Mitt Romney stayed at Bain 3 years longer than he stated

http://bostonglobe.com/news/politic...n-says-left/IpfKYWjnrsel4pvCFbsUTI/story.html


Mitt Romney stayed at Bain 3 years longer than he stated

Firm’s 2002 filings identify him as CEO, though he said he left in 1999




Government documents filed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital say Romney remained chief executive and chairman of the firm three years beyond the date he said he ceded control, even creating five new investment partnerships during that time.

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.”

Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.

The timing of Romney’s departure from Bain is a key point of contention because he has said his resignation in February 1999 meant he was not responsible for Bain Capital companies that went bankrupt or laid off workers after that date

Contradictions concerning the length of Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital add to the uncertainty and questions about his finances. Bain is the primary source of Romney’s wealth, which is estimated to be more than $25o million. But how his wealth has been invested, especially in a variety of Bain partnerships and other investment vehicles, remains difficult to decipher because of a lack of transparency.

The Obama campaign and other Democrats have raised questions about his unwillingness to release tax returns filed before 2010; his offshore assets, which include investment entities based in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands and a recently closed bank account in Switzerland; and a set of “blind trusts” that meet the Massachusetts standards for public officials but not the more rigorous bar set by the federal government.

Romney did not finalize a severance agreement with Bain until 2002, a 10-year deal with undisclosed terms that was retroactive to 1999. It expired in 2009.

Bain Capital and the campaign for the presumptive GOP nominee have suggested the SEC filings that show Romney as the man in charge during those additional three years have little meaning, and are the result of legal technicalities. The campaign declined to comment on the record. It pointed to a footnote in Romney’s most recent financial disclosure form, filed June 1 as a presidential candidate.

“Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way,’’ according to the footnote. Romney made the same assertion on a financial disclosure form in 2007, during his first run for president.

According to a statement issued by Bain Wednesday, “Mitt Romney retired from Bain Capital in February 1999. He has had no involvement in the management or investment activities of Bain Capital, or with any of its portfolio companies, since that time.”

Evidence emerged last week in reports by Mother Jones that Romney had maintained an ongoing leadership role at Bain beyond February 1999. Citing SEC documents, the magazine said Romney had played a role in Bain investments “until at least the end of 1999” and that a 2001 document listed him as a member of the “management committee” of Bain funds. Talking Points Memo reported this week on additional SEC filings listing Romney’s position with Bain in July 2000 and February 2001.

A former SEC commissioner told the Globe that the SEC documents listing Romney as Bain’s chief executive between 1999 and 2002 cannot be dismissed so easily.

“You can’t say statements filed with the SEC are meaningless. This is a fact in an SEC filing,” said Roberta S. Karmel, now a professor at Brooklyn Law School.

“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to say he was technically in charge on paper but he had nothing to do with Bain’s operations,” Karmel continued. “Was he getting paid? He’s the sole stockholder. Are you telling me he owned the company but had no say in its investments?”

The Globe found nine SEC filings submitted by four different business entities after February 1999 that describe Romney as Bain Capital’s boss; some show him with managerial control over five Bain Capital entities that were formed in January 2002, according to records in Delaware, where they were incorporated.

A Romney campaign official, who requested anonymity to discuss the SEC filings, acknowledged that they “do not square with common sense.” But SEC regulations are complicated and quirky, the official argued, and Romney’s signature on some documents after his exit does not indicate active involvement in the firm.

A spokesman for the SEC said the commission could not comment on individual company filings or address the meaning of Romney’s name and title on the documents.

Karmel, the former SEC commissioner, said the contradictory statements could have legal implications in some instances.

“If someone invested with Bain Capital because they believed Mitt Romney was a great fund manager, and it turns out he wasn’t really doing anything, that could be considered a misrepresentation to the investor,’’ she said. “It’s a theory that could be used in a lawsuit against him.”

Romney first deployed the defense that he left the firm in February 1999 as a candidate for governor in 2002, when Democrat Shannon O’Brien featured a laid-off worker from a Kansas City steel mill that went bankrupt in 2001, after Bain Capital had reaped a handsome profit from its investment in the company. “Romney has taken responsibility for making the initial investment but has said he could not be blamed for management decisions at the company,” the Globe reported at the time.

