Steve - when you get a chance, please take time to read David Merrill's 
status report below.  Frankly, I think he is trying his best to get on top of 
the EBS tasks we have given him.

HOWEVER, having said that, and before having received his report below, I was 
going to write you an e-mail indicating that I am afraid we cannot continue 
to keep David in this role.  I just returned from Tokyo (office opening,  
meetings, etc.).  There, I saw Sanjay, who confirmed his imminent new role 
for EBS Asia, Anthony Duenner (President, EBS Asia), and Bill White, head of 
EBS Asia Trading.  David simply does not enjoy the confidence of his 
commercial clients in EBS, and, notwithstanding my comments above about the 
level of his effort, I do not see turning this around.  His problem is not 
any single one thing, but a cumulation of things, which I list below, but I 
think it is the totality that feeds the general view:

1)  He was probably only a decent fit with the old Enron APACHI, when it was 
asset-focussed, and he could use his diplomatic experience to open doors for 
projects.  Even then, he was never an "Enron" person, in terms of our 
culture, and being isolated in Singapore has probably not helped to get him 
inculcated in the company culture.  With EBS and Enron Asia taking a much 
more "merchant" business focus, he just does not get it.

2)  Chris Hunt (APACHI), and Jim Row (ex-EBS) encoureaged him to 
develop/pursue origination leads.  EBS does not want him doing that, and the 
asset-focussed stuff he keeps tossing the way of the enrgy groups is grating 
to them, given that they simply see him as not getting the message that the 
company has moved away from  assets.

3)  Bill White tells me that he (David) has not performed well in a meeting.  
It is a single data point, but Bill is also known to me from Enron Europe 
days, and he is not a particularly critical person.

4)  David only exacerbates this by being insecure about his role, and trying 
too hard to sell himself to the clients/customers internally, and they find 
this teidous.

5)  Frankly, though it is not the only source of David's problems, I think he 
was ill-served by Donald Lassere and XiXi (the associate), who I am confident 
conducted what is know here as a "whispering campaign", i.e., "he does not 
know what he is doing", "he is not an expert in the filed", and generally 
acting like a pair of juveniles when it has come to any effort to bring a 
sense of stability and order to the clients, e.g., "don't know what I am 
supposed to be doing". 

In any event, I simply do not see much prospect of persuading the EBS people 
to give David a chance, and I think I will be doing myself no favours with 
them by pushing it.  SO, either we find another role, e.g., in in Washington, 
and I am nor sure they need someone with David's skill sets, or we let David 
go.  Your thoughts?

In terms of supporting EBS Asia, I think the new guy I hired here in London 
could do it quite capably, but all of the biz is either in Houston, or I am 
told Sanjay is contemplating a move to Singapore, so, in eitheerr case, my 
guy here can probably not be effective from the standpoint of being read into 
the business.  From where I am, I would prefer to have someone in Singapore 
or Tokyo, rather than Houston, but the people in Houston may want someone 
closer to them (I frankly think it is a mistake to try to build a business in 
Asia from Houston).  Sanjay mentioned the guy who is his General Counsel at 
Dabhol Power Company, and I will discretely check with Jane Wilson on her 
impressions (but he will not be "communications" literate/specialised).  

Look forward to your ideas.   mcs    
---------------------- Forwarded by Mark Schroeder/LON/ECT on 05/11/2000 
10:40 ---------------------------


David Merrill@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT
05/11/2000 07:05
To: Mark Schroeder@ECT
cc:  

Subject: Status Report

Mark:  Here is a status report: 

I  met with Anthony Duenner Friday in Korea.   He approved expenses from
his budget for (1) some of the consulting work in Hong Kong that needs to be 
done, 
(2)  Korean work with a law firm to see if we can get a new decision on 
bandwidth
trading,  (3) continuing expenses of the present tariff consultant in 
Japan.   I have
done separate e-mails on (1) and (2), copied to you.   So that concern is 
taken care of. 

Everything seems to be going very well so far in the new assignment.   Thanks 
for
giving me the lead.     Here is country by country status:

Korea:    I went up the learning curve a lot on the Korea trip (see sep 
e-mail on the 
regulatory problem we discovered and proposed strategy to deal with it).   I 
now feel 
very much on top of Korea.   Will go back to advance the work on overturning 
the
adverse regulatory ruling.   To my mind this is exactly what a regulatory 
review should
do - - identify regulatory risks before we go in.

Hong Kong:   We have identified somebody in EBS to do the system 
configuration report. 
I am going to go up there to advance the tariff submission that is due before 
year end.

Japan:   I need to get up there and get up to speed on what the consultant is 
doing on tariff and
terms and conditions.

Singapore:  I am reminding the lawyers to get a corporate entity selected so 
we can 
proceed with a license and tax incentive application.  

Taiwan:   I will be doing a Taiwan regulatory review similar to Korea but 
lower priority.  
Will probably be January.   Also was approved by Duenner.   Never did find 
out what his
people did there, but I will.  

David