Talk:Bain Capital

message: "... the venture capital affiliate of Bain Capital, focused on seed through late-stage growth investments in software, hardware, information, healthcare, and technology-driven business services companies."
"... is one of the nation's leading managers of high-yield corporate credit obligations. With approximately $23 billion assets, Sankaty invests in a wide variety of securities, including leveraged loans, high-yield bonds, stressed debt, distressed debt, mezzanine debt, structured products and equity investments."
EthanHerd 09:08, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copied from Bain's website 

message: The purpose of the image gallery included in the article is to provide a clear illustration of the companies in which Bain is invested.  This was suggested in another private equity WP:GA discussion and appears to be consistent with WP:IG guidelines.  This serves the function of quickly identifying brands using free images from commons.  The usage guidelines state "use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject".  Clearly here, the use of images illustrates Bain's portfolio of images in a way that could not be accomplished in the text.  While inline images are also used, this provides a broader group of companies than could be illustrated through inline images. |► ϋrбanяeneωaℓ • TALK ◄| 01:26, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Nah, the image gallery is meaningless eye candy. It reminds me of a cartoon of a big game hunter's wall covered with the heads of animals the hunter shot. The gallery of images related to various Bain affiliates and acquisitions does not tell me anything more about Bain Capital than the collection of hunting trophies tells me about the guy who shot them. A little eye candy has its place in the encyclopedia, but the main purpose of images should be to illustrate the subject, not decorate the page. --Orlady (talk) 04:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image gallery 

message: I AGREE - looks like the Bain PR team wrote this page.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204331304577140850713493694.html
This is a link to a Wall Street Journal on-line article that looked at 77 companies Bain invested in. Some of the findings - Under Romney, they found 22% closed or filed bankruptcy and another 8% ran into trouble losing all of Bain's money. Ten deals produced the big money gains for Bain's investors and four of those eventually filed for bankruptcy. Bain has done great things for it's investors. This is absolutely true. But the taxpayer and other companies have been left holding the bag when Bain's companies have failed and left pensioned unfunded. Bain is claiming privacy and won't reveal all the companies they have invested in. I think it is because they do not want a real balanced look at the actual results. My opinion only. Bain is a certain type of investment company who makes money for its own investors and the goal is not to create jobs - private equity, venture capital - all about the $ return for the investors - is it part of American capitalism - not good or bad - just the way it is. Claiming this is job creating experience is misleading in my opinion.
A good example from my own professional experience of this type of investing is ESL - Eddie Lampert's hedge fund which buys distressed companies - Eddie is a billionaire and his investors are multi - millionaire/billionaires and very sophisticated investors. When Eddie took over Kmart and other companies, he cut benefits, fired workers, closed stores and SOLD the REAL ESTATE resulting in huge profits for himself and his investors. Many low income neighborhood were hurt BUT Eddie is not seeking public office or presenting himself as a job creator. Like Romney, he got a leg up from his father's success.
Someone with the time and more knowledge than I do needs to do a real analysis because I think Romney is telling half truths about his background and real experience and a voter looking for facts will be misled by this page which only present the sunny side of the business. That is the beauty of PRIVATE equity - it is private and not required to disclose. I can't see how Romney can call himself a job creator by any stretch of the imagination - it is simply NOT the function of the CEO of a private equity firm. Romney is, however, a money creator - he makes an excellent return for his already wealthy investors. The average American is not financially smart enough to figure out the difference and will never have the funds to be accepted by a private equity firm. They don't know how companies use bankruptcy to become free of debts of all types (often hurting small companies they owe money to as well as 401k and pension plans). And they don;t know how their own income taxes often come to the rescue after the investors walk with their profits taxed at only 15-20%. I don't know if I broke any rules here, just trying to point to some additional info -  if so - mea culpa.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by MoneyTalks1980 (talk • contribs) 19:00, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Umm ... when you buy distressed companies, you are buying companies that are predisposed to go out of business and, in many cases, would have gone out of business if not for a buyer being found. So the WSJ article is no real surprise - you would expect Bain to lose money on some of their investments or for a lot of them to go out of business.  It's a little disingenuous to complain about the assets being liquidated, people being fired, etc, because all of that would have happened anyway if not for the investment.  And whatever Eddie Lampert's hedge fund has or hasn't done has nothing whatsoever to do with an article on Bain.  For that matter, Romney and the presidential election has very little to do with an article on Bain - this article is about Bain, not about the current political arguments. --B (talk) 20:53, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wall Street Journal 1/9/2012 online article should be cited on Bain page for more balance 

