Former Bain Manager: Romney’s Departure Took Years Because It Was Complex Process

[ProSense]

Former Bain Manager: Romney’s Departure Took Years Because It Was Complex Process

Edward Conard, a former Bain Managing Director at Bain Capital, said that a “management committee” ran Bain Capital after Mitt Romney left the company in 1999, and that Romney’s departure took time to finalize because of complex negotiations surrounding his retirement in an interview on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes.”

“It was a management committee running Bain, to try to transition from Mitt to a new structure,” Conard said Sunday.

“It took several years for us to sort out how to put the management team in place—there was a management team in place already—but for example we had to negotiate with Mitt because he was an owner of the firm, he’d created a lot of franchise value, and we were going to pay him for that,” said Conard. “We had to recognize that other partners would leave, senior partners would leave over time; that whatever we did for him was going to be reflected in what we did for everyone else who left the firm. And we had a very complicated set of negotiations that took us about two years to unwind.”

Conard also confirmed that Romney was absent from Bain between 1999 and 2002 even though his name remained on SEC filings. “It was ten years ago, so can I remember every single meeting? No,” he said. “But I remember that Mitt was gone. We had a management team that was working hard to manage the company. We had to negotiate the terms of Mitt’s departure, and in fact everybody’s departure at that time, and it was difficult to get any time for Mitt to even get him and his attorneys to do that, because he was so busy working on the Olympics.”

- more -

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/former-bain-manager-romneys-departure-took-years-because

Yeah, CYA!

Brad DeLong: Is This the Silliest Thing Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post Has Ever Written?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002942909

He.Signed.The.Documents.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002949350

[Skidmore]

1. Conard--First Officer in Charge of Shovelling Doo-Doo.

Because Mitt can't even shovel his own s***t.

[The Magistrate]

2. Damned Poor Stuff, Ma'am

"Romney loves America like a tick loves a dog."

[nc4bo]

3. Oh com'on son. This is a multimillion/billion company

staffed with some really smart people doing some really sleazy things and Bain/Romney is trying to say it took years to get MittBain off the rolls??!!

Bullshit. There is just no. way.

[mucifer]

4. It probably took 2 years to shred their documents.

[maddezmom]

5. what a load.

In a November 2000 interview with the Globe, Romney’s wife, Ann, said he had been forced to lessen, but not end entirely, his involvement with Bain Capital.



(2) Interviews with Romney's wife and his lawyer regarding this period:
In a Boston Globe interview with Ann Romney from November 2000 the reporter learned
that Mitt Romney was dividing his time between running Bain and running the Olympics
project. “The (Olympics) project is running smoothly now, though still requiring so much
of Mitt Romney's time that he has had to lessen his involvement with Bain Capital, his
investment firm." (“West Wings Sprout,” Boston Globe 11/11/2000). Please note: not
end his involvement with Bain, but "lessen it"-precisely as Romney acknowledged in
shifting to part-time management involvement in l999.

Romney’s own personal lawyer as stated that he only became a passive investor in Bain
in August of 2001: “(Bradley) Malt, who was designated by the campaign to address
Romney’s time at Bain, said Romney finally resigned and reduced his role at the
company to that of a passive investor in 2001 when it became clear that he was going
to run for Massachusetts governor after the Olympics.” (“Cash, Advice on Tap at
Romney’s Old Firm” Washington Post 10/21/2007)

http://factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/2012/07/OFA-FACTCHECK-LETTER-FINAL.pdf

hat tip to m_v.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=166394

[Avalux]

6. It doesn't work that way. I want to see Bain board meeting minutes from 1999-2002. n/t

[Spazito]

7. LOL, this from a million dollar Romney donor and...

who wrote a book with these beliefs:

"Perhaps that’s because in “Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy is Wrong,” former Bain Capital managing director (and former colleague of and major donor to presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign) Edward Conard argues that economic inequality isn’t a problem – and in fact, the US could use more of it to spur risk-taking, innovation, and growth.

“Unintended Consequences” “aggressively argues that the enormous and growing income inequality in the United States is not a sign that the system is rigged,” writes Adam Davidson, founder of NPR’s Planet Money podcast, in a New York Times Magazine column that’s been raising a firestorm. “On the contrary, Conard writes, it is a sign that our economy is working. And if we had a little more of it, then everyone, particularly the 99 percent, would be better off.”"

