The result: Ampad couldn't pay its debts and plunged into bankruptcy. Workers lost jobs and stockholders were left with worthless shares.

Bain Capital, however, made money — and lots of it. The firm put just $5 million into the deal, but realized big returns in short order. In 1995, several months after shuttering a plant in Indiana and firing roughly 200 workers, Bain Capital borrowed more money to have Ampad buy yet another company, and pay Bain and its investors more than $60 million - in addition to fees for arranging the deal.

Bain Capital took millions more out of Ampad by charging it $2 million a year in management fees, plus additional fees for each Ampad acquisition. In 1995 alone, Ampad paid Bain at least $7 million.

The next year, when Ampad began selling shares on public stock exchanges, Bain Capital grabbed another $2 million fee for arranging the initial public offering - on top of the $45 million to $50 million Bain reaped by selling some of its shares.

Bain Capital didn't escape Ampad's eventual bankruptcy unscathed. It held about one-third of Ampad's shares, which became worthless. But while as many as 185 workers near Buffalo lost jobs in a 1999 plant closing, Bain Capital and its investors ultimately made more than $100 million on the deal.

The 1990s proved really good for Bain Capital and partners, whose annual earnings hit seven figures. The firm raised several more funds, and acquired companies with some of the best-known brand names, including Domino's Pizza and the Sealy mattress company.

One deal, the acquisition and sale of credit report provider Experian, netted Bain $200 million in two months.

Despite this success, Romney remained cautious. In 1996, Bain Capital launched a hedge fund, a lightly regulated investment pool focused mainly on stocks, for the firm's partners and some clients. When the fund lost money in the first few months, Romney wanted to close it and return all the money invested, according to two colleagues. Other partners persuaded him to wait, and the fund took off, growing from less than $100 million in 1996 to nearly $7 billion today.

In 1997, he balked again, at the acquisition of a Los Angeles video distributor and movie producer that would be renamed Artisan Entertainment and become famous for producing the movie "The Blair Witch Project."

Romney worried that Bain Capital's image would suffer from the perception it "had gone Hollywood," according to Rehnert, the Bain partner who proposed he deal.

Romney had another problem. The studio had an extensive library of R-rated films, which The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints discourages its members from watching.