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From “The Making of Mitt Romney,”
Boston Globe, June 26, 2007

In 1992, Bain Capital acquired American Pad & Paper, or Ampad, from Mead Corp., embarking on a ‘’roll-up strategy’’ in which a firm buys up similar companies in the same industry in order to expand revenues and cut costs.

Through Ampad, Bain bought several other office supply makers, borrowing heavily each time. By 1999, Ampad’s debt reached nearly $400 million, up from $11 million in 1993, according to government filings.

Sales grew, too - for a while. But by the late 1990s, foreign competition and increased buying power by superstores like Bain-funded Staples sliced Ampad’s revenues.

The result: Ampad couldn't pay its debts and plunged into bankruptcy. Workers lost jobs and stockholders were left with worthless shares.

Bain Capital, however, made money - and lots of it. The firm put just $5 million into the deal, but realized big returns in short order. In 1995, several months after shuttering a plant in Indiana and firing roughly 200 workers, Bain Capital borrowed more money to have Ampad buy yet another company, and pay Bain and its investors more than $60 million - in addition to fees for arranging the deal.

Bain Capital took millions more out of Ampad by charging it $2 million a year in management fees, plus additional fees for each Ampad acquisition. In 1995 alone, Ampad paid Bain at least $7 million. The next year, when Ampad began selling shares on public stock exchanges, Bain Capital grabbed another $2 million fee for arranging the initial public offering - on top of the $45 million to $50 million Bain reaped by selling some of its shares.

Bain Capital didn't escape Ampad’s eventual bankruptcy unscathed. It held about one-third of Ampad’s shares, which became worthless. But while as many as 185 workers near Buffalo lost jobs in a 1999 plant closing, Bain Capital and its investors ultimately made more than $100 million on the deal.

Bain Capital has only about 400 employees, but Romney created 100,000 jobs while there?

Six big winners out of their 77 investments:

Bain produced about $2.5 billion in gains for its investors in those 77 deals, on about $1.1 billion invested. Those profits accrued over a 15 year period, 1984-1999, so the average yearly gain was only 8%. The S&P 500 increased from 165 in 1984 to 1469 in 1999. If they had simply invested in the S&P 500, the returns would have been far greater!

Romney can ignore anyone in the GOP E X C E P T Palin.

He'll released it all within a week or he's over.

Count on it.

I also expect a SARAH Palin endorsement of Newt to go along with Todd.

A Sarah Palin endorsement carries more weight than any other possible endorsement in the party.

It is not inevitable that Romney will win like Fox News is pushing. The joke is that the only complaint about Romney is that he is a capitalist....that is so far from the truth.

Besides, it's not surprising to me that people on the East coast don't understand that crooks with no sense of why we are on this earth and no sense of right and wrong can be capitalists as well.

If that is the type of capitalist you are, then I hope you burn in h@LL..not be President. Capitalism needs a leash or it will fail..will it be a moral one or just government rules meant to be broken and worked around by "smart" people? You decide.

Rick Tyler, former Gingrich aide and head of Newt Gingrich’s Super PAC, has already accused Romney of having created those 100,000 jobs in Asia and Mexico.

It would be like Romney to say "I created 100,000 jobs...

...and neglect to add "in Asia and Mexico".

Good work by Sarah to call him out. She should endorse someone else ASAP.