Gawker dumps confidential Bain files

[cali]

By DYLAN BYERS |
8/23/12 12:32 PM EDT

Gawker's John Cook drops a (potential) bomb shell:

Today, we are publishing more than 950 pages of internal audits, financial statements, and private investor letters for 21 cryptically named entities in which Romney had invested—at minimum—more than $10 million as of 2011 (that number is based on the low end of ranges he has disclosed—the true number is almost certainly significantly higher). Almost all of them are affiliated with Bain Capital, the secretive private equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984 and ran until his departure in 1999 (or 2002, depending on whom you ask). Many of them are offshore funds based in the Cayman Islands. Together, they reveal the mind-numbing, maze-like, and deeply opaque complexity with which Romney has handled his wealth, the exotic tax-avoidance schemes available only to the preposterously wealthy that benefit him, the unlikely (for a right-wing religious Mormon) places that his money has ended up, and the deeply hypocritical distance between his own criticisms of Obama's fiscal approach and his money managers' embrace of those same policies. They also show that some of the investments that Romney has always described as part of his retirement package at Bain weren't made until years after he left the company.

These documents -- not all of which are new -- will require a great deal of vetting, but early signs indicate that there are some new, and potentially controversial, details -- starting with that bit at the end about a retirement package investment that was made almost a decade after Romney retired.

According to his 2012 financial disclosure, Romney was given a stake in Sankaty Credit Opportunities L.P. as part of his retirement package in 1999. But Sankaty Credit Opportunities didn't exist until 2002.

"In other words, Romney's 1999 retirement agreement included an investment in an entity created in 2002—in fact, was created in the heat of his first gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts," Cook wries. "When Romney explained at an October 29, 2002, debate in Massachusetts that he wasn't responsible for Bain's actions after his 1999 retirement, it was just 8 weeks after the creation by Bain of a fund that was part of his retirement agreement."

<snip>

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/08/gawker-dumps-confidential-bain-files-132938.html

[livetohike]

1. This is getting good!

Looks like a "perfect storm" just in time for the GOP convention. Tax problems, lies, and social issues ....

[alittlelark]

2. Wow... I hope this gets some play.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

3. This is HUGE: Romney's IRA contains an entity that did not even exist until 2008!

My post from ian62's earlier thread, at http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1187132 :

I had thought that Romney's $100 million IRA must have come from huge valuation gains on low-valuation contributions of his original Bain Capital stock. This would have been a borderline fraudulent piece of accounting at best.

But apparently, Romney's IRA contains at least one entity that did not even exist until 2008! IMO that CANNOT be anything except tax fraud, because only employee compensation of a few thousand dollars a year can constitute a legal IRA or 401K contribution. Romney must be treating shares of post-2002 Bain investment creations as stock dividends on his original Bain shares, or else rolling over new Bain entities that somehow got into Bain 401Ks as post-2002 employee compensation valued below $15,000 a year.

From http://gawker.com/5936873 :

Romney has long claimed, despite evidence to the contrary, that he retired from Bain Capital in 1999. The Bain documents we obtained indicate that his involvement with the company extended years past that date. ...

Sankaty Credit Opportunities IV-—of which Romney owns more than $1 million in his IRA and which earned him between $50,000 and $100,000 in 2011, and which is likewise described as an investment made pursuant to his retirement package-—wasn't even created until July 2008. That's nine years after his retirement from Bain and five months after he withdrew from the 2008 GOP primary.

... it's difficult to explain an apparent $1 million-plus payment from Bain, made in 2008, as being pursuant to a retirement package that was negotiated in 1999."

[BadgerKid]

5. If it's cap gains, I'd question why the low valuation (stock warrants?).

I'm guessing you could have a company issue these in such a way that the cost of exercising the warrants is cheap. Now you own tons of stock whose share price is extremely low. Price goes up. Sell. Repeat, lather, rinse. I'm not a CPA or such, but this seems legal. But I think one would have to wonder whether Romney could have had a role in orchestrating such a process, or if his friends helped, if this indeed had occurred. In that case, the legality seems suspect to me.

[NightWatcher]

4. kicked in lieu of repost

I wish this would get more play. Expose the dirty dealings to the repukes and see if they'll still tolerate him

[senseandsensibility]

6. K and R, but I haven't seen any coverage of this on MSNBC today

I may have missed it, but it seems like a big story that should be covered.