Mitt Romney has defended Bain Capital from accusations of unnecessary layoffs throughout the campaign by insisting the fate of the companies they acquired was tied to his own, but Democrats have been hammering home examples where Bain made millions in profit even when the company they acquired eventually went bankrupt.
Romney addressed the more specific charge in an interview with the National Review published Friday, saying such instances were unusual and not representative of their business model.
“With very few exceptions, the times you are successful in an investment are when the enterprise itself becomes larger and more successful,” Romney said. “That is how our firm and other firms were able to achieve such success. There are a few exceptions where an enterprise is doing well, and realizing dividends from its success, but then it encounters a reversal in circumstances, and it no longer does well. . . . That tends to be rare.”
Romney added that the “cartoon caricature of investors coming in, taking all the money out of a business and leaving it bankrupt is, of course, absurd. The only way you make money in the industry that I’m familiar with is by making the business more successful, more profitable, not by making it less so.”
