Merrill Lynch^[1] is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets, it is the world's largest brokerage.^[2] Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol MER. Merrill agreed to a purchase by Bank of America on September 14, 2008, at the height of the 2008 Financial Crisis.^[3] It ceased to exist as a separate entity in January 2009.^[4]

This article describes both the historical Merrill Lynch and its ongoing operations as a subsidiary of the Bank of America. Merrill Lynch is headquartered in New York City, and occupies the entire 34 stories of the Four World Financial Center building in Manhattan.

History[link]

Founding and early history[link]

The company was founded on January 6, 1914, when Charles E. Merrill opened his Charles E. Merrill & Co. for business at 7 Wall Street in New York City. A few months later, Merrill's friend, Edmund C. Lynch, joined him, and in 1915 the name was officially changed to Merrill, Lynch & Co. At that time, the firm's name included a comma between Merrill and Lynch.^[5] In 1916, Winthrop H. Smith joined the firm.

In its early history, Merrill, Lynch & Co. made several successful investments. In 1921, the company purchased Pathé Exchange, which later became RKO Pictures. In 1926, the firm made its most significant financial investment at the time, purchasing a controlling interest in Safeway, transforming the small grocery store into the country's third largest grocery store chain by the early 1930s.

In 1930, Charles Merrill led the firm through a major restructuring, spinning-off the company's retail brokerage business to E.A. Pierce & Co. to focus on investment banking.^[6][7] Along with the business, Merrill also transferred the bulk of its employees, including Edmund C. Lynch and Winthrop H. Smith. Charles Merrill received a minority interest in E.A. Pierce in the transaction. Throughout the 1930s, E.A. Pierce remained the largest brokerage in the U.S. The firm, led by Edward A. Pierce, Edmund Lynch and Winthrop Smith would also prove one of the most innovative in the industry, introducing IBM machines into the business' record keeping. Additionally, by 1938, E.A. Pierce would control the largest wire network with a private network of over 23,000 miles of telegraph wires. These wires were typically used for trade execution.^[8]

Despite its strong position in the market, E.A. Pierce was struggling financially in the 1930s and was thinly capitalized.^[9] Following the death of Edmund C. Lynch in 1938, Winthrop Smith began discussions with Charles E. Merrill, who owned a minority interest in E.A. Pierce about a possible merger of the two firms. On April 1, 1940, Merrill Lynch, merged with Edward A. Pierce's E. A. Pierce & Co. and Cassatt & Co., a Philadelphia-based brokerage firm in which both Merrill Lynch and E.A. Pierce held an interest.^[9] and was briefly known as Merrill Lynch, E. A. Pierce, and Cassatt.^[10] The company became the first on Wall Street to publish an annual fiscal report in 1941.

The following year, in 1941, Merrill Lynch, E. A. Pierce and Cassatt merged with Fenner & Beane, a New Orleans-based investment bank and commodities company. Throughout the 1930s, Fenner & Beane was consistently the second largest securities firm in the U.S. The combined firm, which became the clear leader in securities brokerage in the U.S., was renamed Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane.^[11]

In 1952, the company formed Merrill Lynch & Co. as a holding company and officially incorporated after nearly half a century as a partnership. On December 31, 1957, The New York Times referred to that name as "a sonorous bit of Americana" and said "After sixteen years of popularizing [it], Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Beane is going to change it—and thereby honor the man who has been largely responsible for making the name of a brokerage house part of an American saga," Winthrop H. Smith, who had been running the company since 1940. The merger made the company the largest securities firm in the world, with offices in over 98 cities and membership on 28 exchanges. At the start of the firm's fiscal year on March 1, 1958, the firm's name became 'Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith' and the company became a Big Board member of the New York Stock Exchange.^[12]

In 1964, Merrill Lynch acquired C. J. Devine & Co the leading dealer in U.S. Government Securities. The merger came together due to the death of Christopher J. Devine in May 1963.^[13] The C. J. Devine & Co. partners, referred to as "The Devine Boys", formed Merrill Lynch Government Securities Inc., giving the firm a strong presence in the government securities market. The Government Securities business brought Merrill Lynch the needed leverage to establish many of the unique money market products and government bond mutual fund products, responsible for much of the firm's growth in the 1970s and 1980s.^[14]

Rise to prominence[link]

