Revolt news107 of 16.12.01 and similar messages are sent to Revolt Committee members with email, bcc to others who may be interested. If you do not wish to receive these messages please let me know. For further information please see http://www.revolt.co.uk/ 1. More on the Enron debacle (news106.5). Angela Kelly of the anti- windfarms group Country Guardian sends an article from New York Times (appended below) on how Enron's excessive use of pension funds for investing in its own company has devastated the savings of many employees. In the mean time, Kenneth L Lay, reported close friend of George W Bush, has made 200 million dollars from cashing in company options at high prices. 2. Further to our note of NGC construction work (news106.3), we now expect some steelwork to start in December at the Tholthorpe site, perhaps two or three pylons, depending on progress with foundations. More will be done in January-February, but the main construction work is to proceed on a larger scale in the spring. 3. Windfarm speculation continues to gain pace. Energy Minister Brian Wilson (a Scot) is clearly very keen on making his mark, eagerly promoting the AMEC plans for a 700 million pound investment in a 250-turbine farm on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides, together with an undersea cable down the west coast to England (Ceefax 13.12.01). That would diminish the case for the Yorkshire line, since the cable would increase the whole-grid security. But Brian Wilson is overlooking other fundamental problems, with intermittent wind supply and grid stability. 4. Perhaps Brian Wilson will follow (with AMEC) in the footsteps of John Wakeham, the Energy Minister who consented TPL then had a seat on the Enron Board. However, Brian beware! The New York Police Dept is suing Wakeham over the 20 billion pound collapse of Enron (Sunday Times 9.12.01). The NYPD claim the Enron directors "entered into a common plan and scheme to defraud the investing public". A business article in the same paper (page 3.10) warns of over-capacity in UK generation and an impending shake-out. It's a dirty business, don't we know it! 5. Grantor Robert Campbell features in a centre spread in the Winter 2001 Gridline, NGC's magazine. He has the southern sealing-end compound on his land together with 4 old pylons which will be replaced by 6 new ones on the Lackenby-Picton line. The article is about LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming, see www.leafuk.org) of which he is chairman. It is a wide-ranging body (1500 farmer members) promoting Integrated Farm management (IFM). 6. 54 members attended Revolt's AGM on 23.11.01, postponed because of foot and mouth disease. Rt Hon William Hague MP, Anne McIntosh MP, Diana Wallis MEP and David Bowe MEP sent messages of support. The committee were re-elected, apart from Joan Brunton who had resigned for personal and health reasons while pledging her continuing support. Thanks for her services were recorded. The Chairman's and Treasurer's reports were received and Sue Vicary was re-appointed as auditor. The continuing material support of Hambleton DC for another year (to 31.12.02) was noted with grateful appreciation. Special guests Peter Edmonds (NFU) and Superintendent David Short (North Yorkshire Police) spoke informatively and responded to questions in the Open Forum. The issues of "need" (for more pylons), health risks, and access over private land were discussed. It was suggested landowners seek indemnity from NGC against health risks as a condition on agreeing access over their land. It was expected that the legal rights of access, and their limitations, would be tested at court, and NGC would need to seek a court order to proceed in some cases. The future role of Revolt was confirmed as set out in the Chairman's Report: to continue to argue the case, to advise and support protesters, and to blow the whistle on NGC infringements. APPENDIX 1 Article from New York Times re. Enron Sender: articles-email@ms1.lga2.nytimes.com From: angela.kelly@which.net Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Employees' Retirement Plan Is a Victim as Enron Tumbles Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 08:41:43 -0800 (PST) Employees' Retirement Plan Is a Victim as Enron Tumbles November 22, 2001 By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. The rapid decline of the Enron Corporation (news/quote) has devastated its employees' retirement plan, which was heavy with company stock, and has infuriated workers, who were prohibited from changing their investments as the stock plunged. Through the 401(k) retirement plan, employees chose to put much of their savings in Enron shares, and the company made contributions in company stock as well. But around the time Enron disclosed serious financial problems last month, the company froze the assets in the plan because of an administrative change. For several weeks, as the stock lost much of its value, workers stood by helplessly as their retirement savings evaporated. They were not allowed to switch investments at all - even though the plan had far less risky choices. The unfortunate timing caps a year of pain for Enron's workers. At the end of last year, the 401(k) plan had $2.1 billion in assets. More than half was invested in Enron, an energy conglomerate. Since then, the stock has lost 94 percent of its value. At Portland General Electric (news/quote), the Oregon utility acquired by Enron four years ago, some workers nearing retirement have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The utility has lined up grief counselors to help them work through their problems. "We had some married couples who both worked who lost as much as $800,000 or $900,000," said Steve Lacey, an emergency-repair dispatcher for Portland General. "It pretty much wiped out every