New York, Aug 4 (Newswire): Do the former directors of the institutions that collapsed during the financial crisis have anything to worry about? If the experience of Enron is any example, the answer is a resounding no.
A look back at the career paths of onetime Enron directors indicates that the former directors of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers will continue their prominent careers.
Enron collapsed into bankruptcy in 2001 amid accusations of accounting improprieties and outright fraud. The scandal sent shock waves through corporate America, but compared with the global financial crisis, it almost seems small and quaint.
Still, in the case of Enron, unlike in the financial crisis, top corporate executives went to prison. Most prominently, Jeffrey Skilling, a former chief executive of Enron, was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Yet while some Enron executives paid a price for the scandal, it is a different story with Enron's former directors — the people charged with overseeing the company. A search of their current whereabouts shows that they have recovered nicely from the scandal.
Four former Enron directors still serve on public boards. Frank Savage, for example, still heads his own investment firm and serves on the boards of Bloomberg L.P. and Lockheed Martin. Norman P. Blake Jr. serves on the board of Owens Corning, where he is the head of that company's audit committee.
A number have gone back to or entered academia. Wendy Gramm, the wife of the former senator Phil Gramm, vice chairman of UBS investment bank, is still in residence at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
Robert K. Jaedicke, who was chairman of Enron's audit committee, teaches at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. And Lord John Wakeham has remained chancellor of Brunel University in London.
The private sector Enron directors also continued their careers without much of a hiccup. Ken L. Harrison retired as chief executive of the Portland General Electric Company last year. And Ronnie C. Chan has remained chairman of the Hang Lung Group in Hong Kong since Enron's collapse.
Most of the remaining directors have since retired or now work in small private or family businesses, a euphemism for semiretirement.
John Mendelsohn, for example, is to retire next month as head of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Then there is Rebecca Mark-Jusbasche. She was named one of the "luckiest persons in Houston" by Fortune magazine. Ms. Mark-Jusbasche left the Enron board in 2000, selling more than $80 million worth of company stock. She now runs family properties in New Mexico and Colorado.
A few of the directors conveniently omit Enron from their biographies, but they do not appear to remain tainted, staying in their chosen professions.
The only court penalty placed upon them was related to a $165 million settlement of shareholder litigation arising from Enron's demise. The directors personally had to pay a relatively large $13 million. The rest was covered by insurance.
The experiences of the Enron directors over the last decade would appear to offer great hope to the directors of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.
Indeed, many of these directors remain not only as directors of public companies from before the financial crisis, but they have joined new boards. Even Alan Greenberg is still on the Viacom board with a fellow Bear board alumnus, Frederic V. Salerno, who serves on six public company boards. In all, 6 of the 12 Bear directors at the time of the investment bank's collapse are still directors of public companies.
None of the Bear directors have appeared to have career difficulties. The two academics on the board were the Rev. Donald J. Harrington, who remains the president of St. John's University, and Henry S. Bienen, who is emeritus president of Northwestern University. Frank T. Nickell is still chief executive, president and chairman of Kelso & Company, while Paul A. Novelly remains C.E.O. of the Apex Oil Company.
In fact, with the exception of James E. Cayne, none are fully retired or appear to be having trouble finding good positions.
It is the same for Lehman Brothers, with Richard S. Fuld Jr., the former chief executive, bearing the brunt of the public approbation. He is at his own firm, Matrix Advisors, and — fairly or unfairly — remains the focus of blame for Lehman's demise.
As for the other Lehman directors, six of them held directorships as recently as January. Jerry A. Grundhofer was appointed to the Citigroup board after Lehman's fall. He has since resigned from that board, but he remains on the boards of EcoLab and the Midland Company. Roland A. Hernandez joined the Sony board and still remains on the boards of MGM Mirage, the Ryland Group and Vail Resorts.
The rest of the board members were mostly private investors. Roger S. Berlind was and still is a theatrical producer. Michael L. Ainslie, former chief executive of Sotheby's, is a private investor. Christopher Gent is a senior adviser to the consulting group Bain & Company as well as nonexecutive chairman of GlaxoSmithKline.
So the Bear and Lehman directors are returning to public company service even quicker than the Enron directors. In part this reflects the old boy network on Wall Street, which keeps people in the same positions because of friendships. It is not a coincidence that two former Bear Stearns directors serve on the Viacom board.
The trend also underscores the decline in the importance of reputation on Wall Street — even since the time of Enron. Prior bad conduct simply is often not viewed as a problem.
But in the case of the Bear and Lehman directors there is another significant factor. The financial crisis was an enormously complex event, and people will be debating its causes for years to come. Blame can be dispersed, and an executive or director can simply say it was the crisis itself — not poor management or inadequate board supervision — that caused their firm's demise.
I am not arguing that these directors be tarred and feathered or that they should not be able to earn a living, but rather that there should be market penalties for failure — just as Ms. Gramm's Mercatus Center often argues. At a minimum, one would think that other public companies might be more hesitant to keep these failed directors on their boards.
