Company profile
- Industry
- Energy and commodities trading
- Founded
- 1985
- Headquarters
- Houston, United States
- Ownership
- Defunct; filed for bankruptcy in 2001
Profiles are auto-generated and infrequently updated.
Decisions on record
One verified Decision Case on Enron, and the casebook each one belongs to.
| Fork date | Decision type | What Enron chose | Where it stood | The story | Casebook |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | The Money Machine | Adopt mark-to-market accounting | profit margin averaged only about 2.1% (2000) | Read the story → | The Money Machine Casebook → |
Run one of these yourself
The decisions Enron faced, as kits you can run.
Each pack takes one of these decisions and gives you the framework, a deck for the room, a model that resolves to one number, and the sourced cases behind it. $499, one-time.
Business ModelThe Money MachineWhere does the money actually come from, and who sets the rate it comes in at?See the pack →Crisis & ReinventionThe Crisis ResponseWhat is one more quarter of not acting worth?See the pack →Decision ForksThe ResidualHow much of your decline can the agreed explanation actually account for?See the pack →
The analyses
The Money Machine · Business Model
Enron Made $100 Billion in Revenue and Kept 2 Cents on the Dollar. The Math Was the Fraud.
Everyone remembers Enron as a trading genius that imploded on hidden debt. The real story is duller and more damning: a shrinking pipeline toll dressed up as a $100.7 billion trading empire, where the headline number was a gross-reporting illusion and the profits were borrowed from a future that never arrived.
8 min
The Crisis Response · Crisis & Reinvention
Enron Fell From $90 to $0.26 in Fifteen Months — The Moment the Concealment Ran Out
Enron is taught as a PR disaster — a company that botched a crisis. But its stock fell from $90 to $0.26 in fifteen months not because the message failed. It failed because there was nothing left to conceal.
8 min
The Crisis Response · Crisis & Reinvention
The Auditor That Died for a Crime the Supreme Court Said It Never Committed
Arthur Andersen was destroyed by the Enron fraud—except its conviction was unanimously overturned in 2005, Skilling's 24-year-and-four-month sentence was halved to 14, and the off-book SPEs that sank Enron used rules the regulators had already blessed.
8 min
The Fall · Crisis & Reinvention
Mark-to-Market Made Enron's Losses. A Ring of Off-the-Books Partnerships Made Them Vanish
Enron is taught as the company that abused mark-to-market accounting to invent profits. But MTM only created the losses. The real machine was a ring of off-the-books partnerships built to make those losses vanish - and no single accounting rule could have stopped it.
8 min
Tools to try
- Ansoff move finderFramework: Ansoff Matrix
- Business model canvas builderFramework: Business Model Canvas
- Change readiness checkFramework: Kotter's 8-Step Change Model
- Five Forces scorerFramework: Porter's Five Forces
- SMART goal builderFramework: SMART Goals
- SWOT builderFramework: SWOT Analysis
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