Assets to be auctioned off

Kristen Hays

Thursday, Sept. 19, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

HOUSTON -- Bidders will compete for everything short of Kenneth Lay's desk when Enron Corp. auctions at least 10,000 items next week -- from computers and artwork to Enron stress balls and a 5-foot-tall stainless steel "E."

The bankrupt company's Houston-based headquarters will have the first of several auctions Sept. 25-26 to sell off equipment and assets from businesses long shut down, such as its former broadband and retail energy units.

But buyers seeking items from executive offices used by Lay, the former chairman and company founder, former chief executive Jeff Skilling or other one-time top officers will be out of luck.

"Executive offices have been left intact because they're still being used" by the team of restructuring specialists guiding the company through bankruptcy, spokeswoman Karen Denne said Wednesday in a warehouse stuffed with assets to be sold. "This is all surplus."

Enron retained Dovebid, a Foster City, Calif.-based business auction company, to handle the two-day sale at a Houston hotel. Bidders can participate in person or online, said Todd Moutafian, Dovebid's manager in charge of the auction.

Moutafian and Enron employees have spent three months preparing for the auction by grouping 3,000 computers, 2,000 flat panel monitors, 500 ergonomic desk chairs and hundreds of servers, printers and flat-screen televisions from Enron trading floors. Some computer setups can be purchased individually, while others will be sold in packages of 36 machines.

But all is not typical office equipment. The steel "E" used to sit outside one of Enron's offices near its downtown Houston headquarters atop a marble base. A similar "E" from Enron Europe sold for $15,000 at the company's first surplus asset auction in London in February, Denne said.

Foosball and air hockey tables from the company's cafeteria and a portable basketball hoop and backstop from the defunct broadband unit also will be available.

And hundreds of items the company used to lavish on customers, such as puzzles, calculators, golf tees and tins of mints -- all featuring Enron's tilted "E" logo -- will be sold in bulk to the highest bidder.

"When you shut down three-fourths of the business, this is what's left," spokesman Mark Palmer said.

Moutafian couldn't provide a total value for items to be auctioned because the final list of what will be sold is still being compiled. But Denne said officials expect to raise "several million dollars" to help pay off Enron creditors.

She also said more auctions will come as Enron combs through similar assets left idle when thousands of workers were laid off upon the bankruptcy filing in December.

Enron rank-and-file employees can bid, but the sale is off limits to directors, corporate officers and outside consultants.