page_title: Business career of Mitt Romney
section_title: Departure from business career: 1999–2002
hierarchical_section_title: Business career of Mitt Romney / Departure from business career: 1999–2002
caption_attribution_description: English: Mitt Romney at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.
context_page_description: The business career of Mitt Romney began shortly after he finished graduate school in 1975. At that time, Romney entered the management consulting industry, and in 1977 secured a position at Bain & Company. Later serving as its chief executive officer, he helped bring the company out of financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded and led the spin-off Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became highly profitable and one of the largest such firms in the nation. The fortune he earned from his business career is estimated at $190–250 million.
context_section_description: As the decade neared a close, the goal of simply making more money was losing its appeal for Romney.  He took a paid leave of absence from Bain Capital in February 1999 when he became the head of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics.  The decision caused turmoil at Bain Capital, with a power struggle ensuing.  Some partners left and founded the Audax Group and Golden Gate Capital. Other partners threatened to leave, and there was a prospect of eight-figure lawsuits being filed.  Romney was worried that the firm might be destroyed, but the crisis ebbed.
  Billed in some public statements as keeping a part-time role, Romney remained the firm's sole shareholder, managing director, CEO and president, signing corporate and legal documents, attending to his interests within the firm, and conducting prolonged negotiations for the terms of his departure.
  Romney was not involved in day-to-day operations of the firm after starting the Olympics position.  Those were handled by a management committee, consisting of five of the fourteen remaining active partners with the firm.  However, according to some interviews and press releases during 1999, Romney said he was keeping a part-time function at Bain.
  During his leave of absence, Romney continued to be listed in filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as "sole shareholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer and President".  The SEC filings reflected the legal reality and the ownership interest in the Bain Capital management company.  In practice, former Bain partners have stated that Romney's attention was mostly occupied by his Olympics position.  He did stay in regular contact with his partners, and traveled to meet with them several times, signing corporate and legal documents and paying attention to his own interests within the firm and to his departure negotiations.  Bain Capital Fund VI in 1998 was the last one Romney was involved in; investors were worried that with Romney gone, the firm would have trouble raising money for Bain Capital Fund VII in 2000, but in practice the $2.5 billion was raised without much trouble. His former partners have said that Romney had no role in assessing other new investments after February 1999, nor was he involved in directing the company's investment funds. Discussions over the final terms of Romney's departure dragged on during this time, with Romney negotiating for the best deal he could get and his continuing position as CEO and sole shareholder giving him the leverage to do so.
  Although he had left open the possibility of returning to Bain after the Olympics, Romney made his crossover to politics permanent with an announcement in August 2001.  His separation from the firm was finalized in early 2002.  Romney negotiated a ten-year retirement agreement with Bain Capital that allowed him to receive a passive profit share and interest as a retired partner in some Bain Capital entities, including buyout and Bain Capital investment funds, in exchange for his ownership in the management company. Because the private equity business continued to thrive, this deal would bring him millions of dollars in annual income.  Romney was the first and last CEO of Bain Capital; since his departure became final, it has continued to be run by management committee.
  Romney's business career has drawn both praise and criticism from his political opponents.  Summarizing his business career and the creative destruction of the private equity industry, he has said: "Sometimes the medicine is a little bitter but it is necessary to save the life of the patient. My job was to try to make the enterprise successful, and in my view the best security a family can have is that the business they work for is strong."  Romney's web site defends his business career.
caption: Romney left his business career to run the 2002 Winter Olympics.
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