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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips - No Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LTK007 who wrote (7876)	11/25/2001 7:40:26 PM
From: LTK007	Respond to of 99280

Enron story just gets uglier and uglier-it now appears this apparently scum management betrayed their workers by blocking them from selling stock from 401ks 10/16 through 11/19 <<Enron Workers Sue as Savings Evaporate By Andrew Kelly HOUSTON (Reuters) - After climbing utility poles in all kinds of weather for 35 years, Roy Rinard was hoping to retire in a few years, but that was before the collapse in Enron Corp.'s (stock price devoured his retirement savings. ``I'm basically wiped out,'' said Rinard, 54, who works for Portland General Electric, an Oregon utility company acquired by the Houston-based energy trading giant in 1997. ``I'm right back to ground zero and I'll have to go on working as long as I can,'' said Rinard, who suffers from arthritis and a lung condition that leaves him short of breath. Encouraged by Enron's then-strong performance and the company's bullish view of its future prospects, Rinard moved all of the money invested in his 401(k) retirement account into Enron stock earlier this year. But it proved to be a costly decision as the value of his account fell from $470,000 a year ago to around $40,000 today. Rinard now hopes a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Houston will recover at least some of his money. The suit, filed on behalf of Enron employees by Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman, alleges that Enron breached its fiduciary duty by encouraging its employees to invest heavily in Enron stock without warning them of the risks of doing so. Enron's stock, which peaked at $90 in August 2000, closed at $4.74 on Friday, after falling sharply in recent weeks amid a series of damaging financial disclosures. A broadly similar suit filed by the Keller Rohrback law firm, also Seattle based, alleges that another Enron employee, Pamela Tittle, lost $140,000 on Enron stock held in her retirement account. According to that suit, the Enron retirement savings plan had assets worth $2.1 billion at the end of last year, including $1.3 billion, or 62 percent of the total, in Enron stock. DOUBTS EMERGE ABOUT DYNEGY DEAL Enron, a former Wall Street favorite, agreed to be bought out earlier this month by smaller energy trading rival Dynegy Inc.(NYSE:DYN - news), but continuing problems at Enron have caused some analysts to question whether the deal will be completed. Doubts have also been expressed about a planned sale of Portland General to Northwest Natural Gas (NYSE:NWN - news). Hagens Berman plans to seek class-action status for its suit and says 21,000 Enron employees could be eligible to join it. The suit alleges that Enron ``locked down'' 401(k) retirement accounts on Oct. 17, preventing employees from changing the investments they held in their accounts until Nov. 19. During that period Enron reported its first quarterly loss in four years and took a charge of $1.2 billion against stockholders' equity as a result of off-balance-sheet deals that would later come under investigation by U.S. regulators. In that time, Enron shares fell from $30.72 at the close of trading Oct. 16 to $11.69 on Nov. 19. lyees by