Bain Capital Thanks Investors for Support During Presidential Campaign

Few private enterprises faced as much scrutiny during the presidential campaign than Bain Capital, given its ties to Mitt Romney. With election season over, the private equity firm is giving thanks to investors for putting up with that harsh glare.

Bain Capital sent a letter to its limited partners, both explaining how business wasn't harmed by the harsh attacks on the firm's history and noting that its employees come from all political stripes. (One of the firm's top executives is Stephen Pagliuca, a well-known Democratic donor who ran an unsuccessful campaign to fill the late Edward Kennedy‘s Senate seat in 2009.)

And perhaps most importantly, the firm wrote, investors recognized that it was focused on business, not politics.

“Fortunately the folks with whom we do business have a great ability to separate hyperbole from fact, and political gamesmanship from reality,” the firm wrote in the letter. “Time and time again, we were bolstered by you, b y our employees, by our management teams and by our friends in our communities around the world.”

Bain Capital had been hammered for several investments made during Mr. Romney's tenure as its leader. Companies like GST Steel figured prominently in attack ads aimed at the Republican candidate. The spots featured former employees who complained about how the factory at which they worked was closed.

For their part, Mr. Romney and Bain Capital argued that the onetime Massachusetts governor had nothing to do with the firm's investments once he left in 2001.

Even as the political attacks were flying, Bain wrote in the letter, it continued its core business of leveraged buyouts and other investments. In October, for instance, the firm bought the Apex Tool Group for $1.6 billion.

“Throughout this long and contentious election season, rest assured that we did not permit ourselves to be distracted by politics,” the firm wrote. “We are emerging from this unusual period in our firm's history as strong as ever, and with renewed conviction about how we add value to the marketplace and society as a whole.”

Bain Post-election Letter