Mitt's Bain Capital leveraged buyout problem

[Chris]

In 1992, Mitt Romney was running Bain Capital, a private equity firm. Bain Capital bought American Pad & Paper Co. (Ampad) for $5 million.

Over the next several years Romney's firm bled the company dry. Hundreds of workers lost their jobs. Stockholders were left with worthless shares. Creditors and vendors were paid less than 50 cents on the dollar. While they were exploiting the company, Romney's firm charged Ampad millions of dollars in "management fees." In all, Romney and his investors reaped more than $100 million dollars from the deal.

 

[imbalance]

If Romney restructured Washington and laid off thousands of gov bureaucrats, I don't think that would be a bad thing. In fact, it's what the country needs at this point.

 

[Chris]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKY1a3BPjrU&feature=related]1994 Anti-Romney Ad #2 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[USArmyRetired]

In 1992, Mitt Romney was running Bain Capital, a private equity firm. Bain Capital bought American Pad & Paper Co. (Ampad) for $5 million.

Over the next several years Romney's firm bled the company dry. Hundreds of workers lost their jobs. Stockholders were left with worthless shares. Creditors and vendors were paid less than 50 cents on the dollar. While they were exploiting the company, Romney's firm charged Ampad millions of dollars in "management fees." In all, Romney and his investors reaped more than $100 million dollars from the deal.

Yet after all that, Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts by the voters.

 

[The Rabbi]

Well, if Romney got elected we would finally have someone with some kind of experience in fixing something.
American Pad was obviously not a profitable well-run company when Bain bought it. The workers would have lost their jobs anyway.

 

[JoeB131]

In 1992, Mitt Romney was running Bain Capital, a private equity firm. Bain Capital bought American Pad & Paper Co. (Ampad) for $5 million.

Over the next several years Romney's firm bled the company dry. Hundreds of workers lost their jobs. Stockholders were left with worthless shares. Creditors and vendors were paid less than 50 cents on the dollar. While they were exploiting the company, Romney's firm charged Ampad millions of dollars in "management fees." In all, Romney and his investors reaped more than $100 million dollars from the deal.

Yet after all that, Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts by the voters.

Only because the Democrats ran a non-entity against him.

Ted Kennedy beat him.
He ducked out of running for re-election because he was trailing potential democrat challengers by double digits.

And he lost to John McCain. JOHN McCAIN!

 

[JoeB131]

Well, if Romney got elected we would finally have someone with some kind of experience in fixing something.
American Pad was obviously not a profitable well-run company when Bain bought it. The workers would have lost their jobs anyway.

Bullshit.

AmPad had been around since 1882. They invented the Legal Pad.

When Bain took over AmPad, their stocks were listed on the Stock exchange, and they had a mere 11 million dollars in debt.

When Bain was through with them, they had closed half their plants, had racked up 400 million in debt and had to sell off their assets, and their stock was listed as junk bond at .35 a share. The stock market delisted them.

After they got Bain out of their lives, the company has recovered quite a bit, although not the powerhouse it was.

AmPad is to Mitt Romney what Vietnam Veterans Against the War was to John Kerry.

It plays right into Obama's hands.

 

[Truthmatters]

the people who worked at that factory had no idea what was going on.

They game back to work after the 4th of july holiday to locked factory doors and a sign on the door saying "YOURE FIRED!".


That is Mitt Romenys record

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Solyndra. That is Obama's record.

 

[Valerie]

It may sound like the national budget today, but the crisis was Bain & Company in the early 1990s. The Boston consulting firm was in deep trouble. Workers and clients were starting to jump ship. Mitt Romney was called in to save the day.

“There’s nobody that I can conceive of who could have come into that fractious situation, and pull that together,” said Clay Christensen, a former Romney colleague who’s now a professor at Harvard Business School.

As interim CEO of Bain & Company, Romney negotiated with banks to buy time. He convinced employees and clients to stay on. And most spectacularly, he won $130 million in concessions from the founding partners, including Bill Bain, the very man who brought in Romney to fix the mess. Christensen says it was Romney’s crowning business achievement.

It was a remarkable political feat, considering that Romney built his career not on bringing people together, but rather on bringing companies in line. In 1984, Romney was chosen to run a spinoff venture of Bain’s consulting business — not because he was a consensus builder, but because he was a tireless pragmatic.

“Mitt’s a guy who goes and goes and goes all day long,” said Geoffrey Rehnert, who worked with Romney from the very start at Bain Capital, Bain & Company’s then-new private equity firm.

“I’ve never worked harder in my life,” Rehnert remembered. “I think the first four years at Bain Capital, I took one week of vacation. Not one week per year, one week in a four-year period.”

On the surface, Romney’s team did what other management consultants did. They’d look at a company, go through its books, find out everything they could about it and its industry. They’d even count cars in the parking lot of competitors to figure out how many people worked there. Rehnert says Romney was ruthlessly data-driven.

“Dive into the detail,” Rehnert remembered of Romney’s capability, “to the point of building models, reading legal documents, drawing slides, taking notes, and then he could zoom right back up to 50,000 feet and look down and see the big picture.”

And then decide what to do. What made Romney a millionaire hundreds of times over was the fact that Bain Capital owned these companies. The venture wasn’t simply a consulting firm that wrote a report with a list of recommendations, hoping the client company would follow through. It made the company follow through.

“He’s a very self-confident problem-solver and deal-maker, too,” said Walter Kiechel, who wrote a book on management consulting, “The Lords of Strategy.” He says at the time Romney was running things, the American corporate landscape was ripe for improvement. A lot of companies were basically coasting. They were not focused, and they were poorly managed.