Merrill Lynch rose to prominence on the strength of its brokerage network (15,000+ as of 2006),^[15] sometimes referred to as the "thundering herd", that allowed it to place securities it underwrote directly.^[16] In contrast, many established Wall Street firms, such as Morgan Stanley, relied on groups of independent brokers for placement of the securities they underwrote.^[17] Until as late as 1970, it was known as the "Catholic" firm of Wall Street.^[18] The firm went public in 1971 and became a multinational corporation with over US $1.8 trillion in client assets, operating in more than 40 countries around the world. In 1977, the company introduced its Cash Management Account (CMA), which enabled customers to sweep all their cash into a money market mutual fund, and included check-writing capabilities and a credit card. Fortune magazine called it "the most important financial innovation in years."^[19] In 1978, it significantly buttressed its securities underwriting business by acquiring White Weld & Co., a small but prestigious old-line investment bank. Merrill Lynch was well known for its Global Private Client services and its strong sales force.

Orange County settlement[link]

Merrill Lynch settled with Orange County, California, for a massive $400 million to settle accusations that it sold inappropriate and risky investments to former county treasurer Robert Citron. Citron lost $1.69 billion, which forced the county to file for bankruptcy in December 1994. The county sued a dozen or more securities companies, advisors and accountants, but Merrill settled without admitting liability in June 1998. The county was able to recover about $600 million in total, including the $400 million from Merrill.

Subprime mortgage crisis[link]

In November 2007, Merrill Lynch announced it would write-down $8.4 billion in losses associated with the national housing crisis and remove E. Stanley O'Neal as its chief executive.^[20] O'Neal had earlier approached Wachovia bank for a merger, without prior Board approval, but the talks ended after O'Neal's dismissal.^[20] Merrill Lynch named John Thain as their new CEO that month.^[20] In his first days at work in December 2007, Thain made changes in Merrill Lynch's top management, announcing that he would bring in former NYSE colleagues such as Nelson Chai as CFO and Margaret D. Tutwiler as head of communications.^[21][22] Late that month, the firm announced it would sell its commercial finance business to General Electric and sell off major shares of its stock to Temasek Holdings, a Singapore government investment group, in an effort to raise capital.^[23] The deal raised over $6 billion.^[23]

In July 2008, Thain announced $4.9 billion fourth quarter losses for the company from defaults and bad investments in the ongoing mortgage crisis.^[24] In one year between July 2007 and July 2008, Merrill Lynch lost $19.2 billion, or $52 million daily.^[24] The company's stock price had also declined significantly during that time.^[24] Two weeks later, the company announced the sale of select hedge funds and securities in an effort to reduce their exposure to mortgage related investments.^[25] Temasek Holdings agreed to purchase the funds and increase its investment in the company by $3.4 billion.^[26]

Andrew Cuomo, New York Attorney General, threatened to sue Merrill Lynch in August 2008, over their misrepresentation of the risk on mortgage-backed securities.^[27] A week earlier, Merrill Lynch had offered to buy back $12 billion in auction-rate debt and said they were surprised by the lawsuit.^[27] Three days later, the company froze hiring and revealed that they had charged almost $30 billion in losses to their subsidiary in the United Kingdom, exempting them from taxes in that country.^[28] On August 22, 2008, CEO John Thain announced an agreement with the Massachusetts Secretary of State to buy back all auction-rate securities from customers with less than $100 million in deposit with the firm, beginning in October 2008 and expanding in January 2009.^[29] On September 5, 2008 Goldman Sachs downgraded Merrill Lynch's stock to "conviction sell" and warned of further losses from the company.^[30] Bloomberg reported in September 2008 that Merrill Lynch had lost $51.8 billion in mortgage-backed securities as part of the subprime mortgage crisis.^[30]

CDO controversies[link]

Merrill Lynch, like many other banks, became heavily involved in the mortgage-based collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market in the early 2000s. According to an article in Credit magazine, Merrill's rise to be the leader of the CDO market began in 2003 when Christopher Ricciardi brought his CDO team from Credit Suisse First Boston to Merrill.^[31] In 2005 Merrill took out advertisements in the back of Derivatives Week magazine, touting the fact that its Global Markets and Investing Group was the "#1 global underwriter of CDOs in 2004".^[32] To provide a ready supply of mortgages for the CDOs, Merrill purchased First Franklin Financial Corp., one of the largest subprime lenders in the country, in December 2006.^[33] BusinessWeek would later describe how between 2006 and 2007, Merrill was "lead underwriter" on 136 CDOs worth $93 billion. By the end of 2007, the value of these CDOs was collapsing, but Merrill had held onto portions of them, creating billions of dollars in losses for the company.^[34] In mid 2008, Merrill sold a group of CDOs that had once been valued at $30.6 billion to Lone Star Funds for $1.7 billion in cash and a $5.1 billion loan.^[35][36]

