Subject: fw : crown energy
oscar wyatt and tom bachtell have agreed with our recommendation to hold off doing anything pending the results of the mcn / mcnic arbitration scheduled july 23 - august 10 .
they also were unaware that our convertible preferred was non - voting which effectively ruled out doing anything at the june shareholder meeting along the lines they were considering since the record date has passed .
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from : lydecker jr . , richard
sent : friday , may 11 , 2001 5 : 15 pm
to : skilling , jeff
cc : redmond , brian ; kitchen , louise ; lavorato , john
subject : crown energy
i spoke with oscar wyatt this afternoon on crown and subsequently to tom bachtell , an attorney in utah who is attempting to organize shareholders to replace existing management . crown has an asphalt oil sand production facility in northeast utah and an asphalt distribution company . bachtell owns about 4 - 5 % of the stock . mr . wyatt indicated he had a " small " holding . i indicated that we would consider any proposal that might result in salvaging some value from this investment .
we hold convertible preferred and a small amount of common at an original cost of $ 5 . 5 million in 1997 . fully converted , our ownership would be approximately 25 % . the company has a net deficit of $ 21 million and a " going concern " paragraph in its audit opinion . we have written down our carrying value to nil .
the company in engaged in an arbitration proceeding against mcn energy and mcnic pipeline . mcnic has interests in the asphalt assets and is a lender to crown . mcnic attempted to foreclose on certain crown assets and crown in turn counter - sued for $ 100 million . the arbitration hearing will be held july 23 - august 10 . if crown obtained an award from the arbitration , some value could be restored to our investment .
we will get further information from bachtell on the details of his plans and recommend what position enron should take in this matter .