Bent on matching or beating Wall Street expectations, Enron Corp. fudged its earnings figures with the knowledge of executives Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, the company’s former chief contact for investors testified Wednesday.

Leading off the government’s case in Skilling and Lay’s fraud trial, Mark Koenig told jurors the two men were closely involved in company operations and sought to boost Enron’s stock price, which required impressing stock analysts.

Koenig walked jurors through several drafts of a July 2000 press release in which quarterly earnings were raised from 32 cents per share to 34 cents because Enron executives wanted to beat Wall Street estimates by 2 cents.

“We thought it would maintain or increase the stock price,” Koenig testified.