Romney’s exit from Bain Capital also served as a ready-made rebuttal when in May President Obama’s reelection campaign began its public scrutiny of Romney’s business record with an ad focusing on former laborers at the same mill, GST Steel. But the SEC filings examined by the Globe indicate Romney remained at the helm of Bain Capital when the steel mill declared bankruptcy, in February 2001.

And financial disclosure documents Romney filed in Massachusetts show that he was paid as a Bain Capital executive while he directed the Olympics.

When he was named chief executive of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee on Feb. 11, 1999, Romney declared that he would not accept the job’s $285,000 annual salary until the Games were over and he had proven his turnaround worth.

Romney continued to draw a six-figure salary from Bain Capital, according to State Ethics Commission forms.

In Romney’s 2002 race for governor, he testified before the state Ballot Law Commission that his separation from Bain in 1999 had been a “leave of absence” and not a final departure.

 

More lies from the left, you really seem to be drawn to their bullshit, where do you go for news the huffington post?



Bain Capital sends the following statement, following today's Boston Globe article reporting that MItt Romney was CEO there until 2002:

Mitt Romney left Bain Capital in February 1999 to run the Olympics and has had absolutely no involvement with the management or investment activities of the firm or with any of its portfolio companies since the day of his departure. Due to the sudden nature of Mr. Romney's departure, he remained the sole stockholder for a time while formal ownership was being documented and transferred to the group of partners who took over management of the firm in 1999. Accordingly, Mr. Romney was reported in various capacities on SEC filings during this period."

 

Obama team: Romney committed a felony or lied to voters



By JENNIFER EPSTEIN 7/12/12 12:22 PM EDT



Mitt Romney either lied in federal filings that show he worked at Bain Capital through 2002 and could be guilty of a felony, or has lied to the American people in saying he left the company in 1999, the Obama campaign is arguing in light of news reports on the firm’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“This is serious business,” said Bob Bauer, the Obama campaign’s counsel, in a conference call for reporters coming after the Boston Globe published a story Thursday that calls into question the timeline of Romney’s involvement of the firm that the Republican candidate has been promulgating for years.

Deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter laid out the issue as the Obama team sees it: “Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and his own signature, was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, which is a felony."

"Or," she said, "he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments,” including layoffs and the outsourcing of jobs.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama camp wages war over Bain 'cloud')

If the latter is true, she said, it’s a “real character and trust issue” that voters should be aware of as they decide who to vote for in the presidential election. If Romney was still at Bain through 2002, he's also "politically responsible for the consequences" of deals that the firm made through then.

Andrea Saul, the Romney campaign's press secretary, countered that the Globe's "article is not accurate" because"[a]s Bain Capital has said, as Governor Romney has said, and as has been confirmed by independent fact checkers multiple times, Governor Romney left Bain Capital in February of 1999 to run the Olympics and had no input on investments or management of companies after that point."

The emergence of the SEC filings appears to conflict with that, the Obama campaign contends. There are “literally scores of filings that make it very, very clear that over a period of time that Gov. Romney claims that he was not active with Bain, the Securities and Exchange Commission was informed” that Romney was the chief executive officer, chairman of the board and sole shareholder of the company, Bauer said.

SEC filings "are very carefully scrutinized by lawyers because of the very severe consequences that follow from making statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission that are not correct," he said. And if that's the case, and Romney's role in the firm was misrepresented in filings, "in the normal course would subject somebody in this position to every manner of investigation with all the consequences that you can imagine would follow."

People who interacted with Romney at Bain between 1999 and 2002 -- and who would corroborate the storyline suggested by the SEC filings -- haven't emerged. Nor have documents or other details that would suggest Romney has been lying about when he left the company. But, Bauer hinted, there might be new developments to come. “I would stay very much tuned on that,” he said.

(Also on POLITICO: Bain Capital: Romney left in February 1999)

Asked about the Globe story during his daily briefing on Thursday, White House press secretary Jay Carney deferred comment. "It's an interesting read but beyond that I'd refer you to the campaign," he said.

