Enron board to shrink with six resignations

HOUSTON -- Six Enron Corp. board of directors who were among those in charge when the company spiraled into bankruptcy are resigning.

The company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday that three of its longest-serving members and the three international members would resign effective 30 days from Tuesday. Notice of the resignations was filed after directors met in New York.

Enron also said it would search for a new chairman and additional board members to help in its plan to return to its roots as a mover of natural gas and electricity and emerge from bankruptcy.

The company also said in the SEC filing that it will move forward with reorganization plans that include selling off money-losing assets. Last week Swiss investment bank UBS Warburg acquired Enron's once-envied trading business, and cranked up the new operation Monday.

Tuesday's resignations follow that of Kenneth Lay, who stepped down from the board Feb. 4. Lay resigned as chairman and chief executive of Enron on Jan. 23. The board, which once had 15 members, was left with eight.

The three international members who resigned, Ronnie C. Chan, Paulo V. Ferraz Pereira and Lord John Wakeham, were on the board's six-member audit committee, responsible for double-checking Enron's bookkeeping.

The others were Charles A. LeMaistre, 78, former president of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; Robert K. Jaedicke, 73, former Stanford University Graduate School of Business dean; and Houston businessman John H. Duncan, 74.

Chan, 52, is chairman of the Hang Lung Group, a Hong Kong real estate powerhouse. Ferraz, 47, is executive vice president of Group Bozano, a Brazilian banking conglomerate. Wakeham, 69, was appointed to the House of Lords in 1992.