Before Enron collapsed, its top executives ditched their shares and made a small fortune - while lesser employees are now lumbered with worthless stock. Mark Tran investigates.

One of the key issues in the Enron scandal is how top executives managed to sell Enron shares for enormous amounts of money, while many lower-level employees were locked into retirement plans full of Enron stock. More than half of Enron's employees retirement funds, or about $1.2bn, were invested in company stock, which is now worthless.

A detailed accounting of trades by Enron executives is contained in a lawsuit against top Enron management brought by Amalgamated Bank of New York, which invested the pension money of union members in Enron shares. The lawsuit says Enron insiders knew of the company's financial problems but concealed them from the public.
According to court documents, a group of 29 Enron executives and directors received $1.1bn by selling 17.3m shares from 1999 through to mid-2001. They continued to sell in the run-up to bankruptcy - unlike employees, who were not allowed to do so. Here are the top money makers from the list.

Kenneth Lay, the Enron chairman, sold Enron stock 350 times, almost daily, receiving $101.3m. It is not known how much he or the others paid for their shares. In all Mr Lay sold 1.8m shares between early 1999 and July 2001, five months before Enron filed for bankruptcy. Sometimes Mr Lay sold in amounts as small as 500 shares, other times as many as 10,000.
 
Lou Pai, a former chairman of an Enron subsidiary, received $353.7m for his 5m shares.
 
Ronnie Chan, a director, sold 8,000 shares for $337m.
 
Rebecca Mark-Jusbache, a director, received $79.5m for 1.4m shares.

Ken Harrison, a director, sold 1m shares for $75.2m.

Ken Rice, president and chief executive office of Enron broadband services, sold 1.1m shares for $72.7m.

Jeffrey Skilling, a former chief executive, began to sell his holdings at a pace of 10,000 shares about every seven days and received $66.9m.
Robert Belfer, director, sold 1m shares for $51m.
 
Mark Frevert, chairman of Enron North America, sold 830,620 shares for $50m.
Stan Horton, chairman and chief executive officer of Enron Transportation Services, sold 734,444 shares for $45.4m.

Joseph Sutton, vice chairman, sold 614,960 shares for $40m.
Other directors named in the suit: Clifford Baxter, Joseph Hirko, Andrew Fastow, Richard Causey, James Derrick, Mark Koenig, Curley Olson, Steve Kean, Richard Buy, Jeffrey McMahon, Michael McConnell, John Duncan, Norman Blake, Mark Metts, Robert Jaedicke, Wendy Gramm, Charles Lemaistre, John Duncan, Joe

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January 22, 2002.

[Source:  Guardian Unlimited, January 18, 2002]