Removing losses from the company's books made the main corporation look more attractive. Enron appeared to be operating at a profit; a key factor in the valuation of any company's stock. By virtue of this "success," Enron was able to raise even more money for more investments.

The architects of all this "growth" profited accordingly. Ken Lay and his associates held large amounts of exceedingly valuable and overvalued stock. When Enron's cheating was finally exposed, it became painfully apparent to what extent Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and other Enron executives had been making vast sums of money on the backs of gullible workforce, and a gullible public:

The "Enron Nine" (if we may call them that) are J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Credit Suisse First Boston, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers. These financial institutions collaborated with the now-bankrupt energy company...
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