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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sun-tzu who wrote (148617)	2/4/2002 10:10:15 PM
From: Petrol	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

``We're fighting for liquidity,'' ::cough cough bullshit:: biz.yahoo.com Monday February 4, 9:00 pm Eastern Time Lay Appears to Have Many Assets Ex-Enron CEO Kenneth Lay Seems to Have Many Assets if, As Wife Says, He's Fighting Bankruptcy By KRISTEN HAYS Associated Press Writer HOUSTON (AP) -- If former Enron Corp. (ENE - news) chief executive Kenneth Lay is fighting to stave off personal bankruptcy, as his wife says, he appears to have a lot of assets at his disposal. Two Houston homes and four adjoining apartments in the city have a combined value of $1.1 million. Three beachfront homes and two lots on the west end of Galveston are valued at a combined $1.7 million. Four properties in glitzy Aspen, Colo., could fetch more than $19 million. Linda Lay said last week on NBC's ``Today'' show that she and her husband lost their fortune when Enron crashed because most of it was tied up in shares now each worth less than an average cup of coffee. She said all their homes are up for sale except the $7.1 million, 33rd floor of one of Houston's most exclusive high-rises. ``We're fighting for liquidity,'' she said. But if the Houston and Galveston properties are on the market, many real estate agents don't know about it. A red brick two-story house in Houston, formerly owned by the Lays and valued at $259,300, was sold within the last two months. But the two other homes and four adjoining apartments don't have for-sale signs and aren't listed on the Internet through the Houston Realtors Association. Neither are the Galveston properties. Pamela Hughes, spokeswoman for the Galveston Association of Realtors, said they could still be for sale. She said sellers sometimes ask that listings not be published and that for-sale signs not be placed in front of properties while sales are negotiated privately. But high-end brokers in Houston said the lack of easily accessible listings indicates a low priority to unload property fast -- particularly the apartments and a small, wood-frame house valued at less than $113,000. Three of the Lays' properties in Aspen are listed, and the sale of a fourth in the winter playground is being negotiated privately, said broker Joshua Saslove. A five-bedroom and a four-bedroom home in Aspen were each initially listed for $6.5 million, but the five-bedroom has been reduced to $6.15 million and the smaller dwelling is on the market for $6.125 million, Saslove said. An undeveloped lot is listed for $2.95 million. The Lays' smallest Aspen home, a three-bedroom cottage valued at $4.1 million, also is for sale, but less conspicuously. ``We are negotiating privately with an individual to acquire it,'' Saslove said of the smaller home. ``It is under contract.'' The prices the Lays paid for their homes in Texas and Colorado haven't been disclosed. Texas is a non-disclosure state, which means the price a buyer pays for a home isn't on the deed and access is limited to real estate professionals. A check of home price databases by The Associated Press Monday for the Lay's Colorado holdings didn't find any purchase prices there, either. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show Lay received about $8.3 million in salary and bonuses from Enron in 2000. Other records show he sold 1.8 million shares of Enron stock for $101 million from October 1998 through November last year. His lawyer, Earl Silbert, didn't return a call for comment on the sale of Lay's real estate holdings. Silbert said last month that Lay sold millions of dollars in stock because he needed cash to repay loans, not out of concern for the company's health. Silbert said Lay put up shares of stock as collateral for other investments. At least 15 times from February to October last year, Lay returned Enron shares to the company to repay $4 million he had received through a credit line. Records show that through December, when Lay resigned from the boards of Compaq Computer Corp. [NYSE:CPQ - news] and Eli Lilly & Co., he directly owned $6.7 million in stock in those companies. After his resignations from the boards, he was no longer required to disclose his holdings in those companies. His Enron stock, at $968,450 as of Monday, was worth less than the beachfront properties. Lay resigned as chairman and CEO of Enron Jan. 23, and resigned from the board Monday. If the Lays still worry about bankruptcy after selling off assets, they don't have to be concerned about losing their penthouse. Texas law guarantees that debtors can keep a primary residence while in bankruptcy, whether it is or a one-room efficiency apartment or a multimillion-dollar mansion.