In April 2009, bond insurance company MBIA sued Merrill Lynch for fraud and five other violations. These were related to the credit default swap "insurance" contracts Merrill had bought from MBIA on four of Merrill's mortgage-based collateralized debt obligations. These were the "ML-Series" CDOs, Broderick CDO 2, Highridge ABS CDO I, Broderick CDO 3, and Newbury Street CDO. MBIA claimed, among other things, that Merrill defrauded MBIA about the quality of these CDOs, and that it was using the complicated nature of these particular CDOs (CDOs squared and cubed) to hide the problems it knew about in the securities that the CDOs were based on. However, in 2010 Justice Bernard Fried disallowed all but one of the charges: the claim by MBIA that Merrill had committed breach of contract by promising the CDOs were worthy of an AAA rating when, it alleges, in reality they weren't. When the CDOs lost value, MBIA wound up owing Merrill a large amount of money. Merrill disputed MBIA's claims.^[37][38][39]

In 2009 Rabobank sued Merrill over a CDO named Norma. Rabobank later claimed that its case against Merrill was very similar to the SEC's fraud charges against Goldman Sachs and its Abacaus CDOs. Rabobank alleged that a hedge fund named Magnetar Capital had chosen assets to go into Norma, and allegedly bet against them, but that Merrill had not informed Rabobank of this fact. Instead, Rabobank alleges that Merrill told it that NIR Group was selecting the assets. When the CDO value tanked, Rabobank was left owing Merrill a large amount of money. Merrill disputed the arguments of Rabobank, with a spokesman claiming "The two matters are unrelated and the claims today are not only unfounded but weren’t included in the Rabobank lawsuit filed nearly a year ago".^{[40][41][42][43]}

Sale to Bank of America[link]

Significant losses were attributed to the drop in value of its large and unhedged mortgage portfolio in the form of Collateralized Debt Obligations. Trading partners' loss of confidence in Merrill Lynch's solvency and ability to refinance short-term debt ultimately led to its sale.^[44][45] During the week of September 8, 2008, Lehman Brothers came under severe liquidity pressures, with its survival in question. If Lehman Brothers failed, investors were afraid that the contagion could spread to the other surviving investment banks. [Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, after government officials could not find a merger partner for it.] On Sunday, September 14, 2008, Bank of America announced it was in talks to purchase Merrill Lynch for $38.25 billion in stock.^[46] The Wall Street Journal reported later that day that Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America for 0.8595 shares of Bank of America common stock for each Merrill Lynch common share, or about US$50 billion or $29 per share.^[47] This price represented a 70.1% premium over the September 12 closing price or a 38% premium over Merrill's book value of $21 a share,^[48] but that also meant a discount of 61% from its September 2007 price.^[49] Congressional testimony by Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis, as well as internal emails released by the House Oversight Committee, indicate that Bank of America was threatened with the firings of the management and board of Bank of America as well as damaging the relationship between the bank and federal regulators, if Bank of America did not go through with the acquisition of Merrill Lynch.^[50][51][52]

In March 2009 it was reported that in 2008, Merrill Lynch received billions of dollars from its insurance arrangements with AIG, including $6.8bn from funds provided by the United States taxpayers to bail out AIG.^[53][54]

Global Reach[link]

Bank of America Merrill Lynch spans the Globe with divisions in United States, South America, Europe, and Asia. The U.S. headquarters are located in New York, South American Headquarters are at Brazil and Uruguay, European headquarters are based in London, and Asia headquarters are based in Hong Kong.^[55][56]

Regulatory actions[link]

Analyst Research settlement[link]

In 2002, Merrill Lynch settled for a fine of $100 million for publishing misleading research. As part of the agreement with the New York attorney general and other state securities regulators, Merrill Lynch agreed to increase research disclosure and work to decouple research from investment banking.^[57]

A well known analyst at Merrill Lynch named Henry Blodget wrote in company e-mails in which Blodget gave assessments about stocks which conflicted with what was publicly published by Merrill. In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He settled without admitting or denying the allegations and was subsequently barred from the securities industry for life. He paid a $2 million fine and $2 million disgorgement.