message: This article is about Bain Capital and expanding it to include this controversy will not work. I suggest a new article, Mitt Romney Bain controversy gets created in which all sources and the positions expressed by sources about this issue, very much along the lines of what has been captured at John_Kerry_military_service_controversy and Jeremiah_Wright_controversy and thus create a neutral article about this subject. Cwobeel Cwobeel (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 16:47, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The topic of what Romney's role was in Bain Capital during the 1999-2002 period is a fair subject for this article.  It shouldn't dominate it, which is why I moved it out of the lead and into a focused section within the chronology, and it shouldn't be given undue weight within the overall history of Bain Capital, which is why the section is pretty short.  If this controversy becomes as big as the two you mention, then yes maybe it could merit its own article.  But it isn't there yet.  Wasted Time R (talk) 17:04, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  If? It is already substantial, don't you think? 339,000,000 hits in Google for "Romney Bain" vs 73,300,000 for "Obama Wright".  We can certainly fill an article on the controversy, and it can also be summarized here. Cwobeel (talk) 17:42, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The names Romney and Bain are connected with or without the controversy.LedRush (talk) 04:53, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

text: You Google search numbers are bogus, since most of the hits for <Romney Bain> have nothing to do with the recent dates-of-departure controversy.  Nevertheless, this is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and you are free to create a new article if you wish.  You may have to defend it at AfD - Seamus (dog)/Mitt Romney dog incident survived, while Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mitt Romney Cranbrook incident bit the dust.  Wasted Time R (talk) 18:43, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for the tip. I will get started on the article. Cwobeel (talk) 22:33, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  I support the creation of a separate break out article as too much coverage in this article will be undue and there is scope for a lengthy treatment of this "controversy". Of course some mention must still remain here though, with the article linked from here. Rangoon11 (talk) 23:06, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  New article 

message: Where and how best to include Romney's own words?
::"Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions. But he will leave running day-to-day operations to Bain's executive committee." Mitt Romney, quoted by the Boston Herald in February 1999 (Greg Gatlin, “Romney Looks To Restore Olympic Pride,” The Boston Herald, February 12, 1999) 
Cwobeel (talk)
:Unless there's evidence that he actually did this, not worth mentioning here.  Of course, in a breakout article you can try to mention everything under the sun.  Wasted Time R (talk) 23:14, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is not about the evidence he did or did not had a part time involvement. It is about reporting what Romney said in 1999. If you we are reportingin this article that he said he took a leave of absence, why not to also report that he said he stayed part-time? Are we going to report only partial facts about what Romney said? I'd appreciate an answer. Cwobeel (talk) 23:20, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Like this FactCheck.org piece says, "Romney’s statement that he would remain a “part-timer” is merely a statement of intent, issued just as he was leaving for the Olympics job and before he knew how much time it would consume. It is not evidence of what actually happened."  I've found in doing these articles for 7½ years that it's hard enough to handle what actually happened, and rarely worth devoting any attention to what someone thought might happen but did not.  Wasted Time R (talk) 23:30, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, I think you missed my point. What I am referring to is about the statements that he made and that are supported by sources. It is not up to you or me to decide which statements to report, that is the principle behind neutrality of articles. I fail to see how you could apply your rule to the statement about "part time" but not apply the same rule to the statement about "leave of absence". Either we include both, or none. To another issue, which you may be able to help as you seem knowledgeable, do you know who was appointed interim CEO at Bain when Romney took his purported leave of absence? That would also be worth reporting. Cwobeel (talk) 00:26, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: According to this interview with a former partner, a management committee ran day-to-day operations during Romney's absence.  Wasted Time R (talk) 03:19, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good 'ol Chris Hayes, nailing that interview. Thanks for the link. Note that in the interview, it was made clear that Romney was “legally” the chief executive officer and sole owner. Cwobeel (talk) 04:48, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

