Private Equity 101: A Mitt Romney Primer

[Valin]

PJ Media:

David H. Horwich
1/18/12

There’s been a lot of nattering in the news lately about Mitt Romney’s private equity (“PE”) history with Bain Capital. A whole lot of the conversation is distortion, lies, and poor understanding of exactly what comprises the PE business.

(Snip)

Bain has been (inaccurately) characterized as having bought companies merely to break them, with tongue-waggers claiming that the Bain method was to sweep in, fire all the employees, and unload the assets in a quick fire-sale in the name of “restructuring.”

So very false! This makes little sense intuitively, as successful companies aren’t broken up and sold (generally speaking, why would anyone do that?), and companies in trouble are, well, they are in trouble.

(Snip)