
Ex-Enron CEO Skilling launching new digital marketplace for oil investors - hhs
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-enron-skilling-new-venture-exclusive/exclusive-ex-enron-ceo-skilling-launching-new-digital-marketplace-for-oil-investors-sources-idUKKBN23A32L
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vasco
If you don't know much about Enron's history and ultimate demise I recommend
giving "A conspiracy of fools"[0] a read. It's a long one but there's also an
excellent audiobook available. It's very detailed, based on countless
interviews and very well fact checked. If it wasn't a true story, it'd be
pretty unbelievable fiction, the things management got away with.

Also a cautionary tale of tying your financial stability to your employer more
than strictly necessary (your salary). Most employees kept all their
retirement savings as Enron stock and got burned badly.

If memory doesn't fail me, the book also mentions Skilling starting to come up
with plans for his follow-up venture whenever he got out of prison, shortly
after being arrested - which I guess has now been published.

[0]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29519.Conspiracy_of_Fool...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29519.Conspiracy_of_Fools)

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filmgirlcw
I’d also recommend The Smartest Guys in the Room (and the documentary based on
the book)

[0]:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/113576.The_Smartest_Guys...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/113576.The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room)

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jgalt212
seconded. this doc was amazing.

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MattGaiser
> However, at least one investor who listened to his presentation was
> reluctant to invest in the venture because of his Enron past, that person
> said.

Only one!??!

Throw away the moral discussion of what he did. You can completely ignore it
and you still must conclude that his track record is of one of destruction of
investor value.

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ipsum2
It says at least one, not only one.

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MattGaiser
Only one confirmed is still low.

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selimthegrim
This reminds me of the critic’s reply to Gertrude Stein

[http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/gertrude_stein_a_snarky_r...](http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/gertrude_stein_a_snarky_rejection_letter_from_publisher_1912.html)

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
From his Wikipedia page:

" guilty on one count of conspiracy, guilty on one count of insider trading,
guilty on five counts of making false statements to auditors, guilty on twelve
counts of securities fraud "

If you invest money with the guy, I think you should go for the package deal
and also buy that one bridge they are selling in Brooklyn.

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Konohamaru
When does one decide to give people second-chances?

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paulgb
Giving him a second chance means letting him out of jail, not trusting him
immediately with large sums of money when he gets out.

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WJW
Nobody is forced to invest with him though. It's not like the government is
forcing money onto him, people can choose to invest or not.

If you think the legal punishment for securities fraud should include being
barred from running investment funds ever again, that is a fair position but
it's not part of the law right now and it was not part of his sentence.
Petition your local politician and/or run for office yourself if you feel
strongly about it and want to change it. He served his sentence and when he
got out he went to get a job in the field he's most experienced in. Can't
really blame him for that.

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lordnacho
As someone who ran a hedge fund, I would be a little surprised if it turned
out that people simply gave this a chance like any other investment.

When you do due diligence, especially when investing other people's money, you
need to be able to justify your choices. If the investment sours you don't
want to be the guy who decided to invest with a convicted criminal. You also
want to be doing business with "fit and proper" people, this might even be a
term that shows up in various documents as a necessity (eg Premier League has
such a test for potential owners). Needless to say a guy with his history
isn't fit and proper. In some countries you might even be barred from serving
on a board if you got convicted of this sort of thing.

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sq_
If I were an energy investor, I would be _extremely_ wary of anything Enron's
former CEO touches. I'm honestly surprised he's trying to stay in that part of
the market or even in finance at all.

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deepinsand
This idea has been tried a few times. There's a fairly liquid market for the
resale of oil and gas wells already. There is also advanced software packages
for analyzing the data. If the angle is exposing retail investors to these
assets, it'll go as well as $USO.

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lesdeuxmagots
Well... The guy knows all about securitizing and trading energy.

That said, do you really want to be buying assets from a guy who's claim to
fame is how well he is able to hide the risk in esoteric or complex structured
products?

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tc313
Andy Fastow (Enron CFO) is really the one who executed all of the structured
finance shenanigans. Skilling’s sin was lying about it to investors.

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elliekelly
Lying to investors is the _worst_ sin you can commit in the eyes of the SEC.

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WJW
That's why he went to jail. Hopefully he learned his lesson and won't do it
again. TBF, anyone investing with him and not double checking every single
word he writes deserves what is coming to them. Even then, I bet the SEC will
keep a close eye on him.

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filmgirlcw
Anyone who invests in his business, as a VC or as a customer, deserves
whatever calamity befalls them. I’m actually sort-of shocked there wasn’t some
provision in his terms of release barring him from starting a similar type of
business.

He should hire Elizabeth Holmes (whose father was a low-level Enron employee
himself — by all accounts he was wholly unrelated to the whole fraud thing,
but it’s still funny) just to bring the 21st century con artists full-circle.

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augustt
Yeah it's crazy that he's allowed to do this after only being free for a year.
People get their balls busted by probation for years after doing much, much
less significant crimes.

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elliekelly
How on earth was he not barred from the investment industry?

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gpu_explorer
What can one person say? It is strange for this market to be similar with
Enron. Keeping people in poor conditions without work is not good for so many
people leaving jail. But he really hurt many.

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hhs
This article states:

"The venture, called Veld LLC, plans to profit by charging a fee for marketing
stakes in operating oil and gas wells, one of the people said, and will offer
analytical data to investors interested in the well stakes.

Investors can acquire holdings in between one and 10 wells, which the
presentation described as “pods,” and will be sold to the investors as high-
yield investments, the people familiar with the business pitch said on the
condition of anonymity."

What's the competitive advantage with this venture?

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MattGaiser
> What's the competitive advantage with this venture?

I fear that it will be retail investors.

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leeoniya
my wife loves Tom Skilling (meteorologist for WGN 9/Chicago)

Jeffrey Skilling is his younger brother:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Skilling#Personal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Skilling#Personal)

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foghornleghorn
A lot of the comments here are about investors. Think about it this way as
well: if you were an engineer, would you work for Skilling? Hell, if you were
anyone that did anything, would you work for him?

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CryptoBanker
A lot of people would if he can satisfactorily answer the question "How much
are you paying?"

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vaxman
"Are you smoking crack?" enron

\--google it before downvoting, all these ignorant people making my Karma go
negative

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quantified
“In addition to Skilling, Veld consists of a Stanford mathematician with a
doctoral degree helping start the venture.“ Does Stanford teach cooking the
books in the math department? I remember almost investing in Enron except I
couldn’t understand how they really made money.

Now that I live in CA I feel this is like announcing Jeffrey Dahmer is opening
a BBQ joint.

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gruglife
What could possibly go wrong?!

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awillen
#nottheonion

