The Houston Department Store Deal Romney Doesn't Like to Talk About
A deal which would be one of the most profitable leveraged buyouts of the era, but also one of the most revealing stories about Romney's dark side.
You might recall Gordon Gekko's (Michael Douglas' character) famous words in the 1987 movie Wall Street, "Greed is Good"!
Well in the late 1980s our Wall Street 'Gekko', Willard Romney was working on the financial deal of his life with none other than the real 'gekko' himself personified by 'Junk Bond King' and 'Convicted Felon' Michael Milken. With respects, Milken wasn't yet convicted only under federal investigation, but close to indictment. Some of Milken's clients feared being tainted by scandal, but not Romney, he stayed loyal, the deal was just too important to Romney and so he proceeded to 'do the deal' with the Gekko of Wall Street himself, Michael Milken!
As Marc Wolpow, a former Romney employee at Bain Capital, said in a Boston Globe story about Mitt's 1988 deal with Michael Milken while the junk bond king was under federal investigation: "Mitt, I think, spent his life balanced between fear and greed. He knew that he had to make a lot of money to launch his political career. It's very hard to make a lot of money without taking some kind of reputational risk along the way."
Which reminds from the dialogue in a scene from 'The Verdict', when Jack Warden says to Paul Newman; "How the hell do you think they wound up with all that goddamn money? Doin' good?" And Romney, I assure, didn't make all his money 'doin' good either! Warden then says, "This guy (Milken) is the Prince of fucking Darkness"! And Romney clearly knew all that, while he purposefully sought Milken out to make and do the deal!
By the way, it was another one of Romney's wonderful deals, which went belly-up, and why Romney doesn't talk about it, but of course a deal that Romney made millions—while everybody lost—his business hallmark!
It was at the time the 'junk bond' deal of the era— one of the most highly leveraged ever—another step in Romney's path to the presidency. This is the worst of America and Romney epitomizes the essence of this rot to the core!
Read more about this shady deal, as is linked below in an insightful Boston Globe article, where they outline how the District Judge Milton Pollack, as he was hearing this fraud case, his wife Moselle Pollack, was chairwoman of Palais Royal, one of the department stores in Romney's Bain Capital Houston deal, and she stood to gain millions, and so with all the red flags Romney's 'big' deal went through, and justice prevailed in America.
http://www.boston.com/...