Today, the Globe and Mail (Canada's National Newspaper) unleashed a story about Kevin O'Leary. He is known in Canada to the general public as a business finance guy who believes that 'greed is good'. He first came to public awareness as a panelist/member of the Dragons Den. A show where the panelists act like venture capitalists. A show where rich and successful people get to mock contestants ideas mostly but may actually strike a a deal occasionally. He has since been been spun off into 'The Shark Tank" a similar American reality show with the same formula.
The man is a bully, a liar, a cheat and a thief.......and a hero (to many)
From the US political perspective, the story starts to get interesting when Bain Capital becomes involved.
Here's a short clip of Kevin O'Leary trying his best to be the Don Cherry of Canadian Finance.
FYI Kevin is the bald white guy with no compassion.
Bottom line is that Kevin O'Leary is an amoral human. He learned his craft when he was financially butt-raped by Bain Capital. His company received an investment from Bain, the company was finally sold for billions, Kevin only made a few million from the deal. Kevins software company was acquired by Mattel and the acquisition of it it almost killed Mattel over the next few years.
Bain got all the cash, Kevin (Mr. Dragons Den lost, Mr. Shark Tank lost). The reason Mattel nearly died when they bought his company is because of accounting irregularities. Their sales were low, so they pumped a lot of inventory into the retail sales channels like book stores and gas stations (those customers can return unsold products), and they booked them as revenue before the acquisition by Mattel. At that point Bain was in control.
Mitt and his band of financial pirates had won another battle, and made millions in the process.
Do you know of any other founders of companies who made pennies on the dollar on a final sale of a 'successful company' in the billions besides Kevin?
Read the full article linked at the top. It is a very long article and very detailed.
Good reporting.