Once-Busy Skilling Is Taking It Slow
Jeffrey K. Skilling has always maintained that his abrupt departure from Enron Corp. on Aug. 14, 2001, was due solely to personal reasons.
If he had stayed a few months longer, a $2-million company loan would have been forgiven. He also forfeited a $20-million severance payment. But money didn’t matter “in the grand scheme of things,” Skilling told Business Week shortly after he quit.
The hard-charging chief executive, who always said his goal was to build a company as valuable and respected as General Electric Co., said that at age 47 he was tired of leading “an unbalanced life.” He was planning to spend time with a “hands-on charity.” He even said he had been contacted about being the dean of a business school.
Then Enron collapsed. Now the closest Skilling may ever get to business school will be in a textbook on corporate scandals of the 21st century.
Since his testimony to Congress two years ago, when he said he knew nothing about any problems at Enron, Skilling has surfaced only to proclaim his innocence.
There was an appearance on “Larry King Live” in March 2002 (“I don’t think there was anyone that was as shocked by the collapse of the company as I was”) and a letter to the Houston Chronicle in August 2002 (“I did not and do not expect to be indicted”).
Otherwise, Skilling has hunkered down in his $4-million, Mediterranean-style mansion in the affluent River Oaks neighborhood of Houston with his second wife, Enron’s former corporate secretary. Skilling has three children with his first wife.
“His life will be tied up in the justice system, one way or another, for decades,” observed one local lawyer.
Skilling has gotten rid of his vanity license plates, WLEC1 and WLEC2, which stood for “World’s Largest Energy Company.” His Mercedes-Benz and two Land Rovers now display the usual meaningless jumble of letters and numbers.
Veld Interests, a venture company Skilling set up immediately after leaving Enron, seems to be defunct. His private foundation -- practically obligatory for successful executives during the 1990s boom -- remains, but it doesn’t have much money. At the end of 2002, the last year for which records are available, the value of the foundation was $203,696. Its biggest gift that year was $166,666 given to Episcopal High School in Houston.
Once a plentiful source of contributions for politicians and their parties, Skilling has closed his checkbook -- perhaps because he realized he was radioactive politically. Or maybe he just realized that, in the current scheme of things, he needs all of the more than $100 million he reportedly took home in salary, stock and options from Enron.
The government could take a good portion of it. Skilling is facing as much as $80 million in fines if convicted on all 35 counts against him. Enron’s chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow, is surrendering $30 million as part of his plea deal with prosecutors.
And then there are the civil suits filed against Skilling and other former Enron executives by aggrieved investors and creditors. The suits probably will drag on for a good long while, and top-flight lawyers are expensive.
That might also explain why Rebecca Carter, Skilling’s wife, was one of a handful of Enron employees who opted out of a court settlement that yielded $13,500 in severance pay. Carter is asking for $875,000, a request that infuriated the Enron rank and file.
Skilling was never much of a regular on the Houston scene. He was too busy working. But in the last two years, he’s been a patron of Zimm’s Martini & Wine Bar, a cozy watering hole with leather chairs and velvet couches that is nestled on the corner of a shady strip along Houston’s artsy Montrose district.
“He comes in at happy hour or evenings,” bartender Curtis Morton said. On several occasions, he said, he’s seen Skilling unwinding at the bar “at the end of the night.”
Calvo reported from Houston and Times staff writer Streitfeld reported from San Francisco.
