Enron understated its liabilities by transferring debt to special purpose entities (SPEs). SPEs are separate entities established by corporations to accomplish specific purposes. Often, the economic objective of an SPE is to borrow money and then transfer it to the sponsoring corporation without the sponsoring corporation having to report the SPE’s debt in its balance sheet. At the time of the Enron fraud, outside equity investors were required to provide at least 3 percent of an SPE’s total financing, and these funds had to be “at risk” (i.e., outside equity investors were to have no guarantees regarding the performance or safety of their investments). The remaining financing could be in the form of debt. Had Enron’s SPEs failed to meet the 3 percent at-risk equity financing requirement, the SPEs’ debt should have been included in Enron’s balance sheet.