Eine sehr schlechte Aktie erkennt man darin

verfasst von Turon, 27.02.2002, 11:36

daß man sie nicht puten kann - weil die Stillhalter davon ausgehen, daß das Ding runterknallt. J.P Morgan gehört dazu. Gruß


>February 27, 2002
>THE TRANSACTIONS
>Enron Hid Big Loans, Data Indicate
>By KURT EICHENWALD
>
>
>Even as executives with the Enron Corporation (news/quote) were being privately warned last September that huge corporate debts were being hidden from investors, the company entered into a series of deals that appear to have disguised more than $350 million in new bank loans, according to internal company documents, court records and accountants.
>The transactions took place on Sept. 28, Enron's last business day before it began calculating its quarterly results, with J. P. Morgan Chase (news/quote) and an offshore entity, and were supposed to carry little risk. But now, with Enron in bankruptcy since early December, whether the bank will recover the full value of the money it advanced to Enron is a matter that will have to be decided in court.
>For all outward appearances, the transactions were a series of trades intended as protection against possible future rises in the price of natural gas. But they actually served, the records show, simply to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars temporarily from J. P. Morgan to Enron, which was supposed to return the money plus a few million more in a matter of months. In essence, the transaction was a loan with an interest rate of more than 3 percent.
>The trades, while apparently following legal requirements, underscore how some of the most aggressive financing techniques used by Enron continued up to its demise. Indeed, they indicate that even after Enron disclosed to Wall Street a number of transactions that served to hide debt and increase earnings, there were still significant secrets hidden in its financial statements, yet to be revealed.
>Unlike the partnership dealings, these transactions are believed by lawyers and accountants to have been reflected in Enron's financial statements. However, they allowed something that had all the earmarks of a bank loan to instead be written up as cash assets and liabilities from the company's trading business.
>Vance Meyer, a spokesman for Enron, declined to comment, citing litigation involving the transactions.
>Kristin Lemkau, a spokeswoman for J. P. Morgan Chase, said that the trades were a common type of transaction, known as structured finance, that would have been reflected in the financial reports of both companies, although not as loans.
>The transactions"were on J. P. Morgan Chase's balance sheet and were designed to be reflected on Enron's balance sheet," she said, adding that"structured finance is used by virtually every company in America; it allows companies to lower their costs of financing and diversify their investor base."
>The trades involved an offshore entity based in Jersey, in the Channel Islands, and known as Mahonia Ltd. Many earlier transactions among Enron, Morgan and Mahonia also appeared to be contracts for future purchases of natural gas, and a series of insurance companies issued guarantees that payment would be made if the commodity was not delivered. In those deals, the insurers have sued, contending that the transactions were fraudulent, and that no delivery of gas was ever intended.
>The trades last fall, however, were not covered by guarantees issued by the insurers. Instead, Enron turned to Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale, known as WestLB. Enron received a letter of credit that would be paid to Mahonia and, because of the transactions, ultimately to J. P. Morgan to guarantee that Enron would meet its obligations under the trade.
>All told, J. P. Morgan has exposure of $1.1 billion from the series of transactions involving Mahonia. Of that amount, $165 million is from the WestLB letter of credit that has not been paid; the remaining part of the $350 million loan was sold off to other banks.
>Earlier this month, Mahonia sued WestLB in a British court, demanding payment on the letter of credit. WestLB has refused, contending that the series of three transactions among Enron, J. P. Morgan and Mahonia were simply a mechanism to hide bank loans.
>"Under the right circumstances, any one of these swap transactions by itself could have been legitimate," said Fred Mauhs, a managing director with WestLB in New York. But when the parties entered into all three transactions simultaneously, he added,"the only possible purpose we can discern was to disguise a loan from Chase to Enron."
>For their part, J. P. Morgan officials criticized WestLB's efforts to void the letter of credit, saying that none of the details that have emerged changed the nature of the obligation.
>"WestLB's conduct is an outrageous attempt to get out of a straightforward letter of credit obligation," Ms. Lemkau, the spokeswoman, said."It will only cause damage and uncertainty to the commercial market."
>In court papers, WestLB has advanced evidence that Mahonia served no true role in the transaction. For example, the papers contain details of an interview conducted by lawyers for WestLB this year, on Feb. 5, with Joseph Deffner, an Enron executive involved in the trades. In the interview, Mr. Deffner said that to the best of his recollection, all of the negotiations about the trades with Mahonia and J. P. Morgan were conducted between Enron and the bank directly. Mahonia played no role in those talks, according to court records describing the interview.
>The transactions last September involved a series of trades of a fixed value of cash for another value that floated depending on the future price of natural gas contracts. This theoretically would allow one side of the transaction to lock in a price for a quantity of natural gas, regardless of where the price for the commodity went.
>The trades began between Morgan and Mahonia. Records of the trade show that the bank agreed to pay $350 million, deliverable immediately on Sept. 28, in exchange for a payment based on the variable value of gas futures contracts as of March 25 of this year, with payment due the following day.
>At the same time, Mahonia entered into a transaction with Enron, with the exact same terms. As a result, the $350 million flowed on Sept. 28 from the bank to Mahonia, then from Mahonia to Enron.
>The third leg of the transaction — between J. P. Morgan and Enron — was also created that day, documents show. Under that transaction, Enron agreed to pay Morgan a fixed obligation of about $356 million, according to court records. Meanwhile, Morgan agreed to pay Enron the variable value of the exact same number of gas contracts in the other two trades. Both cash deliveries were due on the same day, March 26.
>A result of these series of trades was a circular transaction, the records indicate, in which many of the obligations created by the trade were simply canceled. Under the deal, Enron owes Mahonia a variable payment on March 26, which equals the variable payment owed by Mahonia to Morgan, which equals the variable payment owed by Morgan to Enron, all due on the same day.
>Ultimately, Enron was required by the three legs to do nothing more than give the variable payment to itself. But the fixed payment is real. Morgan gave the $350 million to Mahonia, which in turn gave it to Enron on Sept. 28. Then, on March 26, Enron was supposed to pay $356 million to Morgan and owe nothing else to anyone. The payment was equivalent to the principal plus an interest payment at a rate of about 3.4 percent. At the time, that was the going rate for similar six-month loans.
>The only way the variable payment would come into play would be if Enron defaulted on its obligation. Given its bankruptcy, that is now certain to happen. With Enron unable to even start the variable payment on its circular route, Mahonia hoped to be paid by the letter of credit from WestLB. That money, then, would go to J. P. Morgan to meet the variable payment obligation of Mahonia. With Enron unable to complete its trade with J. P. Morgan, the variable payment would stop there, potentially reimbursing the bank the full amount it had advanced. But with WestLB refusing to pay, that will not occur unless a court orders it.


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