[What is ‘vulture capitalism’ and how is it different from ‘capitalism’?]
Venture capitalists grow businsses by investing their own money and usually some mentoring as well. They can be brutal, but their goal is to create a bigger business.
A vulture capitalist in contrast will buy into a company that has some book value, force out shareholders, fire people and then grab easy money, like by selling land assets or machinery. Now sometimes, you need a vulture because all there is left of a company is pretty much bones to pick over. But it sounds like Bain made huge profits by just stripping companies. It would be sort of like eating an antelope before it was fully dead.
"At its peak in 1970, the Kansas City plant, then owned by Armco Steel Corp, employed 4,500 people. Poor market conditions forced a wave of layoffs in the early 1980s and led the company to prune its product line. By the early 1990s, the plant focused on two items: wire for products such as mattress springs and tires; and high-carbon balls and rods used by the mining industry to pulverize rocks. It was around that time that the mill workers started noticing the suits.
(Where's all the hand-wringing over Democrat/liberal policies that killed nearly 4000 jobs? Carter & the Democratic Congress are responsible for the bad economy. Remember the gas lines?)
Armco wanted to sell its Kansas City plant to concentrate on other aspects of its business. Jack Stutz and a few of the other Armco managers were looking for backers to help them buy it. They spoke to GE Capital, which, in turn, contacted Bain Capital because it had earned a sterling reputation for turning companies around. The risks were obvious. The mill's equipment was out of date and it faced stiff competition from Nucor Corp, which also made grinding balls.
(They took a risk - that's capitalism. They made money, they risked money.)
Nevertheless, Bain and its partners decided to buy the mill for $75 million. Bain put up about $8 million to gain majority control of the company, renamed GS Technologies Inc. GE Capital, former Armco executives and Leggett & Platt, a major customer for the mill's wire rods, chipped in the rest of the equity. As part of the deal, Armco agreed to cover employee pension obligations if the plant closed within five years – a $120 million liability, according to the Kansas City Business Journal.
Some analysts say Bain should not be blamed for the company's failure, noting that a wave of cheap imports forced nearly half of the U.S. steel industry into bankruptcy during that period. Another company set up around the same time, in which Bain took a minority stake, Steel Dynamics in Fort Wayne, Indiana, thrived."
"GS and Steel Dynamics were about as different as it gets," industry analyst Michelle Applebaum said. GS's core products were vulnerable to competition while Steel Dynamics became "one of the country's lowest-cost manufacturers of steel sheet," a product with more staying power. Steel Dynamics was also a non-union shop."
(Clue - non-union shop thrives)
'Vulture capitalism' is a Left wing term used to disparage making money. Bain did a great job here. They caught a falling knife and made money. So now some union hacks (who went on strike as the company was dying), one of whom is a 'conservative' is taking a shot at, not Romney, but capitalism. Don't let your disgust with Romney blind you to this obvious attack.