Bain Capital LLC is a Boston-based private equity firm founded in 1984 by partners from the consulting firm Bain & Company. Originally conceived as a leveraged buyout and venture capital fund, Bain Capital today manages approximately $65 billion in assets, and its strategies include private equity & venture capital as well as long/short public equity, credit products, and global macro hedge funds.

History

Bain Capital was founded in 1984 by Bain & Company partners Mitt Romney, T. Coleman Andrews III, and Eric Kriss. In addition to the three founding partners, the early team included Fraser Bullock, Robert F. White, Joshua Bekenstein, Adam Kirsch, Stephen Pagliuca and Geoffrey S. Rehnert. Bain Capital's original $37 million fund was raised entirely from private individuals in mid-1984.

The firm's investment professionals evaluate potential deals based on a consulting-based due diligence process that analyzes a company's financial performance, market growth potential, industry attractiveness, and competitive position. One of the fund's first start-up investments was Staples, Inc., the $15 billion office supply retailer. The funding enabled Staples to expand from one store in 1986 to nearly 1,700 in 2006.

Twenty years after its inception, Bain Capital manages approximately $65 billion in assets, and has founded, acquired, or invested in hundreds of companies including AMC Entertainment, Brookstone, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Domino's Pizza, DoubleClick, Guitar Center, Hospital Corporation of America , Sealy, The Sports Authority, Toys R Us, Unisource, Warner Music Group and The Weather Channel.

Recent Notable Investments

Some recent proposed and actual Bain Capital investments include (in reverse chronological order):

• 2009, Jun – Bain Capital announces a deal to acquire a 16% stake in Chinese electronics manufacturer GOME Electrical Appliances for $300 million. The deal is currently the 2nd largest deal for Bain in the Chinese market.
• 2008, Jul – Joins with Thomas H. Lee Partners to purchase Clear Channel Communications.
• 2007, Sep – Joins with the Chinese networking company Huawei Technologies in an attempt to acquire 3Com for $2.2 billion in cash. However, they were unable to structure the deal to satisfy constraints set by Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). In March 2008, Bain and Huawei abandoned the transaction.
• 2007, Jun – Signs an agreement with Guitar Center to purchase the music retailer for $1.9 billion, plus $200 million in debt. The buyout will be for $63 per share, a 26% premium on June 26's closing price. The deal was approved by shareholders on September 18, 2007 and closed October 9, 2007.
• 2007, Jun – Agrees to acquire HD Supply for $10.3 billion, along with Carlyle Group and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (with each agreeing to buy a one-third stake in the division). Home Depot sold their wholesale construction supply business to fund a stock repurchase estimated at $40 billion.
• 2007, Jun – Acquires Bavaria Yachtbau for a price rumored to be about €1.3B Euros.
• 2007, May – Acquires Edgars Department Stores (Edcon Limited) of Zimbabwe and South Africa.
• 2006, Aug – Joins the enlarged private equity consortium headed by KKR that agreed to acquire an 80.1% stake in the Semiconductor Division of Royal Philips Electronics. The new company is called NXP Semiconductors.
• 2006, Apr – Acquires Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp., which operates more than 360 retail stores.
• 2005, Jun – Teams up with Haier Group, China's largest appliance maker, and private equity firm Blackstone Group in an attempt to acquire Maytag for over $1 billion. The bid was dropped a month later.
• 2005, Mar – Proposes a $3.5 billion buyout of all 30 teams in the National Hockey League during the league's lockout. The offer was rejected. In June 2005, the company made a revised bid of $4.3 billion for the 30 teams and allow the current owners to maintain a stake in the league. This bid was also rejected.
• 2004, Nov – Purchases the Dollarama chain of dollar stores, based in Montreal, Canada and operating stores in the provinces of Eastern Canada for $1.05 billion CAD.
• 2004, Mar – Acquires Brenntag Group from Deutsche Bahn AG (Exited in 2006; sold to BC Partners for $4B).
• 2003, Nov – Invests in Warner Music Group.
• 2003, Aug – Purchases Bombardier Inc.'s recreational products division , along with the Bombardier family and the Caisse de dépôt et de placement du Québec, and created Bombardier Recreational Products or BRP. Bain Capital took a 50% interest in the new company.
• 2002, Jul – Acquires Burger King in July in a leveraged buyout with TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners.

Affiliates

Bain Capital's family of funds includes private equity, venture capital, public equity and leveraged debt assets.

• Absolute Return Capital (ARC) is the global macro affiliate of Bain Capital managing approximately $600 million of capital. ARC manages assets in fixed income, equity and commodity markets to produce attractive risk-adjusted returns while maintaining low correlation to traditional investments.

• Bain Capital Private Equity has raised ten funds and invested in more than 200 companies. The private equity activity includes leveraged buyouts and growth capital in a wide variety of industries.

• Bain Capital (Europe) Limited, an affiliate of Bain Capital, LLC, is dedicated to investment opportunities in the European market. Based in London, with an advisory office in Munich, Bain Capital has a successful European investment track record dating back to 1989.

• Bain Capital Ventures is the venture capital arm of Bain Capital, focused on seed through late-stage growth equity investing in business services, consumer, healthcare, internet & mobile, and software companies.

• Brookside Capital is the public equity affiliate of Bain Capital. Brookside's primary objective is to invest in securities of publicly traded companies that offer opportunities to realize substantial long-term capital appreciation.

• Sankaty Advisors, the fixed income affiliate of Bain Capital, is one of the nation's leading private managers of high yield debt obligations. With $20.3 billion of committed capital, Sankaty invests in a wide variety of securities, including leveraged loan, high-yield bonds, distressed securities, mezzanine debt, convertible bonds, structured products and equity investments.

References

• Making of Mitt Romney: The Businessman. Boston Globe, June 26, 2007

1. Bain Capital Said to Pay $300 Million for Gome Stake, By Cathy Chan - June 8 2009, Bloomberg
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8. Business Day, 'Retail giant Edgars starts a new chapter'
9. Absolute Return Capital (company website)
10. Bain Capital Private Equity (company website)
11. Bain Capital Europe (company website)
12. Bain Capital Ventures (company website)
13. Brookside Capital (company website)
14. Sankaty Advisors (company website)

External links

• Bain Capital (company website)