Enron Corp. - University of California | Office of The President

308. On 3/22/01, CitiGroup issued a report on Enron. It rated Enron's stock a "Buy" and
forecast 01 and 02 EPS to $1.73 and $2.05 and a 20% long-term EPS growth rate for Enron. It also
stated:
Enron Corporation: REAFFIRMS CONFIDENCE IN $1.70-$1.75 GUIDANCE
FOR 2001 ... OUR OUTLOOK ON ENRON REMAINS STRONG
Enron this morning reaffirmed their confidence in their 2001 earnings target of $1.70
to $1.75, on the heels of yesterday's sell-off. We remain confident in Enron's ability
to achieve this goal, and maintain our 2001 EPS estimate of $1.73. As we stated
yesterday, we think that the sell-off was unjustified as it related to concerns over
ENE bandwidth unit.... We are also not concerned about last weeks announcement
of the termination of the Blockbuster deal, as we have always placed a greater value
on the bandwidth trading portion of Enron's bandwidth strategy, rather than on
content delivery. We remain confident that bandwidth trading, the key segment
within ENE's bandwidth strategy, will show strong growth in 1Q and the
remainder of 2001.
309. On 3/23/01, Enron held a conference call for analysts, money and portfolio managers,
institutional investors and large Enron shareholders to discuss Enron's business. During the call –
and in follow-up conversations with analysts – Skilling, Rice, Causey, Koenig and Fastow stated:
• Enron was giving an update on what was going on in the Company relative to the
discussions it had at its analyst meeting in 1/01 and other discussions it had
externally and with analysts subsequent to that time.
• Enron's business was in great shape.
• Enron's wholesale business was having an outstanding quarter consistent with the
outstanding year it had last year and Enron expected that to continue.
• In Enron's retail business it had already announced $4 billion in new contracts.
Enron was highly confident in its target for the year of $225 million of income and
$30 billion of new originated contracts.
• In Enron's broadband business there had been some rumors out there that it had
terminated its intermediation business. That was absolutely not true. Enron was
having a great quarter in the intermediation side of the bandwidth business. It was
ahead of plan and Enron expected this to be a good business moving forward.
• Enron content services business was still a core area of the business. The
Blockbuster contract was not providing Enron the content it needed for VOD.
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