Romney Created a Lot of Jobs Overseas

The Romney campaign won't like this. The Washington Post is reporting that while Romney was running Bain Capital, he invested in companies that were some of the first to use overseas work to cut down on costs.

The Romney campaign won't like this. The Washington Post is reporting that while Romney was running Bain Capital, he invested in companies that were some of the first to use overseas work to cut down on costs.

The Post explains:

But a Washington Post examination of securities filings shows the extent of Bain’s investment in firms that specialized in helping other companies move or expand operations overseas. While Bain was not the largest player in the outsourcing field, the private equity firm was involved early on, at a time when the departure of jobs from the United States was beginning to accelerate and new companies were emerging as handmaidens to this outflow of employment.

Bain played several roles in helping these outsourcing companies, such as investing venture capital so they could grow and providing management and strategic business advice as they navigated this rapidly developing field.

The Romney campaign "repeatedly declined requests" to comment on the story, but a Bain spokesman didn't hesitate at all. "Bain Capital’s business model has always been to build great companies and improve their operations," he told them. "We have helped the 350 companies in which we have invested... produce $80 billion of revenue growth in the United States while growing their revenues well over twice as fast as both the S&P and the U.S. economy over the last 28 years."

The first outsourcing company Bain invested in was Corporate Software Inc. which provided call centers for tech companies. Bain invested in the company in 1993 as minority stakeholder, and CSI started outsourcing its work by the mid-1990s. CSI merged with another company to become Stream, and expanded its outsourcing through the '90s. Bain eventually became the majority shareholder a few months after Romney left Bain in 1999. Bain was also active in running a Stream subsidiary, Modus Media, that also outsourced call center work. Bain also invested in bike manufacturer GT Bicycle Inc. and electronics manufacturer SMTC Corp., both were American companies that used overseas production.