By now, you know that the notion of The Motley Fool defending Enron is all just a big April Fool's Day prank -- maybe you suspected it all along.
There's nothing Foolish whatsoever about a company's CEO calling someone an "a**hole" for asking why a financial statement as important as the balance sheet is nowhere to be found at the time of the earnings release. (In case you've forgotten, that really is one of the stories from Enron's nasty history, unbelievable as it may seem.)
Fools prefer companies with strong managements who believe in transparency and honesty in their dealings with shareholders. We have since the day we hung our motley shingle out in public.
Defenseless claims
In keeping with the great literary device called irony, it's a great April Fool's joke to pretend that the Fool would ever defend Enron. Enron represents many elements we've always stalwartly stood against.
Back in 2001, Fools spoke out against Enron's disdain for investors and portrayed the company as the mythological archetype Icarus. The Enron story is indeed a story of hubris and greed, and that is the stuff of Greek tragedy; to use a similar reference, Enron fell so much in love with its own reflection that it forgot who it was working for.
If nothing else, though, there were lessons in the Enron debacle that all of us can take with us. Although it's impossible to always predict the integrity of a management team -- it's pretty likely none of us are psychic, nor do we generally have personal access to most management teams -- we can certainly use insights based on corporate policies and management behavior.
The opposite of "Enron" is ...
Take for example Blue Nile (NASDAQ:NILE), which has been recommended both by Motley Fool Rule Breakers and Motley Fool Hidden Gems. Last quarter, Blue Nile warned of slowing growth over the next couple quarters. However, founder and CEO Mark Vadon led an earnings conference call where he candidly discussed the very real pressures that the company faces at the moment. Vadon followed up soon thereafter with an interview with David Gardner, where Vadon's comments gave reason to believe that his is a management team that has shareholders' best interests in mind.
Also consider Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ:WFMI). This Motley Fool Stock Advisor selection still has its founder, John Mackey, in charge. As for its reputation for warm and fuzzy shareholder policies, note its emphasis on the economic value added metric, or EVA. This is a metric that more accurately portrays long-term shareholder value creation, much more so than earnings alone. Last quarter, Whole Foods was able to increase its EVA by nearly 50%.
It's also worth mentioning that in a time when many shareholders find excessive CEO compensation troubling (for good reason), Whole Foods has been one of the companies to proactively cap executive pay at 14 times the average Whole Foods worker's salary. Mackey pocketed a mere $436,000 in salary and bonus in 2005, an indication that this company knows exactly how to keep the good faith of shareholders, employees, and customers alike.
These examples provide sharp contrast to the greedy, sneaky types that Enron has come to symbolize. My hope: that Enron represented the apex of a culture of self-serving decadence and greed in corporate America, and that today's companies know that shareholders expect better -- on every level. Here's to honesty, good stewardship, and integrity in the post-Enron world.
Discuss our April Foolish campaign to Defend Enron .
Alyce Lomax does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned. The Fool has a disclosure policy.
