ENRON'S FINANCIAL WOES COULD QUELL TELECOM HOPES

As Enron — the country''s largest energy-trading operation — fights a credit crunch, its dream of building a financial derivatives market for bandwidth is crumbling. The company may be ready to bail on telecom altogether, possibly through an asset sale.

Enron decided to mothball its European broadband business, and Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay said during a third quarter earnings call that the company is exploring several options for Enron Broadband Services and other noncore ventures. Enron did not return calls seeking further comment.

Enron was willing to absorb broadband losses when its energy business was going gangbusters, but the economy has changed its mind. In the third quarter, the company took a $1.01 billion charge — about $180 million to restructure Broadband Services — that pushed it into the red for the first time in four years.

Enron''s search for more liquidity in the wake of credit downgrades and the erosion of trading partners'' confidence could lead to some asset sales. The broadband unit may be on the block, having given its parent nothing but heartache.

After the embarrassment of last year''s highly visible deal with Blockbuster Entertainment, Enron''s contract to provide backbone services for Microsoft''s MSN turned sour. Enron filed a breach of contract suit against Microsoft on Oct. 25.

Financially, Enron Broadband Services has been far from a success. In the last four quarters the unit lost $279 million (excluding interest, minority interests and taxes) on $166 million in revenues. Third quarter sales totaled only $4 million.

Enron could consider a joint venture to get broadband on track or exit the business entirely. If it sells its 15,000-mile U.S. fiber network, its bandwidth-trading operation won''t be of much use because it would be unable to deliver services.

“Part of the promise depends on providing bandwidth on demand — and for that, you have to have full connectivity,” said Jeanne Schaaf, senior analyst for Forrester Research.

Enron''s very public failure to successfully transition from energy to telecom is contrary to other utilities whose abundance of capital from cash-rich electric and energy businesses gave them an advantage, said Vik Grover, senior analyst for Kaufman Bros.

For example, when Montana Power sells its last utility businesses and becomes a telecom pure-play called TouchAmerica, the company will have no debt, $300 million in cash, a $500 million revenue stream and $100 million of EBITDA.

“Utilities are the wild card,” Grover said. “They could go out and pick off some of these distressed assets, like 360networks.”

However, in a down economy, the utility telecom hybrids are likely to stick to their knitting, said Edrick Harris, analyst for New Paradigm Resources Group.

“Telecom subsidiaries [of utilities] have been keeping a low PR profile,” Harris said. “In the here and now, there''s an unfair stigma attached to [being] a telecom company.”