The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberely Strassel cuts through the half-truths about the Left’s attack on Bain Capital’s role in GS Technologies. Obviously, the attack ad in question is about pure politics. My point in posting this Strassel piece is not to argue politics, or for or against a candidate, but to illuminate the facts about venture capitalists, the risks they take, and the outcomes they produce in a global marketplace that demands efficiency.
A private-equity firm looking to quickly strip value from a company—to “suck” the life out of it—does not do so by investing $100 million in modernization and holding on for eight years, through bankruptcy. Bain has surely made its share of mistakes, and one may well have been trying to resuscitate a traditional steel firm in the grip of industry upheaval. The irony, says Mr. Huselton, is that this plant “wouldn’t even be in today’s news, if it hadn’t been the opportunity that came with Bain. Those jobs would have been gone in 1993.”
