A Loan Versus A Sale Enron’s Case of fraudulent transactions with the banking firm of Merill Lynch proves to be a perfect example of how loans are used to boost sales while in fact they’re technically not sales. In 2004 the “Nigerian barge” transaction ensued with Enron selling electricity-generating power barges to Merill Lynch. A huge sale as the company executives recorded it but it turns out it was actually a loan rather than a sale and that Enron did not actually earned from the transaction thus the investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004. Perhaps the big question to be answered in this essay is, why is the transaction considered a loan rather than a sale? And if it were a loan, how would it affect the company’s financial statements? First, it is important to define what a loan is in order to differentiate it from a sale. A loan is transaction between two entities that consists the delivery of an article to the other party which shall be used gratuitously and shall be returned at an appointed time, either as the exact article or in a different form that’s equivalent to the article’s worth (Oxford Dictionaries, n.d.). Based on the definition, a loan exists or a loan relationship exists if both of these elements are present: a money debt and a transaction for the lending of money. It is also important to note that a loan always involves repayment set a future point which may or may not involve payment of an interest (HM Revenue and customs, n.d., para.4). A sale on the other hand is defined as a transaction in which a property is transferred from one person to another in consideration of money or its equivalent paid to the owner of the good or product (The Law Dictionary, n.d.). A sale therefore is t... ... middle of paper ... ...d a repurchase should have been listed under Cash flow from Investing and Financing respectively and not Operating activities. This deliberate effort to label such is the company’s maneuver to trick the public and the analysts, giving the impression that the company is doing well, meeting its targets and generate a huge profit out of its operations. References: Investopedia (n.d.). Collaterals Definition. Retrieved April 4, 2014, from http://www.investopedia.com HM Revenue and customs. Loan Definition. Retrieved April 4, 2014, from http://www.hrmc.gov.uk Libby, R., Libby, P. &Short, D. (2009). Financial Accounting (6th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Oxford Dictionaries (n.d.). Loan definition. Retrieved April 4, 2014, from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us The Law Dictionary (n.d.). Legal definitions. Retrieved April 4, 2014, from http://thelawdictionary.org
On the surface, the motives behind decisions and events leading to Enron’s downfall appear simple enough: individual and collective greed born in an atmosphere of market euphoria and corporate arrogance. Hardly anyone—the company, its employees, analysts or individual investors—wanted to believe the company was too good to be true. So, for a while, hardly anyone did. Many kept on buying the stock, the corporate mantra and the dream. In the meantime, the company made many high-risk deals, some of which were outside the company’s typical asset risk control process. Many went sour in the early months of 2001 as Enron’s stock price and debt rating imploded because of loss of investor and creditor trust. Methods the company used to disclose its complicated financial dealings were all wrong and downright deceptive. The company’s lack of accuracy in reporting its financial affairs, followed by financial restatements disclosing billions of dollars of omitted liabilities and losses, contributed to its downfall. The whole affair happened under the watchful eye of Arthur Andersen LLP, which kept a whole floor of auditors assigned at Enron year-round.
Collateral for the defaulted loan. Distressed real estate involves making a distressed purchase. According to Financial Crisis (2011), “[A] distressed purchase is whereby the property owners are usually in a foreclosure/short sale situation.” Foreclosure applies to a residential real estate loan in which a bank or creditor repossesses a home because of nonpayment. The institution will legally possess the right to resell the property as collateral for the defaulted loan. The selling price can be sold at a price equal to or greater than the original loan. The reason distressed properties can be bought at a lower price is the institution has already received a series of payments toward the original home loan. In many situations the lender can sell the house for a lower cost than the normal market value, leaving the buyer the opportunity to make a purchase at a lower selling price than market value and reselling the property at a profit (Demand Media, 2011).
In 2008 the worst financial crisis since the great depression hit and left many people wondering who should be responsible. Many Americans supported the prosecution of Wall Street. To this day there have still not been any arrests of any executive on Wall Street for the financial collapse. Many analysts point out that greed of executives was one of the many factors in the crisis. I will talk about subprime loans, ill-intent, punishments, and white collar crime.