The CEO at that time, David Komansky, said, "I want...to publicly apologize to our clients, our shareholders, and our employees," for the company falling short of its professional standards in research.

Enron/Merrill Lynch Nigerian barge[link]

In 2004 convictions of Merrill executives marked the only instance in the Enron investigation where the government criminally charged any officials from the banks and securities firms that allegedly helped the energy giant execute its accounting fraud. The case revolved around a 1999 transaction involving Merrill, Enron and the sale of some electricity-producing barges off the coast of Nigeria. The charges surrounded the 1999 sale of an interest in Nigerian energy barges by an Enron entity to Merrill Lynch was a sham that allowed Enron to illegally book about $12 million in pretax profit, when in fact there was no real sale and no real profit.

Four former Merrill top executives and two former midlevel Enron officials faced conspiracy and fraud charges. Merrill cut its own deal, firing bankers and agreeing to the outside oversight of its structured-finance transactions. It also settled civil fraud charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, without admitting or denying fault.^[58]

Discrimination charges[link]

On June 26, 2007, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brought suit against Merrill Lynch,^[59] alleging the firm discriminated against Dr. Majid Borumand because of his Iranian nationality and Islamic religion, with "reckless disregard" for his protected civil rights.^[60] The EEOC law suit maintains that violations by members of the firm were intentional and committed with malice. In another case concerning mistreatment of another Iranian employee by Merrill Lynch on July 20, 2007, a NASD arbitration panel ordered Merrill Lynch to pay its former Iranian employee, Fariborz Zojaji, $1.6 million for firing him due to his Persian ethnicity.^[61][62][63] Merrill Lynch's actions prompted reactions from both the National Iranian-American council, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.^[64]

In its June 2008 issue, Diversity Inc. named Merrill Lynch one of the top 10 companies for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered employees, and the No.7 top company in the US for diversity overall. In 2007, Merrill Lynch was named the No.2 best company in the US for people with disabilities by Diversity Magazine.^[65] As of June 5, 2008, Merrill Lynch has created the West Asian, Middle Eastern and North African (WAMENA) Professional Network to help support and provide additional resources for employees of diverse backgrounds. In May 2008, Merrill Lynch was named the No.1 US company for "Diverse College Graduates" by Diversity Edge magazine, edging out Microsoft for the top spot on the rankings.^[66]

New Jersey appeals court on August 13, 2008 rendered a ruling against Merrill Lynch in a discrimination law suit filed by a gay employee.^[67]

Market timing settlement[link]

In 2002 Merrill Lynch settled for 10 million civil penalty as a result of improper activities that took place out of the firm's Fort Lee New Jersey office. Three financial advisors, and a fourth who was involved to a lesser degree, placed 12,457 trades for a client Millennium Partners in at least 521 mutual funds and 63 mutual fund sub-accounts of at least 40 variable annuities. Millennium made profits in over half of the funds and fund sub-accounts. In those funds where Millennium made profits, its gains totaled about $60 million. Merrill Lynch failed to reasonably supervise these financial advisers, whose market timing siphoned short-term profits out of mutual funds and harmed long-term investors.^[68]

2008 bonus payments[link]

Merrill Lynch arranged for payment of billions in bonuses in what appeared to be "special timing". These bonuses totaling $3.6 billion were one-third of the money they received from the feds' TARP bailout.

The Merrill bonuses were determined by Merrill's Compensation Committee at its meeting of December 8, 2008, shortly after BOA shareholders approved the merger but before financial results for the fourth quarter had been determined. This appeared to be a departure from normal company practice, since the type of bonus Merrill awarded was a performance bonus that, according to company policy, was supposed to reflect all four quarters of performance and was paid in January or later. In this case, however, the bonuses were awarded in December before fourth-quarter performance had been determined.

