Hi Chris!

Thanks for the message and the great experience at Harvard last week!  Harvard's hospitality was the best!!

I'm travelling right now and only have a minute, but I've passed along your request to Louise and will follow up with her and the totality of your request on  Monday. ( I also told Louise she was a "star in absentia" at Harvard last week!!!)

Take care and we'll speak soon!

Best!

--Christie.
---------------------- Forwarded by Christie Patrick/HOU/ECT on 05/03/2001 01:02 PM ---------------------------


Christopher Bartlett <cbartlett@hbs.edu> on 05/03/2001 09:33:48 AM
To:	christie.patrick@enron.com
cc:	 

Subject:	Enron Online case


Christie:

Following up on my message of last week, I have now finished the minor
edits required to clarify the Enron Online case (correcting the stock
price, clarifying the "One to Many" versus "Many to Many" models of
trading, etc.).  The one piece that remains for me to insert is some
information that will allow the students to make some estimates about the
economic risk involved in this bold move.  I know that wholesale services
contributed about 89% of Enron's total profit in 1999, but it is unclear
what extent of this was provided by the traditional trading activities that
subsequently were enhanced by Enron Online. My suspicion is that it is the
majority of the sales volume, and perhaps the majority of profitability,
but if we could give some clue to that in the case, it would be
helpful.  This might simply be that "trading activities constituted the
majority of wholesale services profits" or "the vast majority" or "over
80%" or whatever you think would give the students some sense of
quantification.  The alternative might be to provide data that was
disguised and could be footnoted as such.  For example, we could identify
that trading contributed "over $750 million to Enron's net profits" with
that number footnoted as a disguised figure.

The other thing that would be very helpful would be again to provide some
data on the profitability of operations in 1999 versus the profitability in
2000 when Enron Online became a dominant part of its activities.  Once
again, we could include broad-level generalizations or disguised
data.  It's your choice, but it will give the students a sense of the size
of the issue facing them.

If it is helpful to talk about this in person, please feel free to call me
on 617-495-6308 today (Thursday); or tomorrow (Friday) in the afternoon at
802-457-1880.

Once again, thanks so much not only for the cooperation on the case, but
also for the terrific organization you did in getting your executive team
up here for last week's classes.  I think you probably realized that it was
a "home run" with the students, who are still talking about it.

Best wishes,
Chris