 

The Globe found nine SEC filings submitted by four different business entities after February 1999 that describe Romney as Bain Capital’s boss; some show him with managerial control over five Bain Capital entities that were formed in January 2002, according to records in Delaware, where they were incorporated

 

Boston Globe already trying to squirm out of their shoddy journalism.....




Globe admits credit 'mistake' in Bain story
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Comments (53) By DYLAN BYERS | 7/12/12 10:37 AM EDT
The Boston Globe's report today on the true length of Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain is making waves this morning — but as Globe editor Martin Baron acknowledged today, it failed to credit organizations that had previously reported on the story.

"Pieces of this story were reported by other news organizations. We believe the Globe advanced the story with a more comprehensive and complete look that broke significant news and included additional documents," Baron said in a statement to POLITICO. "However, our policy is to give credit to other news organizations for their work. In the editing and shortening process, I have learned, passages giving credit were removed. That was a mistake, and we are now adding appropriate credit back to the online version."

On July 2 and again on July 3, Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn reported that SEC filings indicated Romney had played a role in Bain investments "until at least the end of 1999" and that a May 10, 2001, document described Romney as a member of the "management committee" of Bain funds.

On July 10, Talking Points Memo editor and publisher Josh Marshall uncovered two more SEC filings from July 2000 and February 2001 in which Romney listed his “principal occupation” as “Managing Director of Bain Capital, Inc.”

The original Globe article, which cites the previously reported SEC filings, did not mention Mother Jones or TPM, and did not link to those stories online.

"To me, this illuminates one difference between the ethos of Web journalism and that of traditional media," Corn told POLITICO. "In the former, you tend to do link-outs to indicate to readers what's been done on the story before and to show how you are advancing that story. This highlights the iterative nature of Web journalism. In the latter, you tend to ignore other work and present yours as appearing in a vacuum. Remember the days when The New York Times and Washington Post would often ignore (or try to ignore) each other's scoops as if to send a message: If we didn't discover this, it doesn't exist."

UPDATE: The Globe published the following 'Update' early Thursday afternoon, along with the statement from Baron:

BostonGlobe.com and Boston.com are currently experiencing publishing delays. When we are able to make online changes, information will be added to the story examining the length of Mitt Romney's tenure as chief executive of Bain Capital, which was published on BostonGlobe.com and on Boston.com today. The story will note previous work by other publications. The following related clarification will appear at the bottom of the story:

Clarification: This story has been updated to note previous reporting by the publications Mother Jones and Talking Points Memo on Romney’s involvement with Bain.

UPDATE 2: The article was updated shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday with links to Mother Jones and Talking Points Memo in the 11th paragraph.

 

His tax returns might clear some of this up

 

Washington Post fact checker: Romney left when he said he did.





Why does it matter when Mitt Romney left Bain Capital?
Millions of dollars of attack ads by the Obama campaign are hanging in the balance. If Romney left Bain in February 1999, when he departed to run the Olympics, then a number of business deals that went sour (such as KB Toys) can’t be counted as part of Romney’s tenure. If he actually left in 2002, as the Obama campaign alleges, then those deals are fair game.

We have looked at this issue before, back in January, and thought
we had settled it.

But now the Boston Globe has raised the issue again. The story seems to hinge on a quote from a former Securities and Exchange Commission member, which would have more credibility if the Globe had disclosed she was a regular contributor to Democrats. (Interestingly, “The Real Romney,” a book on the former Massachusetts governor, by Boston Globe reporters, states clearly that he left Bain when he went to run the Olympics and details the turmoil that ensued when he suddenly quit, nearly breaking up the partnership)

We’re considering whether to once again take a deeper look at this, though it really feels like Groundhog Day again. There appears to be some confusion about how partnerships are structured and managed, or what SEC documents mean. (Just because you are listed as an owner of shares does not mean you have a managerial role.)

To accept some of the claims, one would have to believe that Romney, with the advice of his lawyers, lied on government documents and committed a criminal offense. Moreover, you would have to assume he willingly gave up his share to a few years of retirement earnings — potentially worth millions of dollars — so he could say his retirement started in 1999.

