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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBLOOMBERG: Romney Persona Non Grata In Italy For Bain’s Deal Skirting Taxes
Romney Persona Non Grata In Italy For Bains Deal Skirting TaxesMitt Romney skipped Italy on his swing through Europe. That was probably prudent.
Thats because Bain Capital, under Romney as chief executive officer, made about $1 billion in a leveraged buyout 12 years ago that remains controversial in Italy to this day. Bain was part of a group that bought a telephone-directory company from the Italian government and then sold it about two years later, at the peak of the technology bubble, for about 25 times what it paid.
Bain funneled profits through subsidiaries in Luxembourg, a common corporate strategy for avoiding income taxes in other European countries, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The buyer, Italys biggest telephone company, now has a total market value less than what it paid Bain and other investors for the directory business.
In Italy, the deals have spurred at least three books, separate legal and regulatory probes and newspaper columns alleging investors made a fortune at the expense of Italian taxpayers. Boston-based Bain wasnt a subject of the inquiries, which didnt result in any charges.
The sale of the governments directory business is a dark chapter in the countrys privatization history, one that has hurt Italians deeply, said Bernardo Bortolotti, an economics professor at Turin University who advised the Italian Treasury on asset sales from 2002 through 2005. It was a mistake from the start, damaged by a lack of transparency and the use of offshore funds.
The Rest:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-06/romney-persona-non-grata-in-italy-for-bain-s-deal-skirting-taxes.html
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BLOOMBERG: Romney Persona Non Grata In Italy For Bain’s Deal Skirting Taxes (Original Post)
kpete
Aug 2012
OP
PDJane
(10,103 posts)1. A great deal of Europe's financial problems
Are directly due to the machinations of US-based corporate and financial nastiness.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)2. "Vaffanculo! Willard" - Honest Italian people
Last edited Mon Aug 6, 2012, 03:43 AM USA/ET - Edit history (2)
"We got no use for International Fatcat Republican Welfare-for-the-rich tax-and-draft dodging Republican wankers like you, Willard. We have our own dodgy Plutocrats sponging off the Proles right here at home. You can pick them out: they wear deluxe, gourmet, $5,000 shoes, and wierdo Sassy Boy hats. Like you, Willard, our Plutocrats like to imagine they are 'special'"
- Honest Italians
LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)3. No suprise that Romney dodges all taxes equally.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)4. Romney è una specie di stronzo
I'm not sure I spelled that right. I worked for film producer Dino DeLaurentiis in the 1980s in Los Angeles and I often heard him shouting something from within his office like that into his telephone at the top of his voice.
WilmywoodNCparalegal
(2,654 posts)5. you spelled it right
must have been fun working for Dino.