Enron puts up 'for sale' sign
Collapsed former energy giant Enron is selling its top assets, a move which could in effect result in the liquidation of the company.
Link:>/b> Trace the Enron saga
The company has been in Chapter 11 administration since January this year, while it restructures itself, and had been expected to emerge as a new company focusing on core power and pipeline businesses.
But the sale of assets is expected to include key pipelines and would leave almost nothing behind, according to reports.
The decision to sell assets, rather than re-emerge from Chapter 11 protection, is believed to be the result of pressure from the estimated 100,000 creditors of the company, who are demanding some form or payment, as well as from the thousands of employees who have lost their jobs and pensions.
New chief executive Stephen Cooper has said his key objective is to get as much money out of the company to pay to creditors, an about turn from a bankruptcy plan he presented to the courts in May, which proposed a profitable business, employing 12,000, by 2003.
Enron collapsed at the end of last year under a mountain of debts, after the discovery of massive debts hidden in off-balance sheet trusts. It was once America’s seventh largest company.
The Chapter 11 filing was also the largest of its kind before being eclipsed by the filing of telecom giant WorldCom.