Monday, May 21, 2012

What Romney's vampire capitalism did to Marion, IN


The late Edward M. Kennedy used the story of Ampad to defeat Mitt Romney in his campaign for U.S. Senate in 1994.
Now President Obama is reminding people that Romney's capitalism sucks the life out of healthy companies. It wasn't only employees who got screwed by Romney's firm, Bain Capital. Politico reports today that creditors got the shaft as well:
The company went into bankruptcy in 2000, holding a debt load of more than $400 million. Bain's return on its $5 million investment was $100 million. 
But a final bankruptcy filing on the firm in last December also shows what happened to Ampad creditors. Out of a debt load of $170 million owed to unsecured creditors, Ampad ended up paying out less than $330,000, the filings show. 
That amounts to two-tenths of a cent for every dollar owed in that case. 
Among those owed money was the pension fund for Niagara Envelope, a New York-based company that Ampad picked up during Bain's tenure, and where there were a number of job losses. It was owed over $700,000, but was on track to get back under $1,500, the records show. 
Ampad also owed more than $240,000 to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., but it was granted a recoup of only $458.07.
Nice.