In the end, the directors of companies that failed in the financial crisis will most likely receive an even freer pass than the Enron directors.
A look back at the career paths of onetime Enron directors indicates that the former directors of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers will continue their prominent careers.
Enron collapsed into bankruptcy in 2001 amid accusations of accounting improprieties and outright fraud. The scandal sent shock waves through corporate America, but compared with the global financial crisis, it almost seems small and quaint.
Still, in the case of Enron, unlike in the financial crisis, top corporate executives went to prison. Most prominently, Jeffrey Skilling, a former chief executive of Enron, was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Yet while some Enron executives paid a price for the scandal, it is a different story with Enron's former directors — the people charged with overseeing the company. A search of their current whereabouts shows that they have recovered nicely from the scandal.
Four former Enron directors still serve on public boards. Frank Savage, for example, still heads his own investment firm and serves on the boards of Bloomberg L.P. and Lockheed Martin. Norman P. Blake Jr. serves on the board of Owens Corning, where he is the head of that company's audit committee.
A number have gone back to or entered academia. Wendy Gramm, the wife of the former senator Phil Gramm, vice chairman of UBS investment bank, is still in residence at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
Robert K. Jaedicke, who was chairman of Enron's audit committee, teaches at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. And Lord John Wakeham has remained chancellor of Brunel University in London.
The private sector Enron directors also continued their careers without much of a hiccup. Ken L. Harrison retired as chief executive of the Portland General Electric Company last year. And Ronnie C. Chan has remained chairman of the Hang Lung Group in Hong Kong since Enron's collapse.
Most of the remaining directors have since retired or now work in small private or family businesses, a euphemism for semiretirement.
John Mendelsohn, for example, is to retire next month as head of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Then there is Rebecca Mark-Jusbasche. She was named one of the "luckiest persons in Houston" by Fortune magazine. Ms. Mark-Jusbasche left the Enron board in 2000, selling more than $80 million worth of company stock. She now runs family properties in New Mexico and Colorado.
A few of the directors conveniently omit Enron from their biographies, but they do not appear to remain tainted, staying in their chosen professions.
The only court penalty placed upon them was related to a $165 million settlement of shareholder litigation arising from Enron's demise. The directors personally had to pay a relatively large $13 million. The rest was covered by insurance.
The experiences of the Enron directors over the last decade would appear to offer great hope to the directors of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.
Indeed, many of these directors remain not only as directors of public companies from before the financial crisis, but they have joined new boards. Even Alan Greenberg is still on the Viacom board with a fellow Bear board alumnus, Frederic V. Salerno, who serves on six public company boards. In all, 6 of the 12 Bear directors at the time of the investment bank's collapse are still directors of public companies.
None of the Bear directors have appeared to have career difficulties. The two academics on the board were the Rev. Donald J. Harrington, who remains the president of St. John's University, and Henry S. Bienen, who is emeritus president of Northwestern University. Frank T. Nickell is still chief executive, president and chairman of Kelso & Company, while Paul A. Novelly remains C.E.O. of the Apex Oil Company.
In fact, with the exception of James E. Cayne, none are fully retired or appear to be having trouble finding good positions.
It is the same for Lehman Brothers, with Richard S. Fuld Jr., the former chief executive, bearing the brunt of the public approbation. He is at his own firm, Matrix Advisors, and — fairly or unfairly — remains the focus of blame for Lehman's demise.
As for the other Lehman directors, six of them held directorships as recently as January. Jerry A. Grundhofer was appointed to the Citigroup board after Lehman's fall. He has since resigned from that board, but he remains on the boards of EcoLab and the Midland Company. Roland A. Hernandez joined the Sony board and still remains on the boards of MGM Mirage, the Ryland Group and Vail Resorts.
The rest of the board members were mostly private investors. Roger S. Berlind was and still is a theatrical producer. Michael L. Ainslie, former chief executive of Sotheby's, is a private investor. Christopher Gent is a senior adviser to the consulting group Bain & Company as well as nonexecutive chairman of GlaxoSmithKline.
So the Bear and Lehman directors are returning to public company service even quicker than the Enron directors. In part this reflects the old boy network on Wall Street, which keeps people in the same positions because of friendships. It is not a coincidence that two former Bear Stearns directors serve on the Viacom board.
The trend also underscores the decline in the importance of reputation on Wall Street — even since the time of Enron. Prior bad conduct simply is often not viewed as a problem.
But in the case of the Bear and Lehman directors there is another significant factor. The financial crisis was an enormously complex event, and people will be debating its causes for years to come. Blame can be dispersed, and an executive or director can simply say it was the crisis itself — not poor management or inadequate board supervision — that caused their firm's demise.
I am not arguing that these directors be tarred and feathered or that they should not be able to earn a living, but rather that there should be market penalties for failure — just as Ms. Gramm's Mercatus Center often argues. At a minimum, one would think that other public companies might be more hesitant to keep these failed directors on their boards.
In the end, the directors of companies that failed in the financial crisis will most likely receive an even freer pass than the Enron directors.
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