UPDATE: Fortune obtained the offering documents for a Bain Capital Fund circulating in June 2000, as well as a fund in 2001. None of the documents show that Romney was listed as being among the “key investment professionals.” As Fortune put it, “the contemporaneous Bain documents show that Romney was indeed telling the truth about no longer having operational input at Bain -- which, one should note, is different from no longer having legal or financial ties to the firm.”

For interested readers, below is a summary of what we, FactCheck.org and Fortune magazine have previously concluded.
The Fact Checker, Jan. 18, 2012

A 2002 statement he filed with the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission on his financial interests lists ownership of various Bain entities, some of which appear to intersect with the funds that invested in KB Toys. The document says that Romney is “a passive, limited partner [with] no management capacity” in many of these funds.

In the Massachusetts document, Romney is also listed as 100 percent owner of “Bain Capital Inc.” But there is less than meets the eye here. Bain Capital Inc. was the management firm, which was paid a management fee to run the funds and actually made virtually no profit, since it existed to pay salaries and expenses. After Romney formally left Bain in 2001, a new entity called “Bain
Capital LLC” took over the management function.

By virtually all accounts, Romney was focused on the Olympics in the 1999-2002 period. Yet because Romney had not legally separated from Bain, his name is littered across Securities and Exchange Commission filings concerning Bain Capital deals during this period. The crazy quilt of private-equity structures, in some ways, makes his ownership appear even more ominous, as the filings list hundreds of thousands of shares controlled by Romney.
Even so, it is a real stretch to claim that Romney — himself — “closed” these stores. No evidence has emerged that he was involved in the KB Toys transaction. Indeed, when creditors sued over the dividend payment, they named six Bain-controlled entities and three Bain executives who had served on the board of KB Holdings.

Given that the plaintiffs’ lawyers will try to list as many defendants as possible to try to force a settlement, one can be certain Romney would have been named if there had been any hint of his involvement. But he was not named, despite the SEC filings suggesting his control of the shares.
In other words, creditors apparently had determined Romney was only a passive investor.

 

Fact Check.org confirms what Romney was saying once again Obama the so called lawyer is just making himself look like a dumbass who doesnt understand the law, or business.....



f the Obama campaign were correct, Romney would be guilty of a federal felony by certifying on federal financial disclosure forms that he left active management of Bain Capital in February 1999….
And after reviewing evidence cited by the Obama campaign, we reaffirm our conclusion that Romney left the helm of Bain Capital when he took a leave of absence in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics – as he has said repeatedly — and never returned to active management. The Obama campaign’s recent ads thus mislead when they point to investments made by Bain, as well as management decisions made by companies in which Bain invested, after that time.
What does the Obama campaign have in rebuttal? Very little, and none of it convincing in our judgment.

Much of the Obama campaign’s letter is devoted to quoting portions of documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In summary, the letter states there are “at least 63 filings with that agency after March 1, 1999 that list various Bain entities and describe them as ‘wholly owned by W. Mitt Romney.’” That’s true, but not relevant.

We have never disputed that Romney remained the owner of Bain while he was running the Olympics committee. The issue always has been, who was running Bain? Nothing in the SEC documents contradicts what Romney has certified as true.

On that point, the Obama campaign cites snippets of a few news clippings to make a case that Romney was still a part-time manager of Bain after he left to run the Olympics. But a close reading shows these news accounts don’t contradict Romney either.

 

It is simply mind boggling how all of these news papers are willing to destroy what little credibility they had left in order to spread lies about Romney and help get Obama elected........

Now in the coming days Obama is going to create attack ads where he simply cites the newspapers article where they lied, then he gets to wash his hands clean of it, this really is a good scam these guys got going on......

 

Lol, uhh huh, you betcha. Did Romney sign documents as a Bain chief after 1999, or not? If so, he either knew what he was signing because he was active, or he did not know what he was signing. This is elementary ownership of responsibility, and at the corporate level it's taken seriously. He's possibly irreparably screwed himself here. On the other hand, take heart: if other officers acted this stunned-goof-stupid and an auditor caught them, they typically would not have Koch millions behind them, so it may work out ok for your team after all!