BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JANUARY 10, 2000 ISSUE
COVER STORY The Dynamo at Enron KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS Earnings should jump 32% for 1999, to $902 million, on revenue of $42 billion Shares rose about 50% last year, quadruple the S&P Natural Gas Index Enron CEO KENNETH L. LAY doesn't like to put on airs. He won't take the express elevator to his 50th floor office in Houston. Instead, he usually rubs shoulders with the rank and file. But the unassuming Lay, raised on a farm in Missouri, is a towering giant in the energy world. Over the past 15 years, he has transformed Enron (ENE), a once-struggling pipeline company, into a cutting-edge energy powerhouse. A Republican fund-raiser savvy in the ways of Washington, Lay, 57, has deftly played the deregulation game to create the leading U.S. marketer of natural gas and electricity. First, he attacked the wholesale market, selling to utilities and cities. Now, Lay is chasing the $189 billion U.S. retail market, selling energy and services to commercial and industrial buyers. And Enron is also expanding in Europe and Asia. Lay, an economist by training, is now taking Enron into the red-hot communications industry. He is building up his own system to offer high-speed video and data transmission. And he hopes to build a market for trading ''bandwidth,'' just as Enron pioneered the trading of energy using innovative financial contracts. Not all of Lay's efforts are home runs. An Enron-controlled water business has been a disappointment. And in 1998, Enron gave up on the residential power market in California. ''From time to time things aren't going to work out as you hoped,'' says Lay. But he's not afraid to keep pitching. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS INTRODUCTION MANAGERS TO WATCH THE TOP ENTREPRENEURS THE TOP 25 MANAGERS Minuro Arakawa Bernard Arnault Arthur Blank Peter Bijur Gordon Binder Steve Case John Chambers James Curvey Thierry Desmarest Bernie Ebbers Tom Engibous Chris Gent Irwin Jacobs Steve Jobs Mel Karmazin James Kelly Timothy Koogle Ken Lay Jenny Ming Thomas Siebel Masayoshi Son Martha Stewart Keiji Tachikawa Jack Welch Yun Jong Yong ONLINE EXTRAS TO BUSINESS WEEK INVESTOR INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

Copyright 1999, Bloomberg L.P. Terms of Use   Privacy Policy