Enron’s 2001 collapse became the largest bankruptcy in American history at that time.
The Houston-based company grew from a natural-gas pipeline operator into a major energy trader and financial intermediary. Its apparent success depended partly on complex partnerships and accounting practices that kept debt and losses away from its published balance sheet. As investors and regulators learned more, the share price collapsed.
Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on December 2, 2001. Its bankruptcy assets were valued at about $63.4 billion, making it the largest U.S. corporate bankruptcy then recorded. Lehman Brothers later surpassed that record when it filed in 2008.
The failure damaged confidence during the wider technology-market downturn and helped prompt major corporate-governance reforms. Enron is sometimes confused with WorldCom because both companies were involved in major early-2000s accounting scandals. WorldCom filed for bankruptcy in July 2002, several months after Enron.