Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney built his $250 million fortune with the help of two of Britain’s most disreputable business figures – Guinness fraudster Jack Lyons and crooked newspaper boss Robert Maxwell.
In the 1980s both men invested large sums in the Republican candidate’s first private equity fund, started during his years at Bain & Company, which launched his now highly controversial career in finance. Romney is under increasing pressure to release details of his business affairs including tax returns for the years before 2010 and details of offshore holdings, including a Swiss bank account.
Flamboyant publishing tycoon Maxwell was the former head of the left-wing Mirror Group newspapers and a one-time owner of the New York Daily News. He died in mysterious circumstances in 1991 at the age of 68 after falling overboard from his luxury yacht off the Canary Islands after which it was discovered he had plundered hundreds of millions from an employee pension scheme.
Lyons, who died in 2008, was one of the notorious ‘Guinness Four’ convicted for a massive share trading fraud in which they attempted to inflate the price of Guinness shares to assist a take-over bid for Scottish drinks company Distillers. He was subsequently fined £4 million for theft and false accounting and stripped of his knighthood.
In 1984 Lyons, a former colleague of Mr Romney’s at Bain & Company, along with members of his family invested almost $3million in Mr Romney’s capital fund.