“One of the most common problems was that companies didn’t really understand their own costs,” Kiechel said, “as surprising as that may sound.”

Romney’s operation at Bain Capital employed different strategies to make its acquisitions more profitable. It would sell peripheral business units and concentrate on the cash cows. It would close down operations that were losing money. Sometimes, that meant bringing in a new CEO to get things in order. Sometimes, it meant laying off people.

Romney’s Bain Years: Turnaround Specialist-In-Chief | WBUR

 

[Valerie]

Did you know Mitt turned down his salary when he was Governor?


He took $1 for the job...

 

[JoeB131]

This is why I think Running Romney is a trap...

Obama can't run on his economic record at this point. Unemployment is still going to be north of 8% and people will still be struggling to get on their feet. ..

His best hope of salvation is to blame the lack of recovery on big corporations that are putting profits ahead of people. After all, the stock market has largely recovered. They are making their money back. But they aren't hiring.

And then you have Mitt, a guy who leverage bought out companies, put hundreds of people out of work and is now essentially trying to buy the Presidency.

As Mike Huckabee once said about the guy, "I look like the guy you work with, he looks like the guy who lays you off."

This is one of the reasons I think he's floundering. As Middle Class and working class Americans start drifting back to the GOP, they have a suspicion of Wall Street that is well founded.

 

[JoeB131]

Did you know Mitt turned down his salary when he was Governor?


He took $1 for the job...

And given the fact that he was trailing his potential Democratic Rivals by double digits before he bailed out, and a SurveyUSA poll found he ranked #48 out 50 governors, he was probably overpaid.

You know, you can reprint all the gooing business magazine articles you want, but at the end of the day, Romney laid off working people just like them. People will remember that when the Obama Campaign digs up every working stiff who lost a job once Bain Capital came into their lives.

 

[WillowTree]

In 1992, Mitt Romney was running Bain Capital, a private equity firm. Bain Capital bought American Pad & Paper Co. (Ampad) for $5 million.

Over the next several years Romney's firm bled the company dry. Hundreds of workers lost their jobs. Stockholders were left with worthless shares. Creditors and vendors were paid less than 50 cents on the dollar. While they were exploiting the company, Romney's firm charged Ampad millions of dollars in "management fees." In all, Romney and his investors reaped more than $100 million dollars from the deal.

Yet after all that, Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts by the voters.

demoncrat voters at that.

 

[JoeB131]

In 1992, Mitt Romney was running Bain Capital, a private equity firm. Bain Capital bought American Pad & Paper Co. (Ampad) for $5 million.

Over the next several years Romney's firm bled the company dry. Hundreds of workers lost their jobs. Stockholders were left with worthless shares. Creditors and vendors were paid less than 50 cents on the dollar. While they were exploiting the company, Romney's firm charged Ampad millions of dollars in "management fees." In all, Romney and his investors reaped more than $100 million dollars from the deal.

Yet after all that, Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts by the voters.

demoncrat voters at that.

Not really.

The majority of voters voted against him. the only reason he won was because the Democratic and Green Parties split the vote.

But there's more. The only way to fool some of those left-leaning voters into voting for him was to run to the left of where he actually was. He was all for gay marriage. All for gun control. All for abortion rights. In short, about 180 degrees away from where he is now on these same issues.

 

[occupied]

Mitt will be forced to step up and defend the financial sector from criticism and will therefore beat himself in the election. Not sure there is any way to make him look as if he gives a damn about people who work too hard for too little pay.

 

[Valerie]

Mitt will be forced to step up and defend the financial sector from criticism and will therefore beat himself in the election. Not sure there is any way to make him look as if he gives a damn about people who work too hard for too little pay.

He gives a damn about balancing the budget and knows how to get it done!


Isn't that what people give a damn about???




http://www.usdebtclock.org/

 

[occupied]

Mitt will be forced to step up and defend the financial sector from criticism and will therefore beat himself in the election. Not sure there is any way to make him look as if he gives a damn about people who work too hard for too little pay.

He gives a damn about balancing the budget and knows how to get it done!


Isn't that what people give a damn about???

Frankly, to a person who is working hard at a job that may not be there tomorrow to pay for a house that is worth far less then they are paying for it and trying to keep their life from flying apart does not give a damn about the relatively esoteric questions of government finances. Go ahead, keep telling these people who are already running as hard as they can just to keep from being on the street to suck it up and quit being so lazy. That is exactly what Romney represents, the business elite telling America it is on its own.

 

[The Rabbi]

Those same mythical people don't expect big daddy gov't to bail them out of their problems. And they resent when big daddy bails out other people.

 

[Valerie]

Mitt will be forced to step up and defend the financial sector from criticism and will therefore beat himself in the election. Not sure there is any way to make him look as if he gives a damn about people who work too hard for too little pay.

He gives a damn about balancing the budget and knows how to get it done!


Isn't that what people give a damn about???

Frankly, to a person who is working hard at a job that may not be there tomorrow to pay for a house that is worth far less then they are paying for it and trying to keep their life from flying apart does not give a damn about the relatively esoteric questions of government finances. Go ahead, keep telling these people who are already running as hard as they can just to keep from being on the street to suck it up and quit being so lazy. That is exactly what Romney represents, the business elite telling America it is on its own.

No, Romney represents the reality of someone who KNOWS what it takes to make things ACTUALLY better for the future of American families by pragmatically balancing the budget and paying down the runaway debt, as opposed to just kicking the can down the road until all the feel-good rhetoric fails again and things become even WORSE for people in the long run...