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0508/Unintended-Consequences-by-Edward-Conrad-already-the-most-hated-book-of-the-year

Yeah, he's believable alright!

[ProSense]

10. Holy crap,

the name didn't immediately register.

Major Romney Donor, Ex-Bain Exec, Pens Book Defending The 1%

Former Bain Capital executive Ed Conard, who TPM readers might know for donating $1 million anonymously to a pro-Romney Super PAC through a dummy corporation, is back in the news. He’s the subject of a lengthy New York Times magazine profile this week explaining his new book, “Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong,” which purports to explain why the 1% deserve every penny they have and why increasing income inequality is actually a good sign for the economy.

In one passage of the profile, Conard mocks Americans who don’t want to become ultra-wealthy entrepreneurs as lazy and unambitious:

A central problem with the U.S. economy, he told me, is finding a way to get more people to look for solutions despite these terrible odds of success. Conard’s solution is simple. Society benefits if the successful risk takers get a lot of money. For proof, he looks to the market. At a nearby table we saw three young people with plaid shirts and floppy hair. For all we know, they may have been plotting the next generation’s Twitter, but Conard felt sure they were merely lounging on the sidelines. “What are they doing, sitting here, having a coffee at 2:30?” he asked. “I’m sure those guys are college-educated.” Conard, who occasionally flashed a mean streak during our talks, started calling the group “art-history majors,” his derisive term for pretty much anyone who was lucky enough to be born with the talent and opportunity to join the risk-taking, innovation-hunting mechanism but who chose instead a less competitive life. In Conard’s mind, this includes, surprisingly, people like lawyers, who opt for stable professions that don’t maximize their wealth-creating potential. He said the only way to persuade these “art-history majors” to join the fiercely competitive economic mechanism is to tempt them with extraordinary payoffs.

Romney’s campaign isn’t touching the book, but it’s not hard to envision it entering the campaign if its release makes a splash. Already Democratic National Committee communications director Brad Woodhouse is tweeting out the article.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/major-romney-donor-ex-bain-exec-pens-book

[Turbineguy]

11. This is like the theory

that if you pour enough gasoline on a fire, it will go out.

[Spazito]

12. LOL!

[coalition_unwilling]

15. Instant DUzy (if such is possible :) - n/t

[kentuck]

8. I did not trust anything the guy was saying

After he said they were "negotiating" with Romney for two years. His salary was +$100,000 per year. How much above $100,000?

Chris Hayes had an excellent quote from his book that defined him very well, in my opinion.

[DCBob]

9. Were investors aware of this "complex process"??

If not, then I believe that would be a violation of SEC regs.

[riderinthestorm]

13. Uh, they're starting to contradict each other. rMoney's new spokesperson just said different today

Gillespie says Romney ‘retired retroactively’ from Bain Capital
Source: The Hill

Democrats have raised questions about when exactly Romney left Bain . Romney has said he left in 1999 to oversee preparations for the Salt Lake City Olympics, but SEC documents show him listed as Bain’s CEO beyond that time.

Gillespie on Sunday sought to clarify the matter, saying that Romney initially thought he would be leaving Bain on a temporary basis, but the challenges of the Olympics led him to “retire retroactively.”

"There may have been a thought at the time that it could be part time, but it was not part time," Gillespie said.

"He took a left of absence and in fact he ended up not going back at all, and retired retroactively to 1999 as a result," he added. He left a life he loved to go to Salt Lake City and help a country he loves more, and somehow Chicago… is trying to make it something sinister." "

-snip-

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/237943-gillespie-says-romney-retired-retroactively-from-bain-capital


So a former Bain manager says the 3 year "delay" was because the retirement negotiations just took that long.

While rMoney's spokesperson says it was because Mitt figured in in 2002 that he wasn't going to have enough time to do Bain and decided to "retroactively retire"....

[geckosfeet]

14. Ok - then we are supposed to believe that miTT kept his name on the paper so that he could draw

a salary without actually doing anything. That in itself is kinda sleazy.

But anyway you look at it, something was going on under the table.

[tanyev]

16. Way too complex for common people like us to understand, right?

*queuing up for pat on the head*

[Puglover]

17. What a puke sack this tool is.

[Trillo]

18. What Magnificent Hypocrisy.

And how do most employers treat their workers when they're let go?

"You're Fired. Your desk has already been emptied, and this security officer will see you to the door."

There's an amazing hypocrisy between how executives of companies assert they treat each other, and how executives are widely-known to treat their own workers.