page_title: Bain Capital
section_title: Bain and the 2000s buy-out boom
hierarchical_section_title: Bain Capital / History / Bain and the 2000s buy-out boom
caption_attribution_description: English: Display of Donuts at Dunkin Donuts Franchise
context_page_description: Bain Capital is an American private investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry sectors and geographic regions. As of 2018, the firm managed more than $105 billion of investor capital.
  The firm was founded in 1984 by partners from the consulting firm Bain & Company. Since inception it has invested in or acquired hundreds of companies including AMC Theatres, Artisan Entertainment, Aspen Education Group, Apex Tool Group, Brookstone, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Canada Goose, DIC Entertainment, Domino's Pizza, DoubleClick, Dunkin' Donuts, D&M Holdings, Guitar Center, Hospital Corporation of America, iHeartMedia, KB Toys, Sealy, Sports Authority, Staples, Toys "R" Us, Warner Music Group, Fingerhut, The Weather Channel, and Apple Leisure Group, which includes AMResorts and Apple Vacations.
  Bain Capital is headquartered at 200 Clarendon Street in Boston, Massachusetts with offices in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
context_section_description: In 2004 a consortium comprising KKR, Bain Capital, and real estate development company Vornado Realty Trust announced the $6.6 billion acquisition of Toys "R" Us, the toy retailer.  A month earlier, Cerberus Capital Management, made a $5.5 billion offer for both the toy and baby supplies businesses.  The Toys 'R' Us buyout was one of the largest in several years.  Following this transaction, by the end of 2004 and in 2005, major buyouts were once again becoming common and market observers were stunned by the leverage levels and financing terms obtained by financial sponsors in their buyouts.
  The following year, in 2005, Bain was one of seven private equity firms involved in the buyout of SunGard in a transaction valued at $11.3 billion.  Bain's partners in the acquisition were Silver Lake Partners, TPG Capital, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Providence Equity Partners, and Blackstone Group.  This represented the largest leveraged buyout completed since the takeover of RJR Nabisco at the end of the 1980s leveraged buyout boom.  Also, at the time of its announcement, SunGard would be the largest buyout of a technology company in history, a distinction it would cede to the buyout of Freescale Semiconductor.  The SunGard transaction is also notable in the number of firms involved in the transaction, the largest club deal completed to that point.  The involvement of seven firms in the consortium was criticized by investors in private equity who considered cross-holdings among firms to be generally unattractive.
  Bain led a consortium, together with The Carlyle Group and Thomas H. Lee Partners to acquire Dunkin' Brands.  The private equity firms paid $2.425 billion in cash for the parent company of Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins in December 2005.
  In 2006, Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, together with Merrill Lynch and the Frist family (which had founded the company) completed a $31.6 billion acquisition of Hospital Corporation of America, 17 years after it was taken private for the first time in a management buyout.  At the time of its announcement, the HCA buyout was the first of several to set new records for the largest buyout, eclipsing the 1989 buyout of RJR Nabisco. It was later surpassed by the buyouts of EQ Office and TXU.  In August 2006, Bain was part of the consortium, together with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Silver Lake Partners, and AlpInvest Partners, that acquired a controlling 80.1% share of semiconductors unit of Philips for €6.4 billion.  The new company, based in the Netherlands, was renamed NXP Semiconductors.
  During the buyout boom, Bain was active in the acquisition of various retail businesses.  In January 2006, Bain announced the acquisition of Burlington Coat Factory, a discount retailer operating 367 department stores in 42 states, in a $2 billion buyout transaction.  Six months later, in October 2006, Bain and The Blackstone Group acquired Michaels Stores, the largest arts and crafts retailer in North America in a $6.0 billion leveraged buyout.  Bain and Blackstone narrowly beat out Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and TPG Capital in an auction for the company.  In June 2007, Bain agreed to acquire HD Supply, the wholesale construction supply business of Home Depot for $10.3 billion.  Bain, along with partners Carlyle Group and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, would later negotiate a lower price ($8.5 billion) when the initial stages of the subprime mortgage crisis caused lenders to seek to renegotiate the terms of the acquisition financing.  Just days after the announcement of the HD Supply deal, on June 27, Bain announced the acquisition of Guitar Center, the leading musical equipment retailer in the U.S.  Bain paid $1.9 billion, plus $200 million in assumed debt, representing a 26% premium to the stock's closing price prior to the announcement.  Bain also acquired Edcon Limited, which operates Edgars Department Stores in South Africa and Zimbabwe for 25 billion-rand ($3.5 billion) in February 2007.
  Other investments during the buyout boom included: Bavaria Yachtbau, acquired fo
caption: Bain led the buyout of Dunkin' Brands for $2.4 billion in 2005
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1456", "Image ImageLength": "2592", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "HTC", "Image Model": "HTC Glacier", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:10:08 17:37:20", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "276", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "590", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6457", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "146", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:10:08 17:12:19", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:10:08 17:12:19", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FocalLength": "353/100", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1456", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2040", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "464"}