They were also very large relative to the TARP monies allocated to Merrill. The Merrill bonuses were the equivalent of 36.2% of TARP monies Treasury allocated to Merrill. Merrill employees had to have a salary of at least $300,000 and have attained the title of Vice President or higher to be eligible.^[69][70]

Industry awards[link]

• Ranked No.1 in Barron's 2010 Top 1000 Advisors^[71]
• Ranked No.1 in Barron's 2010 list for most advisors with No. 1 ranking in their state^[71]
• Ranked No.1 in Barron's 2009 Top 1000 Advisors
• Ranked No.1 in Barron's 2009 list for most advisors with No. 1 ranking in their state

• Institutional Investor
  • Ranked No.3 in 2009 All-America Fixed-Income Research Team Survey
  • Ranked No.1 for Pan European coverage in the 2009 All-Europe Research team survey
  • Ranked No.3 in 2009 for Emerging EMEA coverage
  • Ranked No.3 in the 2009 All-Latin America survey and No.2 in the All-Brazil survey
  • Ranked No.5 in the 2009 All-Asia Research team survey
  • Ranked No.3 in 2009 All-America Equity Research Team Survey

• Alpha Magazine – Ranked No.3 by hedge funds in survey for All-Asia research teams

• Forbes/Zacks – Best Brokerage for stock picking and estimate accuracy; captured more than twice the awards of the runner-up. Seven out of 12 analysts named to “Dazzling Dozen”

• Wall Street Journal “ Best on the Street Stock Picking” Award – No.3 in the U.S.; 17 ranked analysts

• Thomson Reuters Extel – No.1 for Pan-European Equity Sectors Rsch; No.2 for Pan-European Equity & Equity Linked Rsch; No.2 for Continental European Small & Mid Caps Rsch

• Financial Times/StarMine
  • Ranked No.1 Global Broker, No.1 US Broker; No.2 Europe Broker and No.5 Pan-Asia Broker; received 42 individual analyst awards (May 2009)
  • Ranked No.1 in the U.S., No.2 in Latin America, No.2 in Asia Pacific ex-Japan, No.3 in Developed Europe in the 2009 for earnings forecasts; Ranked No.4 in Asia Pacific ex-Japan, and No.5 in Latin America in the 2009 for Stock Recommendations^[72]

See also[link]

Companies portal

• Global settlement
• Primary dealers
• Credit crisis
  • Credit squeeze
• Liquidity crisis
• Wealth management
  • Private banking
• Broker-dealer
• World Wealth Report
• Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Dabit, a 2006 Supreme Court case involving securities fraud claims.
• Merrill Lynch's Application
• Calibuso, et al. v. Bank of America Corp., et al.
• Fulham Davies

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Farrell, Greg (2010). Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America. New York: Crown Business. ISBN 978-0-307-71786-3. 
• Perkins, Edwin (1999). Wall Street to Main Street: Charles Merrill and Middle-Class Investors. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-63029-0. 
• Stiles, Paul (1998). Riding the Bull: My Year in the Madness at Merrill Lynch. New York: Times Business. ISBN 978-0-8129-2789-4. 

External links[link]

• Official website
• Total Merrill Website
• Yahoo! Finance – "Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. Company Profile"
• Merrill Lynch Names Thomas J. Sanzone As Chief Administrative Officer
• "Blundering Herd" by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, Nov 2010 Vanity Fair p. 179

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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2011)

James G. McCaffrey is an American actor.

Biography[link]

McCaffrey's first role was for sills models, as a mentally challenged teen, in Bill II: on His Own, the Bill Sackter story. He also played the lead in the first and last seasons of the series Viper, and the short-lived series Swift Justice. McCaffrey has also had roles in the television shows As The World Turns and Sex and the City. He is also known as the voice of the title character in the video games Max Payne, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, and Max Payne 3; he also appeared in a cameo role in the film adaptation of the video game, playing an FBI agent brought in to assist in the capture of Payne. He is currently playing Victoria's lawyer Ryan Huntley on the ABC television series Revenge.

Film roles[link]

• The Eyes of St. Anthony (1991)
• Burnzy's Last Call (1995)
• The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996)
• The Jackal (1997)
• Nick and Jane (1997)
• The Tic Code (1999)
• Coming Soon (1999)
• The Florentine (1999])
• American Splendor (2003)
• She Hate Me (2004)
• Fresh Cut Grass (2004)
• Hide and Seek (2005)
• Broken English (2007)
• Feel the Noise (2007)
• Canterbury's Law (TV) (2008)
• Busted Walk (2008)
• Last Call (2008)
• Max Payne (2008) (Cameo)
• Sordid Things (2009)
• NoNAME (2010)
• Camp Hope (2010)
• Meskada (2010)
• The Orphan Killer (2011)

Television roles[link]

• Viper (1994, 1998–1999)
• Swift Justice
• As The World Turns
• Sex and the City
• Rescue Me (2004–2009)
• Revenge
• Law and Order Criminal Intent (2003)

