| Letter Requesting Information Concerning Kenneth Lay's Enron Stock Transactions
January 24, 2002
Mr. Kenneth L. Lay
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Enron Corporation
1400 Smith Street
Houston, Texas 77002
Dear Mr. Lay:
We are writing to you to gather additional
information concerning your Enron stock transactions. We are aware that all
public sales of stock must be reported in the following month of such sales.
According to these reports, during the past three years, you exercised stock
options and then sold stock for a profit of about $205 million. However, these
public reports do not include sales of stock back to Enron, which would be used
to pay personal loans. A report on sales of stock back to the company is not
required until February 14.
An article in the New York Times, dated
January 22, 2002, describes in general terms these transactions, based upon
statements by your attorney. That article states:
Mr. Lay had a $4 million revolving line of
credit from Enron, which Mr. Silbert said was raised to $7.5 million at some
point in 2001. He said that Mr. Lay took out money from that loan, and then
repaid it, on 15 separate occasions from February through October.
In each case, he repaid it by turning over
stock to Enron. He appears to have obtained some of those shares by
exercising options, while in other cases he returned shares he already
owned. Mr. Silbert said Mr. Lay took out the loans from the company when he
expected that he was likely to face margin calls from other lenders.
If those 15 repayments averaged $4 million,
then they totaled $60 million, which would represent the value of stock he
returned to the company. Mr. Silbert declined to give exact figures, and
formal disclosure of the transactions is not required by Securities and
Exchange Commission rules until Feb. 14.
We are concerned about the unreported nature of
these transactions and their effect upon Enron shareholders and employees,
particularly during the stock's steep decline in 2001.
We request that you provide our Committee with a
detailed listing of all loan transactions involving you, Jeff Skilling, Andrew
Fastow, Michael Kopper, Rick Buy, Rick Causey, and any other senior executive
with your company during 2001. (We understand that you have resigned your
position as chairman and chief executive of Enron. With respect to questions
relating to other Enron executives, please forward this letter to your successor
in the corporation to respond.) The information should include:
-
the date and
amount of each loan to you by Enron;
- for each repayment of the loan:
- the date of the repayment;
- the amount of the repayment;
- if the repayment was in the form of
stock, the amount of shares and the value assigned to each share of
stock for the purpose of repayment of your loans.
- Please describe the extent to which the
Enron Board of Directors was made aware of any loans or repayments.
Although as we noted, public disclosure of these
transactions is not required until February 14, we are in the midst of an
intensive investigation of the demise of the company. We request that this
information be provided to the Committee no later than January 28, 2002. If you
have any questions, please contact David Cavicke of the Committee majority staff
at (202) 225-2927, or Edith Holleman of the minority staff at (202) 226-3400.
Sincerely,
W. J.
"BILLY" TAUZIN
CHAIRMAN
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JOHN D. DINGELL
RANKING MEMBER |
JAMES C.
GREENWOOD
CHAIRMAN
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS |
|
PETER DEUTSCH
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS |
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