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Romney Invested Millions in Firms That Pioneered High-Tech Outsourcing
Romney Invested Millions in Firms That Pioneered High-Tech Outsourcing
EXCLUSIVE: A government document shows that at Bain he held a $54 million stake in companies that manufactured electronics in China and Mexico for US firms.
—By David Corn and Nick Baumann
| Fri Jul. 20, 2012 3:00 AM PDT
In recent weeks, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have accused each other of being an "outsourcer in chief," as their campaigns have tussled over Romney's past at Bain Capital and the (non)release of his tax returns. But all this scuffling hasn't taken into account an until-now unreported fact about Romney's days at Bain: When he was running the private equity firm, he invested tens of millions of dollars in a pair of companies that specialized in outsourcing high-tech manufacturing and that developed offshore production facilities in Mexico, China, and elsewhere to build electronics for US firms.
In March 1999, shortly after Romney left Bain to take over the troubled Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Brookside Capital Investors Inc., a Bain-related entity wholly owned by Romney, filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission that listed dozens of companies in which Brookside held a stake the previous quarter. The roster included investments in Singapore-based Flextronics International ($13 million) and Florida-headquartered Jabil Circuit Inc. ($41 million), two companies that were leaders in the fast-growing field of outsourcing electronics manufacturing and offshoring production to low-wage countries. Together, these two investments represented almost 10 percent of Brookside's $559 million portfolio.
For much of the 1990s, most overseas outsourcing involved unsophisticated products like apparel. But in the second half of that decade, US high-tech companies producing computers, telecommunications equipment, and other electronics began contracting out their manufacturing to firms that had established production facilities both in the United States and in overseas locales where labor was cheap.
Such was the case with Flextronics and Jabil Circuit. They were two of a handful of companies that, according to the Los Angeles Times, "exploited the boon in high-tech outsourcing, or 'stealth' manufacturing," producing components or products for American businesses including Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft. When Romney was acquiring stakes in these two companies, they were hot tickets for investors. During the second half of 1998, the leading electronics manufacturing contractors—including Flextronics and Jabil Circuit—averaged an 85 percent boost in stock prices. That year, Flextronics doubled its revenues...
EXCLUSIVE: A government document shows that at Bain he held a $54 million stake in companies that manufactured electronics in China and Mexico for US firms.
—By David Corn and Nick Baumann
| Fri Jul. 20, 2012 3:00 AM PDT
In recent weeks, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have accused each other of being an "outsourcer in chief," as their campaigns have tussled over Romney's past at Bain Capital and the (non)release of his tax returns. But all this scuffling hasn't taken into account an until-now unreported fact about Romney's days at Bain: When he was running the private equity firm, he invested tens of millions of dollars in a pair of companies that specialized in outsourcing high-tech manufacturing and that developed offshore production facilities in Mexico, China, and elsewhere to build electronics for US firms.
In March 1999, shortly after Romney left Bain to take over the troubled Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Brookside Capital Investors Inc., a Bain-related entity wholly owned by Romney, filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission that listed dozens of companies in which Brookside held a stake the previous quarter. The roster included investments in Singapore-based Flextronics International ($13 million) and Florida-headquartered Jabil Circuit Inc. ($41 million), two companies that were leaders in the fast-growing field of outsourcing electronics manufacturing and offshoring production to low-wage countries. Together, these two investments represented almost 10 percent of Brookside's $559 million portfolio.
For much of the 1990s, most overseas outsourcing involved unsophisticated products like apparel. But in the second half of that decade, US high-tech companies producing computers, telecommunications equipment, and other electronics began contracting out their manufacturing to firms that had established production facilities both in the United States and in overseas locales where labor was cheap.
Such was the case with Flextronics and Jabil Circuit. They were two of a handful of companies that, according to the Los Angeles Times, "exploited the boon in high-tech outsourcing, or 'stealth' manufacturing," producing components or products for American businesses including Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft. When Romney was acquiring stakes in these two companies, they were hot tickets for investors. During the second half of 1998, the leading electronics manufacturing contractors—including Flextronics and Jabil Circuit—averaged an 85 percent boost in stock prices. That year, Flextronics doubled its revenues...
Via a David Corn tweet:
@DavidCornDC 26m
As Obama accuses Romney of false advertising with the Jeep spot, it's a good time to revisit this scoop: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mitt-romney-bain-outsourcing-flextronics-jabil-circuit …
https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/status/263004094883561472
Mother Jones finds two more major Romney outsourcing investments
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