Enron has had a very good year to date and we at Enron Europe have played our part in this.   However, if we are to maintain growth levels, we need to focus very closely on our cost base and create more efficiencies in the current round of Enron Corp. budget reviews.

We are analysing much more closely exactly which businesses we derive our earnings from and concentrating our resources on those areas.  We will be taking decisions to put some projects on the "back burner"and reduce the scope of others.

This will inevitably mean that we need to reduce our headcount both in commercial and commercial support groups as we seek to identify the best mix of skills to keep us on our earnings growth track.  To this end we will be seeking to cut our headcount in Europe by between five and ten percent, but we will aim as far as possible to achieve this through a program of voluntary severance.  Details of this program will be made available by Monday 8th October.  We hope to complete this exercise and communicate the outcome as quickly as possible in October so that everyone knows where they stand.

Please feel free to contact either of us, but also talk to your supervisor about any specific concerns you may have and remember that you can also make use of the LifeWorks confidential counselling service that is available on 0800 169 1920.

We firmly believe that if we work hard together now to achieve these short term goals, we will create a stronger, more flexible team at Enron which will be better placed than ever to grow our business in Europe.

John Sherriff and Michael Brown