24 Days
(R. Smith & J. Emshwiller)
Before WorldCom and its $11 billion history-making fraud, there was Enron. Enron sparked investigations and scrutiny like never before in the business world. 24 Days is the account written of two Wall Street Journal writers who helped blow the cover off the Enron fiasco. This book offers a unique opportunity to get behind closed doors of both the Wall Street Journal and Enron. Emshwiller was single-handedly responsible for questioning off-balance sheet partnerships that appeared in the disclosures of the company's financial statements. These partnerships were disclosed, but no one had followed up on them to see just what they consisted of. When Emshwiller and Smith began their investigation, they found a long and complex tangle of related-party transactions and cover-ups by the top executives of Enron. Smith and Emshwiller give an insightful account of just how they proceeded in this particular journalistic investigation. Their investigation was so in-depth, in fact, that government investigators used the information to launch an official investigation. Not only is that process in itself fascinating, but this book also explains, in laymen's terms, just what Enron's misdeeds were, giving investors more insight into what to watch for when making investment choices. Although we now having the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, stipulating specific requirements that public companies must meet, we cannot rely on such legislation alone. Some of the information provided is enough to make any investor better equipped to question a public company's financial statement and possibly spot questionable disclosures that have been overlooked or underreported by the investment media. This book also shows how investors cannot rely on the recommendations of pundits. The authors give specific examples of financial "experts" having close ties to companies, making them less than objective. In one case, one analyst was still giving the company a "buy" recommendation as the company was collapsing.
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