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Non-Tech : The Enron Scandal - Unmoderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (1834)	3/1/2002 9:20:54 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 3602

CSFB Team Had Role in Enron Partnerships Friday March 1, 12:43 am Eastern Time NEW YORK (Reuters) - Credit Suisse First Boston, the investment arm of Credit Suisse Group Inc., revealed on Thursday links with the controversial partnerships that brought down energy trader Enron Corp. ``The partnerships that CSFB worked on were reviewed by the rating agencies, outside counsels, and the accounting firms,'' a CSFB spokesman told Reuters. The company was reacting to a newspaper report that a group of CSFB bankers played a central role in creating partnerships that Enron used to hold billions of dollars of poorly performing assets and which contributed to its bankruptcy. The Financial Times reported that a CSFB team worked closely with an Enron group led by Andrew Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, to develop partnerships holding $4 billion in assets, much of which proved to be unprofitable. CSFB has handed over to U.S. Congressional investigators materials related to its dealings with Enron, including the partnerships, as the focus of lawmakers' attention shifts from the accountants that checked Enron's books to Wall Street firms, the London-based newspaper said. The investigators are also seeking documents from other Wall Street firms that were close to Enron, but the FT said its own investigation showed that Enron depended heavily on a team within CSFB to engineer the partnerships. The team, known as the structured products group, was part of Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ), which merged with CSFB in late 2000, the newspaper said. The CSFB spokesman said the partnerships in question -- Osprey, Marlin and Firefly -- were separate from the controversial partnerships that were the focus of the Powers report, commissioned by Enron to investigate several transactions that led to the company's collapse. The Marlin partnership was established to buy an investment-grade water utility, and Osprey was formed to refinance an earlier partnership created by Citibank, the spokesman said. Enron paid more than $250 million in fees to banks in 2000. DLJ and CSFB were among six banks to receive more than $20 million in Enron fee income, the FT said.