survive long enough to merge. As Enron's value plunged, top executives began furiously lining their pockets while workers and shareholders lost billions. Why did Enron fail? How could a company with so much talent, money and resources suddenly fall apart? In Pipe Dreams , Bryce tells the story of unethical deals, offshore accounts, accounting irregularities, corruption, fraud and skullduggery. He traces Enron's astounding transformations from a small regional gas pipeline company into an energy Goliath...and then tracks step-by-step, business decision by business decision, extra-marital affair by extra-marital affair, how, when and why the culture of Enron began to go rotten and who was responsible.