Romneys are worth up to $250m

Mitt Romney, by far the wealthiest presidential candidate, and his wife, Ann, are worth $190 million to $250 million, his advisers said yesterday after filing a personal financial disclosure statement with the Federal Election Commission.

The statement filed yesterday offers the most detailed look at Romney's finances available yet. Massachusetts did not require Romney to disclose information about his blind trust, which he created when he became governor in January 2003. Romney has not released his tax returns.

The FEC statement shows that Romney has a portfolio that includes a wide range of investments, from hedge funds to real estate to blue chip stocks to holdings in foreign companies, and that he continues to earn millions from a retirement deal with Bain Capital, the venture firm he started in 1984 and left in 1999. And it shows that he has plenty of cash on hand -- one of his joint checking accounts holds between $5 million and $25 million, according to the filings.

The Romneys' assets are held primarily in blind trusts, which are controlled by R. Bradford Malt, a partner at Ropes & Gray and chairman of the firm's investment management company, with the guidance of an investment adviser at Goldman Sachs.

Malt said yesterday that Romney had no knowledge of their contents until yesterday, when they were made public. Romney also has a separate trust for his five sons and their families that is worth about $100 million, which was not required to be reported under federal disclosure requirements and is not part of the filing, his advisers said.

About half of Romney's total assets belong to trusts held by Romney, Malt said, and therefore theoretically could be liquidated for use by his presidential campaign. The other half belongs to his wife, Ann. Earlier this year, Romney said that having to help finance his own campaign would be "akin to a nightmare," but since then he has lent his campaign $9 million.

Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics, said that Romney has enough money to substantially contribute to his campaign, but not enough to bankroll a race where the eventual nominees are expected to spend as much as $500 million.

"There's no one in this field right now who's got that kind of personal money," he said. But he added that if New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who was rumored to be mulling a run as an independent, got into the race, "he would make Mitt Romney look like a poor man."

Asked whether Romney's holdings had beaten the stock market's average performance since they were established, Malt said they had, "handily." He declined to be more specific, but one reason could be that Romney has significant holdings in foreign companies that have performed well this year.

The forms submitted to the FEC show that Romney signed a lucrative retirement deal with Bain Capital when he left to run the 2002 Olympic Games. Under the agreement, he had to abide by noncompete, nonhire, and confidentiality provisions through February 2009. Until that time, under the agreement, Romney would retain a passive profit share as a retired partner in certain Bain entities and would have the right to make passive investments in certain Bain entities. The filing showed that last year, seven Bain funds earned more than $1 million each.

The forms note that the Romneys have had no control over or information about the assets in the blind trusts.

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Malt said that since the trusts were created, he has occasionally sold holdings he felt were inconsistent with Romney's policy positions or would create the appearance of a conflict of interest. For example, Malt said, after Romney began running for president, Malt sold holdings in French and Italian oil companies that did business with Iran, a country Romney has said the United States should diplomatically isolate and economically sanction to discourage its pursuit of nuclear weapons technology.

Malt also got rid of gambling stock this year, earning Romney between $100,001 and $1,000,000 on the sale of MGM-Mirage stock, according to the report, though Malt did not comment on that holding specifically. The forms show that Romney also owns $50,000 to $100,000 worth of stock in China Petroleum & Chemical, which has become controversial in the United States because of its links with Sudan.

Asked about that holding, Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Romney, said that Malt has tried to align Romney's business investments with his public policy positions "to the best of his ability." Malt said there was no guarantee that he had fully done so.

Another item that could prove controversial for the former Massachusetts governor: The blind trust invested in a fund whose holdings include stock in the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network, a regional cable network that broadcasts Yankees games.

Asked about the stock, Madden said: "I'm sure there might be a few New Yorkers who were hoping to prove that 'Reverse the Curse' was an inside job, but it's just not the case."

Michael Goldstein, finance professor at Babson College, said he was struck by what seems to be a heavy emphasis on foreign holdings in Romney's portfolio, perhaps even more than the 40 percent level recommended by many advisers as a maximum. Foreign economies have been growing more quickly than the United States, however.

"There's an awful lot of international companies. For a guy running for president of the United States, you might think he would have more in the US," Goldstein said, though he said that Romney's financial advisers would have selected the particular holdings and not Romney himself.

But George Padula, president of Danforth Associates, an investment advisory firm in Wellesley, said Romney's holdings amounted to a conservative portfolio, well-diversified in sectors such as healthcare, oil services, and financial institutions.

Candidates for president were supposed to report their holdings by May 15, but Romney requested 90 days of extra time, the maximum permissible extension.