employee's savings plan." "Shortly after it was frozen, the articles started coming out about some of the questionable activities of Enron," Mr. Lacey added. "The stock took a tremendous drop, and we were pretty much helpless." The loss serves as a grim reminder of the danger of relying too heavily on one investment. Stock plunges similar to Enron's have also wiped out the retirement savings of many employees of the Nortel Networks Corporation (news/quote), Lucent Technologies Inc. (news/quote) and Global Crossing Ltd. (news/quote) The loss by Enron's workers also stands in stark contrast to the profits made by some senior Enron executives, who sold stock during the last few years. Enron's chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, made $20.7 million during the first seven months of 2001 by exercising stock options - and more than $180 million by exercising options during the three prior years. Last week, Mr. Lay agreed to forgo a $60 million severance package after Enron traders and employees made clear how upset they were that he would profit from the proposed acquisition of the company by Dynegy Inc. (news/quote) while they were suffering. Enron - which is already the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of transactions among Enron and partnerships headed by the company's former chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow, and a number of shareholders' suits - now has an additional legal problem. On Tuesday, Steve W. Berman, a lawyer from Seattle who represented states against the tobacco industry, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Houston seeking class-action status on behalf of Enron employees who lost money on the stock through their retirement plan. The lawsuit says that Enron schemed to pump up the price of the stock artificially and violated its fiduciary duty to its employees by failing to act in their best interests. "They were promoting Enron as a retirement investment vehicle and matching employees' contributions with Enron stock, when they knew the stock was overvalued, and that's a breach of their fiduciary duties," Mr. Berman said in an interview yesterday. What's more, he said, the assets were frozen on Oct. 17, with the stock at $32.20, even though Enron executives knew there would be imminent disclosures about the company's accounting practices. "They knew the worst news was about to come out, but they froze the stock," he said. Enron closed yesterday at $5.01. The company declined to comment on much of the allegations because of pending litigation. A spokeswoman, Karen Denne, said that the change in plan administrators had been in the works for a number of months and that she did not know the exact date the change was put into effect. Like many other big companies, Enron made its contributions to the plan in company shares. But employees also chose to put much of their own contributions into the stock, lured by its stellar past performance. The company says that 89 percent of the Enron stock in the plan wound up there because employees chose it, and 11 percent was the company's contribution. "A lot of people believed in the stock, so it wasn't just the company match," said an employee at Enron's headquarters in downtown Houston. "It was their own money, too. People are just shell-shocked." The stock's past performance had lured many workers. Last year, as the stock soared, total assets in the 401(k) plan rose more than 35 percent. About 57 percent of Enron's 21,000 employees participate in the 401(k) plan. The company generally matches employee contributions at 50 cents on the dollar, up to 6 percent of their salary, with Enron stock, which cannot be sold and put into another investment until the employee reaches age 50. But Ms. Denne said workers otherwise "have a range of options" in which to invest their money. Gerry O'Connor, a senior consultant with the Spectrem Group, a consulting firm based in Chicago, said it was not uncommon for companies to freeze assets when administrators were switched. "If you don't, you can wind up with misallocated money, wrong statements, and all kinds of complicating factors," he said. But a heavy dose of assets in one company stock has been a concern to many specialists in retirement planning. Employees are taking "a lot of risk, but they don't think of it as such," Mr. O'Connor said. "They say, `You know, I work for this company, and we're doing great.' " In addition to the swoon in their 401(k) plans, Enron employees have watched the value of their stock options wither. Enron gave a far larger percentage of employees options than most companies do, but now, with the fall in Enron shares, nearly all of those options are worthless. Enron's tumbling fortunes have come as a particular shock to some of its workers in Oregon. About 95 percent of the 2,700 employees of Portland General, which Enron recently agreed to sell to help it raise badly needed cash, are invested in the 401(k) plan, said Scott Simms, a spokesman. The losses, he added, have hit everyone "including officers all the way through to other staff." "It's certainly not something in which certain employees have lost out and others haven't," he said. "It was the same plan for everyone." In an interview with The Oregonian in Portland, Peggy Y. Fowler, Portland General's chief executive, said the asset freeze was an unfortunate coincidence. "The timing couldn't have been worse," she said. "We refer to our retirement program as a three-legged stool - Social Security, the company pension and the 401(k)," Ms. Fowler said. "One of the legs has been cut off." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/business/22RETI.html?ex=1007706503&ei= 1&en=3691d392ae836d79 --------------------------------- For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company Mike O'Carroll