W. Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP nominee.
This is a version of a story that appears in the June 4, 2012 issue of Forbes Magazine.
Mitt Romney isn’t the richest person to ever run for President – Ross Perot had him beat by a factor of ten. And if he’s elected, inflation adjustments might favor sprawling plantation owners like Washington and Jefferson, or Kennedy if family assets counted. But there’s no denying that in terms of total dollars a President Romney would be the wealthiest White House occupant ever, and would be even wealthier had he not set aside a trust, now worth $100 million, for his 5 boys. So just how rich is he?
Forbes spent the past month trying to answer that question definitively. The core basis for our valuation comes from Romney himself – specifically, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics disclosure forms, which he filed in August 2007 and August 2011, plus discussions with high-level Romney officials familiar with specific changes to his holdings since that last report. Of course, those disclosures, taken at face value, are about as concrete as a campaign promise, with vague asset ranges (“$1 million to $5 million”) and definitions.
Seeking to remove as much guesswork as possible, we assigned a value to every single asset Mitt and Ann Romney own – 184 in all across the couple’s two blind trusts, IRAs and outright holdings. Our core method: noting the shift in ranges between the 2007 filing, the 2011 filing and now (much of his wealth has been consistently held over the whole period). Comparing which assets changed brackets – or didn’t – with their underlying price fluctuation (or in some cases, a good comparable) over that period, we were able to get better estimates of where each fell in the range. Supplemented by a dozen interviews – from local real estate experts to private equity partners – we get a detailed look at the current state of Mitt’s money, pinpointing his net worth at $230 million, split between 9 different asset classes. Highlights include the sale of nearly all of his individual equities – he sold 71 stocks since his last disclosure – and a big move into cash. He now holds $16 million, up from $1 million in August. More details on his net worth and where he invests are outlined below:
Debt Securities: +$91 million
Romney has the biggest chunk of his money invested in debt securities including $36 million worth of Federal Home Loan Banks consolidated obligations and an estimated $10 million worth of structured notes from Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas. In recent months he dumped foreign equities held through Thornburg Investment Management and bought notes from the governments of Canada, Australia and Sweden, giving the former governor some international exposure without the potential political liability of holding foreign companies. Also in this category is a personal loan of approximately $400,000 made to the family’s horse trainer, and a loan secured by a suburban home in Missouri, Tex.
Bain Alternative Investments: +$52 million
At the behest of Bain & Company founder Bill Bain, Romney launched private equity offshoot Bain Capital in 1984. When he departed the buyout firm 15 years later, Romney left with a retirement package that gave him a share of profits flowing from all Bain funds until February 2009 plus the right to invest in Bain funds alongside his former partners. Romney currently holds stakes in dozens of Bain funds.
Elliott Management's Paul Singer, a major Romney donor.
Other Alternative Investments: +$29 million
Nearly all of Romney’s non-Bain alternative assets are managed by the former Governor’s connections. Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer oversees more than $1 million invested in his flagship Elliot Associates fund. In addition to delivering Romney a net return north of 4% in 2011, a year in which the average hedge fund returned -5%, Singer donated $1 million to the Romney super PAC Restore Our Future in October 2011. Romney also has money in Golden Gate Capital, a private equity fund management company whose investment team is largely comprised of Bain alums, and son Taggart’s Solamere Capital.
Comments
Maybe a better question, which has never been asked, is how did a “community organizer” end up being worth $10 million dollars? Where did Barack Obama’s money come from?
His books
Great question. We actually analyzed his figures as well. Based on the disclosures released yesterday we figure he’s worth closer to $6 million. The money comes mostly from the books he’s published and that revenue stream appears to be drying up a bit. Here is the story we did on that subject.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2012/05/16/obamas-worth-nearly-6-million-see-why-hes-down-since-last-year/
“OH my gawd, it’s a black man with millions of dollars, he must have STOLEN them” is the coded message here.
I’m gonna label any such question as racism, since it takes a special kind of effort for a right-winger to not have heard his sides’ many mockeries of Obama’s achievements as a writer.
Or, that might be indicative of the rightwings lack of intelligence.
@thesteelgeneral
Well that’s just absurd. Anyone has the right to question anyone’s source of income, regardless of their race. For you to absolve Obama from legitimate inquiry because he is black is racist.
Obama is half white, and I dislike and distrust his white half just as much as his black half.
The question might better be, what is Mitt Romney worth to all of us looking for a leader of some worth to all of us?
Pied Piper Romney blows his own horn to the latest tune: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”
And how will he do this—any particulars on how this self-made man that worships his maker, himself, will accomplish this?
When Romney says the “private sector” he does not mean everyone in the country that is in business for themselves, he means the 00.006% that have hoarded the nation’s wealth at the expense of everyone else that is 99.994% of the declining middle class, working poor, totally destitute and younger generation buried under a huge pile of personal educational debt with some discretionary money to be able to spend.
In our consumer economy that is depending upon spending, Romney and accompanying folks like Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin want to destroy labor’s capacity to collectively bargain so that working folks don’t have much disposable income to spend in the market and they are also going to cut government purchases from the market. This will result in . . . ah . . . fewer things sold in the market already stuffed with stuff made in low-standard-of-living- countries by masses of people that have . . . ah . . . a low standard of living that keeps them for even buying the things that makes on the cheap. If Romney plans on getting rid of the current dying consumer capitalism, what is he going to replace the free market with?
http://www.dogsagainstromney.com/2012/05/ballad-of-seamus-romney-music-video.html
Good for him!! He is now neck and neck with John Kerry!!
I see NO discussion – whatsoever – on Sankaty in Bermuda (that he owns 100%).
Nor, do I see Forbes going after the issue of Romney’s camp perpetrating the erroneous contention that Romney vacated Bain [Capital] (have to be careful as there are more than 200 Bain entities) – that Mitt left Bain in 1999.
His own law firm denoted that Romney was still CEO until August 2001
(and we may have proof as to what they seek to hide in 2000/ 2001)
What a wonderful set of investments! Two hundred and thirty million! Let’s see, given the reports of Romney’s annual income at about twenty million per year with most of it coming from investments, Simple math says he’s getting about a 10% annual return on those investments. Wow! I should have invested with him when I was younger.
Putting it in perspective:
Fannie Mae (symbol FNMA) is the giant mortgage private company, BUT which is subsidized by the US gov’t and has been a democrat fiefdom for years, with democrat apparatchiks getting appointed to gloriously well paying positions there.
The man who headed FNMA for the years it was busy scraping traditional underwriting standards and pumping up the housing sector, leading to the inevitable bust, was black man by the name of Raines. He retired not too long ago, and he received one of those golden parachute retirement packages.
He was paid around $260 million.
So Romney works his whole life, and is worth $230, Raines screws up the mortgage and housing industry, costing the country untold damage, and he gets $260 million, just to retire……and he surely had plenty other $ stashed away, too.
Oh, but Raines was a democrat political appointee, probably….so, we don’tt alk about that.
This is why the Washington DC area is the wealthiest in the country.
Mhhh…230 Mil?
Not exactly.
First: Mormon Bishop Rule – 10% income every year to church.
It means 2-3 million to church every year. I think : 35 years=100 millon !
Second: sons blind trusts = 150 million !
etc etc.
500 mil. – 600 mil. , maybe. Maybe more.
That can be because of its a persons personal wealth matter that Mitt Romney has his own wealth increasing.