Today, several groups filed an ethics complaint against Mitt Romney because he failed to disclose his investments in Delphi Automotive, a recipient of some $12 billion from the auto bailout. Complainants included:
SEIU, UAW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Public Citizen, Public Campaign, People for the American Way and The Social Equity Group
And they point out that
Romney's June 1, 2012, Public Financial Disclosure Report to the Office of Government Ethics did not reveal this windfall because he did not disclose the underlying holdings of his private equity and limited partnership funds.
So dear media, here's some background:
What the Romneys financial disclosures do show is that they invested OVER $1 million in the hedge fund that bought Delphi Automotive, which fired its American workers and opened up new plants in Asia. And the Romneys made an estimated $15 million for every 1 million invested. So how much did Mitt make from Delphi? 30 million? 100 million? We don't know, in part, because he's hiding his 2009 taxes.
As The Nation has reported,
Exactly how much did the Romneys make off the auto bailout? Queries to the campaign and the Romneys’ trustee have gone unanswered. And Romney has yet to disclose the crucial year of his tax returns, 2009.
[snip]
In their 2011 and 2012 Federal Financial Disclosure filing, Ann Romney’s trust lists “more than $1 million” invested with Elliott. This is [snip] the minimal disclosure required by law. (Had Romney kept the holding in his own name, he would have had to reveal if his investment with Singer had made more than $50 million.)
It is reasonable to assume that Singer treated the Romneys the same as his other investors, with a third of their portfolio invested in Delphi by the time of the 2011 initial public offering.
[snip]
Since the November 2011 IPO, Delphi’s stock has roared upward, boosting the Romneys’ Delphi windfall from $10.2 million to $15.3 million for each million they invested with Singer.
But what if the Romneys invested a bit more with Singer: let’s say a mere 3 percent of their reported net worth, or
$7.5 million? (After all, ABC News reported—and Romney didn’t deny—that he invested “a huge chunk of his vast wealth” with Singer.) Then their take from the auto bailout so far would reach a stunning $115 million.
The Romneys’ exact gain, however, remains nearly
invisible
- The Nation
The Romneys received this huge return from a company that the "the federal government sent, directly or indirectly, more than $12.9 billion" (
The Nation).
without taking billions in taxpayer bailout funds—and slashing worker pensions—the hedge funds’ investment in Delphi would not have been worth a single dollar, according to calculations by GM and the US Treasury.
- The Nation
Mitt Romney made a fortune off of the auto-bailout by investing in Delphi and screwing those workers. And instead of using its extra capital to do right by the American worker, Delphi just finished buying factories in Asia that make car parts, for the same amount of money Delphi cost those workers' pensions:
Delphi’s stockholders—the Romneys included—had one easy way to rectify the harm to these pensioners, much as GM did for its workers: just pay up.
Making good on the full pensions for salaried workers would cost Delphi a one-time charge of less than $1 billion. This year, Delphi was flush with $1.4 billion in cash—
meaning its owners could have made the pensioners whole
and still cleared a profit. Instead, in May, Delphi chose to use most of those funds to take over auto parts plants in Asia at
a cost of $972 million—purchased from Bain Capital.
- The Nation
FYI,
that purchase of $1 billion in Asian factories from Bain Capital was just finalized last Friday:
http://www.businessweek.com/...
8:54 AM PT: In the comments, kurious points to a NYT article about the jobs losses and to information about how Delphi refused to save tens of thousands of Americans' jobs despite there being a viable plan. See below.
