Bain Capital outsourcing profitable Sensata; workers training their Chinese replacements

[mzkitty]

*snip* saw this posted elsewhere:

Shock of losing a precious job in a town afflicted by high unemployment is always hard. A foundation for a stable family life and secure home instantly disappears, replaced with a future filled with fears over health insurance, missed mortgage payments and the potential for a slip below the breadline.

But for Bonnie Borman – and 170 other men and women in Freeport, Illinois – there is a brutal twist to the torture. Borman, 52, and the other workers of a soon-to-be-shuttered car parts plant are personally training the Chinese workers who will replace them.

It's a surreal experience, they say. For months they have watched their plant being dismantled and shipped to China, piece by piece, as they show teams of Chinese workers how to do the jobs they have dedicated their lives to.

. . . Sensata (the plant where they work) is majority-owned by Bain Capital, the private equity firm once led by Mitt Romney, that has become a hugely controversial symbol of how the modern globalised American economy works. Indeed, Romney still owns millions of dollars of shares in the Bain funds that own Sensata.

Bain has declined to comment. But it has made a lot of money from owning Sensata, quadrupling its initial 2006 investment . . .

The anger towards Bain and Romney is palpable. Romney has become the target for the emotions of a community who built lives based on the idea of a steady manufacturing job: a concept out of place in the sort of fluid buy-and-sell world from which Bain prospers. "I didn't have a clue what Bain was before this happened," said Cheryl Randecker, 52. "Now when I hear Romney speak it makes me sick to my stomach."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...?newsfeed=true


This story is all over the internet today.

[fairbanksb]

Oh Geesh, now it's Romney's fault because he owns stock. This is getting totally out of control. When are these libs going to be called to task. Now the lib countries outside the US are getting into the bashing act. Let's hear from Venezuela next.

[Flippper]

Shoulda bought that Pimsler Chinese course when I had the money.

[The Freeholder]

I wish people would understand where the fiduciary duty of any company lies--WITH THE OWNERS! No company exists to provided jobs for anyone. They exist to make money for the owners. In this country, corporate execs can and have been successfully sued for taking actions that did not maximize profit for the owners (which in a publicly traded company are known as "shareholders").

Bain Capital is doing what it is supposed to do--making money. Senesta is doing what it is supposed to be doing--taking actions designed to maximize the profit for it's owners. While we can feel sorry for the folks who will be out of work, excoriating Bain or Senesta is foolish. Unless Bain is actually doing the day-to-day management, they didn't make the decision, although they may have influenced it.

This is how capitalism--real, honest-to-diety capitalism--works. Companies are not social welfare organizations, they exist to make money. And that is all they exist for.

[Dredge]

I wish people would understand where the fiduciary duty of any company lies--WITH THE OWNERS! No company exists to provided jobs for anyone. They exist to make money for the owners. In this country, corporate execs can and have been successfully sued for taking actions that did not maximize profit for the owners (which in a publicly traded company are known as "shareholders").

Bain Capital is doing what it is supposed to do--making money. Senesta is doing what it is supposed to be doing--taking actions designed to maximize the profit for it's owners. While we can feel sorry for the folks who will be out of work, excoriating Bain or Senesta is foolish. Unless Bain is actually doing the day-to-day management, they didn't make the decision, although they may have influenced it.

This is how capitalism--real, honest-to-diety capitalism--works. Companies are not social welfare organizations, they exist to make money. And that is all they exist for.

They were making money now they are just being greedy

[TerryK]

Some of you sound like Obama voters.
All companies exist just to provide jobs is a fundamental concept of socialism.
Many posters here seem to prefer that system.
They certainly probably never tried to start and run a business themselves.
The purpose of all companies is to make a profit for their owners.
If employees are not profitable they should be let go.
Otherwise the entire company will go out of business and everyone will be out of work.
This is something that Obama and all socialists just don't understand.
"If you own a business, you didn't build that" is the rallying cry of the socialist movement.

Socialists with ideas like these are destroying the United States. We are like a 200 pound man with a 100 pound socialist tumor that is sucking the life from the country.
Like the 200lb man with a 100lb tumor, the country is dying. My only hope is that the rotten, blood sucking, socialists become the first to be burned alive on the funeral pyre of their victim, the democratic republic of the United States of America.

