Article Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/mitt-romneys-defense-bain-capital-and-private-equity-industry-here-are-some-facts
"On Mitt Romney's Defense Of Bain Capital And The Private Equity Industry - Here Are Some Facts" by 'Tyler Durden' of Zerohedge on 01/10/2012
Lately, Bain founder and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has found himself in a spirited defense of the private equity industry, doing all he can to spin decades of data which confirm, without failure, that PE Leveraged Buy Outs are nothing but "efficiency maximizing" transactions whose only goal is the "maximization" of EBITDA in the pursuit of dividend recap deals, IPOs or outright sales, while loading up the company with untenable amounts of leverage. All this with a 3-5 year investment horizon, which ignores the long-term viability of a company and seeks to streamline (read fire as many as possible) operations as quickly as possible in the goal of maximizing short-term returns. We wish him luck in his endeavor. As for the other side of the equation, we recreate a post we penned back in November 2009 which analyzes just how effective the mega-LBOs have been for the economy, and the workers involved. In other words - the facts. In a nutshell, here they are: "The Disastrous Performance Of Private Equity: Of The Top 10 LBOs, 6 Are In Distress, 4 Have Defaulted." Read on for the full details.
From November 6, 2009
One sometimes wonders why the idiots in Washington have still not bailed out the private equity industry. After all, for the low, low price of about $100 billion (which is about how much keeping Fannie on life support will cost US taxpayers in the first quarter of 2010 alone), Congress can ensure that thousands of PE associates, VPs and MDs can once again frequent Hustler Club, order dozens of bottles of Cristal at Lotus, and eat sushi straight off geisha bodies at Bar Masa. In other words, a return to those oh so difficult days of 2007. Furthermore, looking at the track record of PE, especially as characterized by its 10 largest deals in history, one can make the mistake that KKR, Apollo, Bain, Carlyle and Providence are all employing exclusively government workers: therefore the government would in essence be bailing out itself.
For those who are interested in more information, Moody's has compiled a useful report, entitled "$640 billion & 640 days later: how companies sponsored by big private equity have performed during the U.S. recession." The track record is simply abysmal: Of the top 10 deals, only Hertz, HCA and First Data are considered "stable" which is actually saying a lot ("stable" by Moody's means these firms are likely about to have an alien burst out of their ribcage). For fear of being sued with impunity by the benevolent IR team at Hertz we won't say much, save to say that the firm is exclusively reliant on a stable economy, healthy business travel, vibrant tourism and the lack of default of fleet car makers, and which is leveraged up its colon in double digit leverage multiples. Also, saying HCA and FDC are "stable" in public and one risks being involuntarily committed. Therefore one can say that virtually all of the blockbuster LBO deals are on the verge of collapse/bankruptcy/default/insolvency, etc. If that is not deserving of communist handouts courtesy of Comrade Obama, nothing is.
And while these companies life expectations are limited at best, regardless of how Hertz' lawsuit against anyone who has a sell rating against the firm goes, the biggest threat is to the entire PE industry, which just like the CRE space, will be facing a massive refi threat into 2014. Between 2011 and 2014, there is roughly half a trillion in LBO debt maturing. Add that to the $1.5 trillion in bank debt due for rolling, and the roughly $3 trillion in CRE debt that is also supposed to be refinanced, and one can see how the next president will have his arms full as he/she will need to find a way to roll about $5 trillion in debt without the benefit of securitizations. Furthermore, since the economy will be on stimulus #10 by then courtesy of a drunk with power Obama, America will be on fast track to sovereign and corporate Armageddon.
Anyway, here is the chart that shows the upcoming debt maturities:
And since no Zero Hedge post is complete without ridiculing someone away from the Administration or the Fed (the last two are like shooting fish in an excess liquidity barrel), here is the rating of the worst of the worst PE firms. Not surprisingly, Cerberus is the worst PE firm in the history of the universe, followed promptly by Leon Black's Apollo, of whose 20 deals initiated before 2008, 5 are in distressed and 8 are in default. Hey Calpers, how is that evaluation of your Apollo relationship going?
Click on above image to enlarge.And as we are confident that the White House will be all over this to find their next bail out target (those $1.1 trillion in excess reserves have to hit the money in circulation somehow), we will present you will the full Moody's report. If, in addition to this, our dear White House readers are in need of reading, comprehension and math lessons, those can be purchased at our Paper Street headquarters: we accept compensation in the form of perpetual, non-accruing, non-PIKing TLGP zeros.
Romney: The Republican Obama
By Kurt Nimmo
Mitt Romney is the Republican Obama. He earns this title because on crucial issues he mirrors Barack Obama. The two agree on the following two key issues among many:
Romney-Obamacare:
Obama was so enthralled with Romney's statist health care boondoggle that he based his plan on it.
"Newly obtained White House records provide fresh details on how senior Obama administration officials used Mitt Romney's landmark health-care law in Massachusetts as a model for the new federal law, including recruiting some of Romney's own health care advisers and experts to help craft the act," NBC reported last October.
Cap-and-Trade and carbon taxes:
Romney has stated he believes in the unproven theory of anthropogenic global warming. In 2005, as governor of Massachusetts, Romney imposed strict state limitations on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. In a memo issued by Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry Hale, the Romney administration bragged that it was "the first and only state to set CO2 emissions limits on power plants."
In his book, No Apology, Romney advocates carbon taxes through a "tax-swap plan" and declares that resultant "higher energy prices would encourage energy efficiency." The plan is favored by economist and Romney adviser Greg Mankiw and many other "Republican-leaning economists." In 2007, Mankiw wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled "One Answer to Global Warming: A New Tax." He wrote that "if we want to reduce global emissions of carbon, we need a global carbon tax."
Mitt Romney is basically indistinguishable from Obama and supports the same agenda, albeit with "conservative" flourishes. His flip-flopping on key issues is designed to make his pre-arranged agenda more palatable to voters, who would be hoodwinked as they have been in prior election cycles upon his election. In a telling Freudian slip, even John McCain below revealed as much this week in South Carolina:
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