Enron was a Houston based energy, commodities and services company. When people hear the name Enron they automatically associate their name with one of the biggest accounting and ethical scandals known to date. The documentary, “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” provides an in depth examination of Enron and the Enron scandal. The film does a wonderful job of depicting the downfall of Enron and how the corporate culture and ethics were key to Enron’s fall. As the movie suggests, Enron is “not a story about numbers, it is a story about people.”
Throughout history there have been many white collar crimes. These crimes are defined as non-violent and financial-based crimes that are full ranges of fraud committed by business and government professionals. These crimes are not victimless nor unnoticed. A single scandal can destroy a company and can lose investors millions of dollars. Today, fraud schemes are more sophisticated than ever, and through studying: Enron, LIBOR, Albert Wiggan and Chase National Bank, Lehman Brothers and Madoff, we find how the culprits started there deception, the aftermath of the scandal and what our country has done to prevent future scandals.
Mortgage loans are a substantial form of revenue for the financial industry. Mortgage loans generate billions of dollars in the financial industry. It is no secret that companies have the ability to make a lot of money by offering a variety of mortgage loan products. The problem was not mortgage loans but that mortgage companies were using unethical behavior to get consumer mortgage loans approved. Unfortunately, the Countrywide Financial case was not an isolated case. Many top name mortgage companies have been guilty of unethical behavior. Just as the American housing market was starting to recover from its worst battering since the Great Depression, a new scandal, an epidemic of flawed or fraudulent mortgage documents, threatens to send not just the housing market but the entire economy back into a tailspin (Nation, 2010).
Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in restitution to any swindled stock buyers of his brokerage firm (A&E Networks Television). Though his lavish spending and berserk party lifestyle was consumed by excessive greed, he displayed both positive and negative aspects of business communications.
The company concealed huge debts off its balance sheet, which resulted in overstating earnings. Due to an understatement of debts, the company was considered bankrupt in 2001. Shareholders lost $74 billion and a lot of jobs were lost because of the bankruptcy. The share prices of Enron started falling in 2000 and in 2001 the company revealed a huge loss. Even after all this, the company’s executives told the investors that the stock was just undervalued and they wanted their investors to keep on investing. The investors lost trust in the company as stock prices decreased, which led the company to file bankruptcy in December 2001. This shows how a lack of transparency in reporting of financial statements leads to the destruction of a company. This all happened under the watchful eye of an auditor, Arthur Andersen. After this scandal, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was changed to keep into account the role of the auditors and how they can help in preventing such
Thomas, C.W. (April, 2002). The rise and fall of enron. When a company looks too good to be true, it usually is. Journal of Accountancy, Retrieved June 15, 2011, from http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2002/Apr/TheRiseAndFallOfEnron.htm
Owning a home means gaining equity. If the owner keeps the house long enough for it to rise above the initial cost of its purchase, then that is profit. This is one of the most essential and superb matters associated with home ownership.
Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex, he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in restitution to any swindled stock buyers of his brokerage firm. Though his lavish spending and berserk party lifestyle was consumed by excessive greed, he displayed both positive and negative aspects of business communications.
Enron Corporation was based in Houston, Texas and participated in the wholesale exchange of American energy and commodities (ex. electricity and natural gas). Enron found itself in the middle of a very public accounting fraud scandal in the early 2000s. The corruption of Enron’s CFO and top executives bring to question their ethics and ethical culture of the company. Additionally, examining Enron ethics, their organization culture, will help to determine how their criminal acts could have been prevented.
sought after and one group has it and is willing to lend or give it to the other, not a
The Enron Corporation was an American energy company that provided natural gas, electricity, and communications to its customers both wholesale and retail globally and in the northwestern United States (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Top executives, prestigious law firms, trusted accounting firms, the largest banks in the finance industry, the board of directors, and other high powered people, all played a part in the biggest most popular scandal that shook the faith of the American people in big business and the stock market with the demise of one of the top Fortune 500 companies that made billions of dollars through illegal and unethical gains (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Many shareholders, employees, and investors lost their entire life savings, investments,
The Tyco accounting scandal is an ideal illustration of how individuals who hold key positions in an organization are able to manipulate accounting practices and financial reports for personal gain. The few key individuals involved in the Tyco Scandal (CEO Kozlowski and CFO Swartz), used a number of clever and unique tactics in order to accomplish what they did; including spring loading, manipulating their ‘key-employee loan’ program, and multiple ‘hush money’ payouts.