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Enron's 'Crooked E' sign snares $44,000 in auction

C Bryson Hull in Houston

Enron Corp sold a prized asset on Wednesday for 88 times its asking price, but this time it didn't need an accountant, banker or chief financial officer to make the deal -- just an auctioneer.

The Houston company sold off a 5-foot chrome sign of its "Crooked E" logo for $44,000 -- about the price of a nicely equipped Lexus sedan -- as part of a huge auction to raise money for creditors owed billions in its collapse.

The Enron sign, fittingly marked "Lot No. 1," was the centerpiece of a two-day auction of thousands of company surplus TVs, computers, printers, chairs, knickknacks and other items that washed up after Enron filed for bankruptcy last December amid questions about its accounting.

The winning bidder, Jimmy Luu, said he did it on behalf of his boss at Microcache, a three-store Houston computer retail and repair chain. The opening bid for the "E" was just $500.

"He said do anything to get it," Luu said, declining to identify his boss. "He just said 'Get the E.'">

All Luu had to do was keep bidding higher, prompted by a raucous crowd that stood on its tip-toes to see the contestants. The auction at a Houston hotel drew a capacity crowd and lines that stretched outside. More than 12,000 bidders were signed up to bid via the Internet as well.

As the auction climaxed for the sign, the crowd grew so large that auctioneer Kirk Dove had to run to the back of the room and stand on a chair so he could call the duel between Luu and his chief competitor, Mir Azizi.

Dove, as much a stand-up comic as a stoker of bidding frenzy, whipped the crowd up with rapid patter and one-liners.

"Remember, this auction is brought to you by the US Bankruptcy Court, so think before you bid," he cracked.

The $44,000 nearly tripled the price paid in a London auction for a similar sign from in front of Enron House, the fallen energy giant's European headquarters.

"I felt like a star in there, with everybody cheering," the shell-shocked Luu told a crush of reporters that followed him out of the auction room.

Azizi, standing nearby, carped, "It wasn't his money, damn it. It was my money!" Azizi said he had planned to put the sign atop an 18-unit loft development he is building near downtown Houston.

"I was going to call it 'The E-Lofts.' It was a marketing gimmick," he said.

As far as marketing gimmicks, the auction proved effective. Those looking for bargains found them few and far between as the strange psychology of auction bidding took hold, replacing cool-headed reason with head-to-head competition.

One small television that retails new for less than $250 snared a bid of $600, prompting Dove to remark: "I have two words for you: Circuit City," a reference to the discount electronics retailer. Several dozen used plasma screen televisions all sold at around $8,000, about the cheapest price for which they can be purchased new.

"Our creditors should be pleased," Enron spokeswoman Karen Denne said.

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