NY Times: 'No Evidence' Romney Did Bain Business

There is no evidence that Mitt Romney exercised his powers at private equity firm Bain Capital after 1999 or directed funds’ investments after leaving, The New York Times reported.

Although some documents place the Republican presidential hopeful in charge of Bain from 1999 to 2001, a period in which the company outsourced jobs and ran companies that fell into bankruptcy, it is not related to who was running Bain at the time, the Times reported.

Romney has tried to distance himself from this period in Bain's history, saying on financial disclosure forms he had no active role in Bain as of February 1999.

“It’s a disconnect between the ownership interest and managerial functions,” Harvey Pitt, who served as S.E.C. chairman under President George W. Bush, told the Times. “When Bain takes positions in public companies, they’re required to show anyone who has an ownership interest that could be the effective equivalent of control. So Romney has to be shown on those filings.

"If they didn’t show them on those filings, they would have broken the law. But it has nothing to do with who’s actually running Bain Capital,” Pitt added.

Financial disclosures filed in Massachusetts back up Romney’s case and show that he drew at least $100,000 in 2001 from Bain as a “former executive” and from other Bain entities as a passive general partner, according to the Times.

The newspaper also pointed to an offering memorandum to investors in a Bain equity fund that was circulated in June 2000 and suggests Romney was not involved in the management of investments. The memorandum lists backgrounds on 18 managers, or “senior private equity investment professionals of Bain Capital,” and Romney is not among them.

Finally, a 2001 filing lists Michael F. Goss as “president, managing director and chief financial officer,” along with 17 other managing directors, with Romney absent from the list. His absence shows that he still owned Bain’s management company but was not an officer.