Don't worry about
middle-class Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney—he doesn't have to rely solely on the millions he made during his time as a partner at private equity firm Bain Capital to get by while he's
unemployed. In fact, he's still pulling in millions from the job-killing deals Bain does, more than a decade after his departure. The
New York Times pieces together some of the details of Romney's
continuing financial relationship with Bain, finding that:
Though Mr. Romney left Bain in early 1999, he received a share of the corporate buyout and investment profits enjoyed by partners from all Bain deals through February 2009: four global buyout funds and 18 other funds, more than twice as many over all as Mr. Romney had a share of the year he left. He was also given the right to invest his own money alongside his former partners. Because some of the funds and deals covered by Mr. Romney’s agreement will not fully wind down for several years, Mr. Romney is still entitled to a share of some of Bain’s profits.
That adds up to a lot of money:
...the family’s Bain holdings are still considerable: in his 2011 disclosure, Mr. Romney reported Bain assets between $12.4 million and $60.9 million, which provided between $1.5 million and $9.3 million in income. The blind trust for his wife, Ann, held at least another $10 million, generating income of at least $4.1 million. Because the campaign is required to provide only a minimum value for some Bain assets now held by Mrs. Romney, the total could be far more.
Romney's post-1999 take from Bain includes profit on the purchases of KB Toys and Clear Channel Communications, each of which resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs. Romney would, of course, point out that he didn't personally work on those deals. And it's true. He just profited from them—how much, we don't know, because he won't release his tax returns or detailed financial information—after having spent his career working on similar deals.