University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, November 30, 2001 Page: 4 of 40
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University Press • Friday, November 30,2001 • Page 4
Enron on brink of bankruptcy
Rival Dynegy backs away from $8.4 billion buyout plan
HOUSTON (AP) — Enron Corp.
was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy
after the once-mighty energy trading
company’s credit collapsed and its
main rival backed out of an $8.4 billion
buyout plan.
News that Enron was being
spumed by Dynegy Inc. sent its stock
price spiraling 85 percent to close at 61
cents on Wednesday. Just a year ago,
stock of the nation’s largest buyer and
seller of naturaln’s credit rating, forcing
it to pay billions of dollars in debt it
probably can’t afford. Dynegy immedi-
ately backed out of its acquisition plan
after several days of efforts to renego-
tiate the deal.
Investors unloaded 339 million shares
on the New York Stock Exchange — a
record for one day — and sent Enron
stock plummeting.
Enron was valued at $80 billion lit-
tle more than a year ago and in 1999
the company agreed to spend $100 mil-
lion over 30 years to put its name on
Houston’s major league ballpark. By
Wednesday night, the company was
worth about $500 million — and one
Enron share was worth less than one-
sixth the price of a $4 hot dog at Enron
Field.
“I don’t think that you see such a
well-thought-of company falling down
this quickly,” Robert Christmas, a
bankruptcy lawyer with Nixon
Peabody LLC in New York, said of
Enron’s freefall over the last few
weeks. “I can’t think of one in recent
history where it was this fast.”
Enron, which was formed in 1985
and has 20,000 employees, was once
the world’s top buyer and seller of nat-
ural gas and the largest electricity mar-
keter in the United States. It also mar-
keted coal, pulp, paper, plastics, metals
and fiber-optic bandwidth.
Dazed workers trickled out of
Enron’s downtown Houston head-
quarters Wednesday afternoon, across
the street from the company’s new
$200 million, 40-story glass tower, say-
ing they couldn’t predict Enron’s
future — or their own.
“I don’t know that there is a soft
landing,” said Enron employee David
Picone. “Top to bottom, this is a hard
landing for everybody.”
In its heyday, Enron lavished con-
tributions on politicians. The company
and its employees have been the single
biggest group of contributors to
President George W. Bush’s cam-
paigns.
But even the company’s political
connections couldn’t stop the slide.
Enron’s money-losing broadband unit
and power operations in India and
Brazil are up for sale, and analysts said
Enron has no other obvious rescuers.
Enron and Dynegy, both based in
Houston, had spent the last several
days trying to work out a revision to
their Nov. 9 merger agreement, which
valued Enron stock at more than $10
per share. Dynegy finally scuttled the
deal, saying some aspects of the
takeover agreement had not been met.
“Sometimes, a company’s best
deals are the very ones it did not do,”
Dynegy chairman and chief executive
Chuck Watson said.
Enron last month revealed that
partnerships run by its executives had
allowed the company to keep about
$500 million in debt off its books and
let the executives profit from the
arrangements. The Securities and
Exchange Commission is investigating.
The company ousted its chief
financial officer, Andrew Fastow, in
October, and several weeks ago restat-
ed its earnings back to 1997 — elimi-
nating more than $580 million in
reported income in that time span.
Enron tried to restore investor
confidence by promising to sell its
money-losing businesses to shore up
its once-profitable trading operation,
but investors continued dumping
shares.
Enron suspended payment of
some debt and shut down its online
trading operation Wednesday.
Executives were “evaluating and
exploring other options to protect our
core energy businesses,” said Kenneth
L. Lay, the company’s chairman and
chief executive.
A woman carries a
pair of boxes as she
leaves the Enron
headquarters in
downtown Houston,
Wednesday. Enron
Corp., once the
world’s largest ener-
gy trader, slid
toward bankruptcy
Wednesday in one
of the most spec-
tacular downfalls
Wall Street has ever
seen after its would-
be rescuer Dynegy
Inc. backed out of
an $8.4 billion deal
to take it over.
AP photoselect
Brentlinger-
Continued from page 1
Also while serving as dean, the
construction of the communications
building, the studio theater and the
Dishman Art Gallery were accom-
plished.
“I became heavily involved in lob-
bying the administration for an art
gallery,” Brentlinger said.
Shortly after the completion of the
art gallery, he became a acquainted
with the Heinz Eisenstadt family from
Port Arthur who Brentlinger said had a
fabulous art collection. He helped
bring that collection to Lamar which is
now housed in the Dishman Gallery.
In March 1992, Brentlinger
became interim president and served
in that position for one year.
During that time, he helped to
establish Cardinal Lights.
“It was mainly an occasion where
we wanted to light up the campus,” said
Brentlinger.
In 1993, Brentlinger became assis-
tant to the president. He said he works
on special projects that the president
has in mind, meets with the executive
council each week, and carries out spe-
cific assignments that he is asked to
work on.
“He has been a special friend and
mentor to me,” said Jimmy Simmons,
president of Lamar University.
Aside from the activities and pro-
grams that he has been involved with
at Lamar, Brentlinger is an active
member of Habitat for Humanity and
has been an officer in the Rotary Club.
He also served as vice-president of the
Texas Council of the Arts in Education
from 1982 to 1984 and as president
from 1984 to 1986.
Brentlinger said the activities that
are still going on now are the most
rewarding activities that he has been
involved in.
Since he has been here, Brock
Brentlinger served many administra-
tive positions and has seen many
changes at Lamar such seeing it go
from a technical college to a university.
“What I have seen is a maturing of
the academic programs at Lamar, not
only in titles but in actuality, the con-
cept of the university.” Brentlinger
said. “I think that’s the big change I’ve
seen on this campus, the moving from a
technology college to a full fledge uni-
versity for the development of many
new programs and a kind of maturing
of the institution so that it now offers
degrees in a variety of fields typical of
a university. I think that’s the big
change I’ve seen at Lamar University.”
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Jordan, Kasey A. University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, November 30, 2001, newspaper, November 30, 2001; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth500581/m1/4/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lamar University.