Romney Backer Defends Bain’s Money Making Mission

A top surrogate to Mitt Romney said making money -- rather than creating jobs -- was the primary goal of the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee when he was running Bain Capital LLC, saying he “acted responsibly” as chief executive officer of the private-equity firm.

“The role of private equity as fiduciaries is certainly to make money,” said Tom Stemberg, the founder of Staples Inc., in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital,” airing this weekend. Bain also helped businesses grow, so “these things had redeeming social value, in addition to making Mitt and his investors a lot of money.”