text: OK, I give up on this one, go ahead and add all that you want, then remove the POV tag that you added.  Wasted Time R (talk) 00:48, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Added some, hope it is OK. Otherwise, feel free to amend. Cwobeel (talk) 01:50, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Part time 

message: "Undid revision 513625947 by Dgharmon (talk) coatrack for Taibbi piece - not a WP:RS and not representative of the mainstream media scrutiny"
Since when is the Rolling Stone magazine not 'representative of the mainstream media scrutiny' or since when is 'not representative of the mainstream media scrutiny' a Wikipedia category ?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829
Dgharmon (talk) 14:01, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Because Taibbi's piece is not typical of the mainstream straight press descriptions of Bain Capital practices and Romney's time there.  Taibbi's thesis seems to be that no one in the financial or political press has ever realized how leveraged buyouts work, which is not correct.  Wasted Time R (talk) 12:43, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undid revision 513625947 by Dgharmon 

message: This edit by Z126 needs to be reverted.  I previously reverted this earlier edit by Z126 but both are bad.  (If no one else sees this, I'll do the reversion once the election articles probation is over and 1RR limits are not possibly in play.)  Wasted Time R (talk) 11:11, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: We're playing Calvinball now. It's not officially 1RR, but you can be topic-banned even for that. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 03:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reversion needed 

message: Where is the section on controversies around this company.  Surely everyone would agree there have been a number of negative stories about Bain Capital in the mainstream press.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.231.144.146 (talk) 02:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Separate "Controversies" sections are a bad idea.  Some of what you are looking for is in "Appraisals and critiques" section, and some is in the regular chronological history sections, especially "1990s".  And some is probably not Bain Capital-specific but more general unhappiness with private equity and leveraged buyouts and capitalism, and should be discussed in those articles.  Wasted Time R (talk) 12:26, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article reads like an advertisement and should be marked as such. 

message: I believe this section appears to be completely arbitrary. The company has been around since 1984 and likely receives these type things constantly. Yet there are a couple random ones included. Does not seem very much like an encyclopedia to have such arbitrary information. We certainly can't include it all appraisals and critiques. I understand these sections are on some pages, but those are usually when a singular or one time event took place. I guess I am not seeing why such a section should exist on this page in particular when they have to be picked at random. ManorOfFact (talk) 15:24, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree.  Assessments like Fortune magazine's that Bain Capital's approach became widely copied within the private equity industry, and the quote from Steven Kaplan, definitely deserve to be in the article.  So to do the assessments from Josh Kosman and the Washington Post on the effect of Bain's practices on company health.  If there are other representative assessments from high-value sources, they too should be added.  Now if you want to put this material in the article in some other place than a separate section called "Appraisals and critiques", that's okay, but this material shouldn't just be wiped out.  Wasted Time R (talk) 12:21, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

text: Arbitrary and random? Seriously? The firm is only known in the public consciousness for its political legacy. That's by far the most public part of the firm's reputation. To remove all of that content is absurd. Trayvon1 (talk) 00:03, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: This section has nothing to do with the firm's political legacy. So I am a little confused as to how that applies to the comments we have had in this section. It is about their business practices and deals. ManorOfFact (talk) 16:26, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

text: This is simply reflecting reality.  Most people have heard of Bain Capital because of Romney.  But I don't feel as strongly about this one as the first.   Wasted Time R (talk) 12:21, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

text: Again, this is the most prominent part of the firm's reputation. Of course its business activities should be discussed, and they occupy the bulk of the lede anyway. Inserting one small section about the firm's media, cultural, and political reputation does a service to the vast majority of readers. Trayvon1 (talk) 00:03, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Most prominent according to who? It was during an election, but it's a 30 year old company that was well known before the election and continues to be in the news well after it for other reasons. ManorOfFact (talk) 16:26, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appraisals and critiques 

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