The Sun News reported that Boston based Bain Capital LLC more than doubled its money on GS Industries Inc, the former parent company of Georgetown Steel, under Mitt Romney’s leadership in the 1990s, even as the steel manufacturer went on to cut more than 1,750 jobs, shuttered a division that had been around for 100 years and eventually sank into bankruptcy.

Bain Capital spent USD 24.5 million to acquire GS Industries in 1993, according to an investment prospectus for the company that was obtained by the Los Angeles Times and reviewed by McClatchy Newspapers. By the end of that decade, Bain Capital estimated its partners had made USD 58.4 million off its investment in GS Industries, according to the prospectus.

Bain Capital’s partners also earned multimillion dollar dividends from GS Industries and annual management fees of about USD 900,000. But by the time GS Industries filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001, it owed USD 553.9 million in debts against assets valued at USD 395.2 million.

Bain Capital came to own Georgetown Steel after it provided the financing for a management led buyout of Armco Worldwide Grinding System of Kansas City in 1993. The Armco plant was renamed GS Technologies, which merged with Georgetown Industries in 1995 to become GS Industries Inc. At the time, the combined entities - headquartered in Charlotte had USD 1 billion in revenue and employed 3,800 people worldwide as the largest producer of carbon wire rods in North America.

Mr Romney, who founded Bain Capital, one of the earliest leveraged buyout firms, in 1984, was in charge of the firm for most of the time it owned GS Industries. Mr Romney left Bain Capital in 1999, two years before the bankruptcy, to run the organizing committee for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Mr Romney has touted his business acumen as an asset in his bid for the Republican Party nomination for president. But he has come under fire from opponents who say Bain Capital preyed on struggling companies and stripped them financially before selling them off or abandoning them in bankruptcy court.

(Sourced from thesunnews.com)