Video game roles[link]

• Max Payne (2001) (Max Payne)
• Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2003) (Max Payne)
• Alone in the Dark (2008) (Edward Carnby)
• Far Cry 2 (2008) (Jackal)
• Alan Wake (2010) (Thomas Zane and Alex Casey)
• Max Payne 3 (2012) (Max Payne)

References[link]

External links[link]

• James McCaffrey at the Internet Movie Database

This Rockstar Games-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Mitt Romney
70th Governor of Massachusetts
In office January 2, 2003 – January 4, 2007
Lieutenant	Kerry Healey
Preceded by	Jane Swift (Acting)
Succeeded by	Deval Patrick
Personal details
Born	Willard Mitt Romney (1947-03-12) March 12, 1947 (age 65) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Ann Romney (m. 1969) «start: (1969)»"Marriage: Ann Romney to Mitt Romney" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Mitt_Romney)
Children	Taggart (b. 1970) Matthew (b. 1971) Joshua (b. 1975) Benjamin (b. 1978) Craig (b. 1981)
Residence	Belmont, Massachusetts Wolfeboro, New Hampshire San Diego, California
Alma mater	Brigham Young University (BA) Harvard University (MBA, JD)
Religion	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
Positions	Co-founder, Bain Capital (1984–1999) CEO, Bain & Company (1991–1992) CEO, 2002 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee (1999–2002)
Signature
Website	MittRomney.com

	This article is part of a series about Mitt Romney	Mitt Romney
2012 Presidential campaign 2008 Presidential campaign Governor of Massachusetts, 2003–2007 1994 U.S. Senate election Political positions · Electoral history Public image

Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts (2003–07).

The son of Lenore and George W. Romney (Governor of Michigan, 1963–69), he was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In 1966, after one year at Stanford University, he left the United States to spend thirty months in France as a Mormon missionary. In 1969, he married Ann Davies, and the couple had five children together. In 1971, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Brigham Young University and, in 1975, a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Harvard University as a Baker Scholar. He entered the management consulting industry, which in 1977, led to a position at Bain & Company. Later serving as Chief Executive Officer, he helped bring the company out of financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded the spin-off Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became highly profitable and one of the largest such firms in the nation. His net worth is estimated at $190–250 million, wealth that has helped fund his political campaigns. Active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served as Ward Bishop and later Stake President in his area near Boston. He ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, losing to long-time incumbent Ted Kennedy. In 1999, he was hired as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics; and he helped turn the fiscally troubled games into a success.

He was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 but did not seek re-election in 2006. During his term he presided over a series of spending cuts and increases in fees that eliminated a projected $1.5 billion deficit. He also signed into law the Massachusetts health care reform legislation, the first of its kind in the nation, which provided near-universal health insurance access via state-level subsidies and individual mandates.

Romney ran for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, winning several primaries and caucuses but losing the nomination to John McCain. In the following years, he gave speeches and raised campaign funds on behalf of his fellow Republicans. In June 2011, he announced that he would seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination; as of May 2012, he has won enough caucuses and primaries to become the party's presumptive nominee.

Early life and education[link]

Heritage and youth[link]

Willard Mitt Romney^[1] was born at Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan,^[2] the youngest child of George W. Romney, a self-made man who by 1948 had become an automobile executive, and Lenore Romney (née LaFount), an aspiring actress turned homemaker.^[3][4][5] His mother was a native of Logan, Utah, and his father was born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico, to American parents.^[6][7] He is of primarily English descent, and also has more distant Scottish and German ancestry.^[8][9][10] He is a fifth-generation member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).^[11][12] A great-great-grandfather, Miles Romney, converted to the faith in its first decade, and another great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, was an early leader in the church during the same time.^[13]

He was preceded in birth by three siblings: Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott. Mitt followed after a gap of nearly six years. He was named after family friend, hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott, and his father's cousin Milton "Mitt" Romney, a former quarterback for the Chicago Bears.^{[14][nb 1]} In 1953, the family moved from Detroit to the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills.^[16] In 1954, his father became the chairmen and CEO of American Motors, a company he helped avoid bankruptcy, and return to profitability.^[16] By the time Mitt was twelve, his father had become a nationally known figure in print and on television,^[17] and Mitt idolized him.^[18]

Mitt Romney began attending Cranbrook School in the seventh grade.

