Gov. Romney On When He Left Bain Capital (July 13, 2012)
Author: Governor Mitt Romney
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Excerpt from interview with CBS:
The documents show that there's a difference between ownership, which is I owned shares in Bain, but I did not manage Bain. I left as everyone knows to go out and run the Olympics in February of 1999. I was full-time running the Olympics. I had no role whatsoever in the management of Bain after I went off to the Olympics. And that's been demonstrated by people who work at Bain, by all of the documents, but I still retained an ownership interest, I had the capacity if I were not on leave, if I were actually wanting to run the business to do so, but I did not. I left. And that's been demonstrated time and time again....
Actually when you leave an enterprise, when you have other people who are managing the enterprise, who take responsibility for all the investment decisions, who decide who's going to get hired and fired, who decide compensation decisions, they're the managers, they're the people running the business. I left the business and went off to run the Olympics, did that full time and after three years, when the Olympics were over, we arranged my departure officially from a retirement standpoint.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57472298/romney-interview-with-cbs-news-full-transcript/
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“Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm’s ‘sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.’”
Source: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/07/12/government_documents_indicate_mitt_romney_continued_at_bain_after_date_when_he_says_he_left/
“Remember, Romney did not leave Bain Capital as part of a long-term, planned succession process. Instead, his departure was fairly sudden — borne of a desire to help salvage an Olympic Games that was $1.4 billion in the hole and tarred by a massive bribery scandal. The very first reports of Romney being considered for the Salt Lake City job were on Feb. 2, 1999. Just nine days later, he officially took over.
”Not surprisingly, Bain Capital hadn’t worked out all the details of Romney’s departure. It eventually would discard the CEO position in favor of a horizontal management committee made of of numerous partners, and provide Romney with a golden parachute that included limited partnership interests in all Bain-related funds raised through 2009 (including the option for Romney to invest additional monies). But none of that was in place when Romney took the Salt Lake City job.“
”… the SEC doesn’t require an owner to be the operational decision-maker (Romney delegated such responsibilities, as is his right)."
Source: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/02/when-did-romney-really-leave-bain/
“Bain Capital began circulating offering documents for its seventh private equity fund in June 2000. Those documents include several pages specifying fund management. The section begins:
”‘Set forth below is information regarding the background of the senior private equity investment professionals of Bain Capital. Also listed are certain investment professionals responsible for the day-to-day affairs of the Brookside and Sankaty funds, which are affiliated funds of Fund VII.’
“It then goes on to list 18 managers of the private equity fund. Mitt Romney is not among them. Same goes for an affiliated co-investment fund, whose private placement memorandum is dated September 2000.
”Then there is Bain Capital Venture Fund — the firm’s first dedicated venture capital effort — whose private placement memorandum is dated January 2001. Romney also isn’t listed among its ‘key investment professionals,’ or as part of its day-to-day operations or investment committee."
Source: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/12/mitt-romney-bain-exit/
The commission found: “The Respondent remained actively employed at Bain Capital until January 1, 1999, at which time he left to take the position of President and Chief Executive Officer of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.”
Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/13/massachusetts-commissions-finding-romney-left-bain-in-99/
“The rhetoric over when exactly Romney left Bain has escalated in the days since the new documents were published. The Obama campaign suggested on a conference call Thursday that if Romney misled the SEC it would be a felony, and the Romney campaign responded by saying such a ‘reckless and unsubstantiated’ accusation ‘calls into question the integrity’ of the president’s entire campaign.”
Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/13/obama-says-romney-needs-to-explain-his-bain-timetable/
“No, we won’t be apologizing and you know, sometimes these games are played during political campaigns. Understand what the issue is here. Mr. Romney claims he is Mr. Fix It for the economy because of his business experience, and so I think voters entirely legitimately want to know well what exactly was that business experience? And as the head of a private equity firm, his job was to maximize profits, help wealthy investors. There’s nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, that company also was investing in companies the Washington Post called pioneers of outsourcing. And he’s now claiming ‘well I wasn’t there at the time’, except he files an SEC listing that says he was the CEO, Chairman and President of the company. So, as President of the United States, one of the things I’ve learned, and we just talked about was anything that happens on my watch is my responsibility. That’s what people expect. Harry Truman said the buck stops with me and I think understandably people are going to be interested in, you know, are you responsible for this company that you say is one of your primary calling cards for wanting to be president.”
Source: http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/wavy-one-on-one-with-president-obama-af
“Mitt Romney conducted numerous TV and other media interviews yesterday in order to minimize the damage his campaign has received regarding discrepancies surrounding his tenure at Bain….
”Unfortunately for the Romney Campaign, the slew of TV interviews did little to satisfy the media. In times of crisis, a strong candidate will come up with answers that satisfy the basic questions surrounding the controversy and will make people want to move on to another subject. Romney, however, could not seem to come up with basic messages that resolved the controversies. Many of his answers seemed evasive or overly legalistic. The biggest problem for Romney is that all of his interviews have only increased the questions that political observers, voters and the media have regarding the subject of Bain Capital."
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjwalker/2012/07/14/35-questions-mitt-romney-must-answer-about-bain-capital-before-the-issue-can-go-away/
“Romney’s decision to challenge the president personally will hearten some Republicans, who have questioned why his campaign hasn’t been responding more aggressively to the Obama campaign’s attacks. But for all of Romney’s bluster, and the flashes of genuine anger he displayed, he failed to clear up the mystery of why, well after he had supposedly left Bain Capital, the firm was still filing legal documents that described him as its chairman and chief executive.”
Source: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2012/07/romney-fight-back-but-doesnt-clear-up-bain-mystery.html
“Mitt Romney tried time and again to make one thing clear in our interview. On five different occasions in the first few minutes of the interview, Romney said he had “no role whatsoever” at Bain Capital after February 1999….
”He repeated virtually the same denial, nearly word for word (perhaps not as many times) in all of the interviews.
“But when pressed whether he was concerned that the discrepancy between his own words and government documents may one day cause a distraction for his campaign, Romney volunteered a broad defense of the firm’s work.”
Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/13/what-we-learned-from-mitt-romney/
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