QUIZ: How Much Do You Know About Enron?
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As it turned out, Enron had been falsifying their revenue for years, at one point claiming annual earnings of over $100 billion when in fact they were deeply in debt. The extent of the fraud was exposed in October 2001, and when the company filed for bankruptcy that year, the pain was felt most acutely by the shareholders who lost billions of dollars, and by the employees who lost their jobs, health insurance and 401(k)s. Even the accounting firm that represented Enron collapsed.
How much do you know about one of the biggest business scandals of all time? Take our Enron quiz and find out.
Posted 25 Mar 2010
In 2000, Enron stock was worth $90 a share. What was it worth on November 28, 2001?
- Less than $1
- $10
- $20
- $40
- $60
On November 28, 2001, at the end of the day's trading, Enron's stock price took a sharp and irreversible nosedive. Dynegy, another Houston energy company, was originally going to merge with them, but when Enron's financial problems came to light, Dynegy promptly broke off the deal. Without it, there was no way to address the billions of dollars in debts that Enron were required to pay in 2002, and their credit rating plummeted as a result. This caused an almost total devaluation of Enron stock, which ended the day with a price of $0.61 per share.
How long did Jeffrey Skilling serve as Enron's chief executive officer before resigning?
- 1 week
- 6 months
- 2 years
- 10 years
In February 2001, Jeffrey Skilling was moving up in the world. He had given up his long tenure as Enron's chief operating officer to assume the mantle of CEO, a first-class title if there ever was one. Then, a mere six months later, he resigned the post. Prior to the resignation, he had allegedly dumped 450,000 shares for an estimated $33 million, but he assured stockholders that his resignation had "nothing to do with Enron," citing the ever-popular "personal reasons" for his hasty exit instead.
What magazine published a special "Women Of Enron" issue in 2002?
- Cosmopolitan
- Ms.
- Playboy
- Redbook
The Enron collapse was just barely six months old when Playboy magazine decided it was the right time for a nude pictorial featuring the company's former employees. Senior photo editor Kevin Kuster claimed that the magazine's aim was purely philanthropic, that its objective was to "put a little bit of a human face" on the scandal. After all, how could it be exploitative when it was consistent with Playboy's longstanding traditions? "One of the things that the company has been founded on is the girl next door," Kuster explained. "This actually is the girl next door, who used to work at Enron."
Who did Ken Lay blame for the financial improprieties that bankrupted the company?
- California governor Gray Davis
- Chief executive officer Jeff Skilling
- Chief financial officer Andrew Fastow
- Himself
In a company, as on a ship, the man at the top is the captain. So when the ship sinks, he must hold his head high, man up and sink with it. Unless of course, he's Ken Lay, in which case the thing to do is plead ignorance and then blame someone else. In an interview with "60 Minutes," he declared that the company's chief financial officer, Andrew Fastow, had orchestrated all the shenanigans, with Lay none the wiser. Attorney Bill Lerach, who sued Enron's accountants, didn't buy it. "This is what I call the Elmer Fudd defense," he said. "I went to work every day and was paid $6 million a year and had a Ph.D. in economics -- and somehow, despite all of this, I didn't know anything that was going on."
In 2004, how much was a group of over 20,000 Enron employees awarded in a suit for $2 billion in lost pension money?
- Nothing
- $50 million - $100 million
- More than $1 billion
- More than $100 billion
In May 2004, justice was served. Well, sort of. A class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of over 20,000 employees who had lost a combined $2 billion in pension money. However, the judge only awarded them $85 million. This broke down to just over $3,000 per person, a fraction of what the employees had lost.
Which one of the following was inspired by the Enron scandal?
- A children's television show
- A comic book
- A musical
- A video game
In December 2006, the Enron scandal was immortalized in song, dance and thespianism by "Enron: The Musical." Not to be confused with the British 2009 play simply titled "Enron," the musical opened in Houston, the very city that the energy company had called home. Sadly, the musical opened two months after Jeff Skilling was sentenced to 24 years in prison, so he never got to see the stage version of himself singing "Thank Heaven For Off-The-Book Deals."
A law firm representing Enron shareholders received the highest fee in the history of U.S. securities fraud cases. How much was it?
- $100 million - $500 million
- $500 million - $1 billion
- $1 billion - $100 billion
- Over $1 trillion
In September 2008, Enron reached a settlement in a $40 billion lawsuit filed on behalf of a large group of shareholders. The award was just over $7 billion dollars, which came out to under $5,000 per person when split among 1.5 million plaintiffs. However, Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman and Robbins, the law firm that represented them, received $688 million in fees, the largest amount ever received in a securities fraud case in the United States.
How much did a "tilted-E" sign that once sat outside of Enron's downtown Houston office sell for at a 2002 auction?
- $100
- $1,000
- $10,000
- Over $10,000
When Enron sold assets at a September 2002 auction, everything was up for grabs, including staplers, an air hockey table, coffee mugs and so forth. But surely, the ultimate trophy that day was a stainless-steel "tilted-E" sign that once stood sentry-like outside of one of the company's satellite offices. The sign sold for $44,000 to an employee of Microcache Computers on behalf of his boss, who had instructed him to "just do anything to get it." Among the other attendees at the auction was former employee Brian Cruver, who had come to rescue one of his most prized possessions --- his old office chair. "It's the most comfortable chair I've ever sat in," he said, "and I want it back."
When Arthur Andersen, Enron's accounting firm, closed down, how many people lost their jobs?
- None
- 850
- 8,500
- 85,000
The Chicago-based Arthur Andersen was once a member of the "big five" accounting firms, right up there with Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers. This all came to a screeching halt when they were found guilty of obstruction of justice for shredding records of their fraudulent Enron audit. The conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court on a technicality, but by then it was too late. Most of Arthur Andersen's clients had long since abandoned the firm, and when the company shut down, all 85,000 employees lost their jobs.
When did Ken Lay's wife sell off 500,000 shares of company stock?
- 30 minutes before the company's collapse was announced
- 1 day before the company's collapse was announced
- 1 week before the company's collapse was announced
- Never
At 10:30 in the morning on November 28, 2001, Standard & Poor's announced that Enron's credit rating had achieved junk status, consigning the once-mighty energy company to oblivion. Luckily for Ken Lay, his wife Linda had sold off 500,000 shares of Enron stock at 10 that morning, just thirty minutes earlier. She had sold the shares through a family foundation and disbursed the money through various charitable organizations, so she was never charged with any wrongdoing, despite the extreme suspiciousness of her timing.
Your score:
- Flush with cash
Your business is good and you don't even have to cook the books to make it look that way.
Premieres Thursday, April 1st 9p | 11:30p ET
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You might have to engage in creative accounting from time to time.
Premieres Thursday, April 1st 9p | 11:30p ET
RELATED LINKS
Slideshow
Biggest Chapter 11 Cases
Show Page
ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room - Bankrupt
There aren't enough accounting tricks to hide your insolvency.
Premieres Thursday, April 1st 9p | 11:30p ET
RELATED LINKS
Slideshow
Biggest Chapter 11 Cases
Show Page
ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