[Squid]

oh my an O admin talking point put forth from MZ Kitty... Guess even ocupy wall-streeters need to do something to make money....

let me help, buy-out firms don't kill people, it's the people who used to run buy-out firms that kill people.... ROTFLMCON...

Please O righteous government union stooge please come and save us from ourselves, us dumn people here in the flyover states are to stoopud to help ourselves, how do we even know how to breath without some gubm'nt study to tell us how????

;-)

[The Traveler]

Havent folks figured it out yet that for some folks on this board, money is EVIL and it should be banned!!!! We shouldnt have it, we should just live in shangrela where everything is just given to you and you dont have to do anything to get it, you dont have to plan for your future because you live in shangrela, you dont have to save anything because it will be given to you here in shangrela. I cant wait for the members of this board to figure how to get to shangrela, so that they can tell us how to get there too. Until then, we will have to work and earn our way and save for the future and if a company makes the evil money and actually hires folks so they can make the evil money then that is what we will have to do. The ones of us that actually work for a living and plan for our future that is.

[ncmissouri]

Well, the typical take on a manufacturing plant going to China is something like this, "They made us an offer we couldn't refuse." Oh really. I've heard that most of the manufacturers going to China haven't produced a thing since they got there -- we had Toastmaster in Missouri who went. Loosing a business is still just that. Somehow there needs to be more inquiry and consideration of possible strong arming. In Moberly, Missouri they got toasted from a Chinese firm. The city I think is stuck with a 45 million dollar bill for a venture/artifical sweetener plant. The Chinese started it, got Moberly to cosign their notes, then investors took off with the money; now they have nothing to show for it and no recourse for their loss. Totalitarism has many faces. They don't all look like Mao.

[Thunderbird]

I used to work for Honeywell (Micro Switch). Honeywell sold the Auto parts mfg to Sensata who said from the first the production was going to be moved to china. There was some mfg done in Mexico, the mexicans refused to train the chineese. Sensata then moved the mexican operations back to Freeport and had the Freeport workers train the Chinese. Un fortunately there are NO jobs in the area so quiting is not much of an option.
The fault here lies not with Bain but the US congress that made it economical, even PAID companies to export jobs.
We have the best government money can buy, we just cannot afford it.

[Thunderbird]

Plus there may be a technology problem. Honeywell was milking existing 40 year old technology. Investment in new technology is Very Expensive. The cow was dry.

[Dredge]

Some of you sound like Obama voters.
All companies exist just to provide jobs is a fundamental concept of socialism.
Many posters here seem to prefer that system.
They certainly probably never tried to start and run a business themselves.
The purpose of all companies is to make a profit for their owners.
If employees are not profitable they should be let go.
Otherwise the entire company will go out of business and everyone will be out of work.
This is something that Obama and all socialists just don't understand.
"If you own a business, you didn't build that" is the rallying cry of the socialist movement.

Socialists with ideas like these are destroying the United States. We are like a 200 pound man with a 100 pound socialist tumor that is sucking the life from the country.
Like the 200lb man with a 100lb tumor, the country is dying. My only hope is that the rotten, blood sucking, socialists become the first to be burned alive on the funeral pyre of their victim, the democratic republic of the United States of America.

Ethics and morals do have a place in the bussiness comunity . The worship of money is the root of all evil

[night driver]

Apparently folks need to read the governing legislation that covers Fiduciary Responsibility, as well as the case law in that regard.

They will find that Boards of Directors HAVE been prosecuted for selecting courses of action that, while profitable, were not THE MOST profitable course of ACTION. and these compassionate folks were divested of their compassion and large dollars for their caring.

[TerryK]

Ethics and morals do have a place in the bussiness comunity . The worship of money is the root of all evil

There is a difference between worshiping it and persuing it.
The purpose of a business is to make money, nothing else.
Trying to make money does not in any way keep someone from having ethics and morals.

You can give any of that bad old money to me if it is so corrupting and evil.

[Dredge]

There is a difference between worshiping it and persuing it.
The purpose of a business is to make money, nothing else.
Trying to make money does not in any way keep someone from having ethics and morals.

You can give any of that bad old money to me if it is so corrupting and evil.

The point is the Republican party pick is such a crook he can't even release his tax returns , His bussiness practices are part of the distruction of our country and if he is the best we have to offer God help us all. so you just stay on your knees worshiping Mitt Rommney and see where that gets you.

[Richard]

It's only being shipped over because of the exchange rate, nothing to do with capitalism or socialism