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But the prospect of new jobs
-- similar to expectations in Gaffney -- was short-lived. Within seven months, Holson Burnes began issuing furloughs to half its Claremont employees. Even if things looked up, the company told its workers, it would not rehire most of its clerical or managerial staff. Exact numbers of layoffs were never announced. Some workers estimated that 85 to 100 employees were affected, telling the local Claremont Eagle Times that entire departments had been "decimated." The cost-cutting continued at Holson Burnes. By 1992, the company manufactured nearly 75 percent of its photo frames overseas, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of the company's clock-making divisions also shipped work overseas from a Rhode Island plant. But the business decisions didn't come without risk or public scrutiny. Two clockmakers sued Holson Burnes in U.S. District Court in August 1992, claiming executives convinced them to hold off on demanding $1.9 million in IOU payments so that Holson Burnes could pull its Cuckoo Clock Manufacturing Co. out of a financial tailspin. A judge dismissed the case three years later. ___ TENDING A `GOLDEN GOOSE' Since announcing his candidacy for the White House, Romney has touted his business experience to convince voters that he's a better alternative to Obama as the country grapples with a weak economy. "This president doesn't know how the economy works," Romney said last week. "I believe to create jobs, it helps to have created jobs." After working as a top official for Bain & Co., Romney founded Bain Capital, where he largely made his personal fortune of $190 million to $250 million. He headed Bain Capital for more than 15 years before leaving to run the Salt Lake Olympic organizing committee. Under Romney, Bain Capital invested millions of dollars into dozens of private-equity ventures. Some produced staggering profitability
-- one company showed a return rate greater than 1,000 percent -- and by the late 1990s Bain targeted tech firms that specialized in software and telecommunications. Romney insists now that he was never about "buying things, taking them apart, closing them down," as he told "Fox News Sunday." "My business was associated with trying to make enterprises more successful. Not always was I able to succeed. But in each case, we tried to grow an enterprise, and in doing so, hopefully provide a better future for those associated with that enterprise." Holson Burnes was one of Romney's lesser-known investments. In 1986, just as it bought smaller companies to form the Holson Burnes Group, Bain sank roughly $10 million in its new project under Romney's leadership. By 1992, Holson Burnes' photography products lined the shelves in major American department stores. Bain eventually earned roughly $22 million from its initial investment
-- an average rate of return that a Deutsche Bank financial prospectus said surpassed 20 percent. Indeed, it was Bain's investment in Holson Burnes and other ventures that made Romney undoubtedly wary about leaving the company he founded
-- it now manages about $66 billion in assets -- to organize the 2002 Winter Olympics. "How could I walk away from the golden goose," Romney wrote in his 2004 book, "especially now that it was laying even more golden eggs?" ___ Online: View related documents at http://apne.ws/tT73F4.
[Associated
Press;
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