Rehnert calmed Romney's image concerns by enlisting a Chicago firm to join the deal, sharing the risk and deflecting attention from Bain.

Romney, balancing his duty to make money for his investors with his religious beliefs, let the deal go through, but declined to co-invest his own money, which partners usually did.

"I didn't want to profit from a studio that made R-rated movies," Romney said recently.

By the time Bain Capital sold its interest in Artisan in 1999, it had more than tripled its investment.

A big leap

Romney's most memorable chapter during his Bain Capital years took place while he was on leave.

In the mid-1980s, Bill Bain and other founding partners of the consulting firm Bain & Company had set up an employee-stock ownership plan, or ESOP, to cash out some of their stakes. Bain was planning for his eventual retirement, so the firm borrowed heavily to buy a slate of shares belonging to him and other founding partners.

When a recession hit in the late '80s and corporations cut back on consulting services, Bain & Company's revenues plummeted. Soon, the firm was struggling to pay its ESOP debt.

With Bain & Company sinking, Harry Strachan and other younger partners turned to Romney to try to rescue the firm. They believed he had the standing with founding partners to negotiate a financial restructuring.

Over several weeks, Romney managed negotiations with the banks and among the partners. Tempers sometimes flared. Some senior partners argued that the younger partners were ungrateful. Some younger partners insisted the founding partners had hidden details of the ESOP to line their pockets.

But Romney kept his cool, Strachan recalls, sensing when he had to get an agreement — or lose the deal altogether.

The moment came when negotiations produced a package in which Bain and the founding partners would give up control of the firm, turning back $30 million they had taken from the ESOP and $100 million in notes they held against the firm, Bain recalls.

Romney stayed on as chief executive.

Despite his success at Bain Capital, it was a big leap for Romney, going from running a firm that at the time had about two dozen employees to one with about 1,000 worldwide. He immediately applied the techniques that Bain Capital had learned while restructuring the companies it acquired. He began with a road show, traveling to Bain & Company offices around the world to rally employees.

He put in a new governing structure, opened up the firm's finances to all partners, and revamped the compensation system.