Approximately 20 percent of the $600 million restatement of prior earnings announced by Enron on November 8, 2001, was due to this item.
The remaining 80 percent of the earnings restatement involved another SPE that Enron created in 1997. Unknown to Andersen auditors, one-half of that SPE’s minimum 3 percent “external” equity had been a result, that entity did not qualify for SPE treatment, meaning that its financial data should have been included in Enron’s consolidated financial statements from its in the fall of 2001, they immediately informed Enron’s accounting staff.