{"id":11432,"date":"2020-08-06T16:39:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T20:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=11432"},"modified":"2020-08-13T15:36:20","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T19:36:20","slug":"rebecca-mark-enron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/rebecca-mark-enron\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebecca Mark and Enron: A Career That Collapsed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who was Rebecca Mark at Enron, and what was her role in the Enron collapse<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebecca Mark of Enron was in charge of Enron International. Alongside other Enron executives<\/a>, Rebecca Mark, Enron exec, often ran troubled projects with overexaggerated profits, and contributed to the financial collapse at Enron. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Rebecca Mark at Enron International<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Enron International arm began in Teesside in the UK, with a natural gas cogeneration plant built in 1991. This plan supplied both electricity and heat to the local area. This was a successful project, prompting energy companies to ravenously seek similar deals in developing economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebecca Mark headed Enron International. Fueled by a compensation scheme that rewarded closing deals and not actually building<\/em> the businesses<\/strong>, Rebecca Mark of Enron International globetrotted and closed deals in dozens of countries. She positioned Enron as the \u201csolver of the unsolvable problem.\u201d She was hungry to come up with projects bigger and better than Teesside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The projects were often troubled. The largest scandal was in Dabhol, India. A province struck a deal very favorable to Enron, guaranteeing a long-term purchase of highly priced energy. The Indian population revolted, seeing it as rapacious globalization. This stymied development for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, the financing for projects was often unclear. Enron International hoped the funding they would come from non-Enron sources, but sometimes Enron ended up guaranteeing the debt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enron International fed Ken Lay\u2019s desire to hobnob with international luminaries like Kissinger and heads of state, making it less likely to be scrutinized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1996, Enron International accounted for 15% of Enron\u2019s earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enron International is In Trouble<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Rebecca Mark, Enron International’s former leader, was in deep trouble at water services company Azurix<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With typical Enron hubris, Rebecca Mark thought water was easy and the incumbents were ancient. They would come in, make large deals, and figure out the details later. They also anticipated privatization of water supply, and a coming water crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immediately they ran into competition with two global heavyweights who competed aggressively for contracts to service municipalities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Azurix was also in money trouble – the Wessex deal had cost a lot, and Enron saddled Azurix with large debt. So Azurix IPO\u2019d in June 1999, raising $800 million at a stock price of $22 – despite people knowing Azurix obviously wasn\u2019t ready to go public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now a public company, Rebecca Mark of Enron stressed the appearance <\/em>of making big deals to buttress their stock value<\/strong>. In the few deals that Azurix won, they vastly overbid, largely out of desperation to signal momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n