Witness: Skilling Misled Wall St. Analysts
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 2, 2006
HOUSTON (AP) -- Former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling gave misleading information to Wall Street analysts about the earnings of a highly touted business unit in 2001, the company's former head of investor relations testified Thursday.
Skilling did not disclose in conference calls with analysts that the Enron retail energy division had suffered $726 million in first-half losses from its contracts, and insisted that the unit was profitable, Mark Koenig told jurors.
Those losses had been moved into the Enron wholesale division, which was making enough money to absorb them -- but that accounting change was not initially disclosed to analysts, Koenig said....
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The former executive vice president for investor relations is the first government witness against Skilling and former CEO Kenneth Lay, who are accused of fraud and conspiracy in the spectacular collapse of Enron in 2001.
In his second day on the witness stand, Koenig stopped short again of saying either Skilling or Lay explicitly ordered the books cooked, or that Skilling was aware he was giving analysts bad information....
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Enron-Trial.html