He attended public elementary schools^[15] until the seventh grade, when he began commuting to Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, a traditional private boys' preparatory school where he was one of only a few Mormons and where many students came from backgrounds even more privileged than he.^[19][20] He was not particularly athletic and at first did not excel academically.^[18] During his sophomore year he participated in the 1962 campaign in which his father was elected Governor of Michigan.^{[nb 2]} When his parents moved to the state capitol as part of George Romney taking office, Mitt took up residence at Cranbrook's Stevens Hall.^[19] George Romney was re-elected twice; Mitt worked for him as an intern in the governor's office, and was present at the 1964 Republican National Convention when his moderate father battled conservative party nominee Barry Goldwater over issues of civil rights and ideological extremism.^[18][22] During these years, Romney had a steady set of chores and summer jobs, including working as a security guard at a Chrysler plant.^[23]

At Cranbrook he was a manager for the ice hockey team and a member of the pep squad,^[19] and during his final year joined the cross country running team.^[15] He belonged to eleven school organizations and school clubs, and started the Blue Key Club boosters group.^[19] During his final year at Cranbook, Romney improved academically, but was still not a star pupil.^[18][20] He won an award for those "whose contributions to school life are often not fully recognized through already existing channels".^[20] Romney was involved in many pranks.^{[nb 3]}

In March of his senior year, he began dating Ann Davies, two years his younger, whom he had first met in elementary school; she attended the private Kingswood School, the sister school to Cranbrook.^[27][20] The two informally agreed to marriage around the time of his June 1965 graduation.^[18]

University, France mission, marriage and children: 1965–1975[link]

Romney attended Stanford University for a year,^{[18][nb 4]} where he worked as a night security guard in order to pay for trips home to see Ann.^[28] Although the campus was becoming radicalized with the beginnings of 1960s social and political movements, he kept a well-groomed appearance and participated in pre-Big Game actions designed to protect the Stanford Axe.^[18] In May 1966, he was part of a counter-protest against a group staging a sit-in in the university administration building in opposition to draft status tests.^[18][29]

In July 1966, he left for a thirty-month stay in France as a Mormon missionary,^[18][31] a traditional rite of passage that his father and many other relatives had volunteered for.^{[nb 5]} He arrived in Le Havre with ideas about how to change and promote the French Mission, while facing physical and economic deprivation in their cramped quarters.^[33][13] Rules against drinking, smoking, and dating were strictly enforced.^[13] Most individual Mormon missionaries do not gain many converts,^[35] and Romney was no exception:^[33] he later estimated ten to twenty for his entire mission.^[36] The nominally Catholic but secular, wine-loving French people were especially resistant to a religion that prohibits alcohol.^[18][13][30] He became demoralized, and later recalled it as the only time when "most of what I was trying to do was rejected."^[33] In Nantes, he suffered a bruised jaw while defending two female missionaries who were being bothered by a group of local rugby players.^[13] He continued to work hard; having grown up in Michigan rather than the more insular Utah world, Romney was better able to interact with the French than other missionaries.^[37][13] He was promoted to zone leader in Bordeaux in early 1968, then in the spring of that year became assistant to the mission president in Paris, the highest position for a missionary.^[33][13][38] In the Mission Home in Paris he enjoyed palace-like accommodations.^[38] Romney's support for the U.S. role in the Vietnam War was only reinforced when the French greeted him with hostility over the matter and he debated them in return.^[13][33] He witnessed the May 1968 general strike and student uprisings and was upset by the breakdown in social order.^[39]

In June 1968, an automobile he was driving in southern France was hit by another vehicle, seriously injuring him and killing one of his passengers, the wife of the mission president.^{[nb 6]} Romney, who was not at fault in the accident,^{[nb 6]} became co-acting president of a mission demoralized and disorganized by the May civil disturbances and by the car accident.^[37] He rallied and motivated the others and they met an ambitious goal of 200 baptisms for the year, the most for the mission in a decade.^[37] By the end of his stint in December 1968, he was overseeing the work of 175 fellow members.^[33][40] Romney developed a lifelong affection for France and its people, and speaks French.^[42] The experience in the country instilled in him a belief that life is fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose.^[18][37][13] It also represented a crucible, after having been an indifferent Mormon growing up: "On a mission, your faith in Jesus Christ either evaporates or it becomes much deeper ... For me it became much deeper."^[33]