Romney, richest candidate, hedges his bets

Romney's filing also reports scores of individual holdings, many in the range of $1 million to $5 million. These include bonds from the Federal Home Loan Bank and AB Svensk Exportkredit and stock in Goldman Sachs (GS, news, msgs). Individual stock holdings in the range of $100,000 to $1 million included CVS Caremark (CVS, news, msgs), General Electric (GE, news, msgs), Google (GOOG, news, msgs), Russia's Gazprom (OGZPY, news, msgs) and Microsoft (MSFT, news, msgs), the publisher of MSN Money.

Romney held interests in a variety of real-estate investments managed by a firm called Whitehall Street, totaling between $800,000 and $1.8 million. They include a new Global Real Estate portfolio.

Among the investments Romney's trust sold for political reasons are gaming companies like Harrah's Entertainment (HET, news, msgs) and oil giant Schlumberger (SLB, news, msgs), which does business in war-torn Sudan.

The filing reveals that the Romneys received more than $8 million last year in income from Bain Capital. Such income typically comes partly in the form of investment profits, which are taxed at the lower capital-gains rate. Some in Congress call this a loophole and are crafting legislation to impose a higher rate.

The Romney campaign didn't respond to calls for comment on this issue.

Results unclear

Because of the broad ranges candidates are allowed to use in summarizing their investments, and the secretiveness of private money managers, it's impossible to determine what kind of investment results Romney's portfolio has achieved.

Goldman Sachs is, however, known for delivering high returns, and Romney's fortune would make him a favored customer. He has not been shunted aside into also-ran mutual funds like his much-less-wealthy rival Rudolph Giuliani.

He can easily afford to waive his $400,000 salary as president, as he has pledged to do. He did the same as governor of Massachusetts, where he laid the foundation for his current bid. He won the Iowa Straw Poll, where votes cost $35 each, a fee typically paid by the candidates. The real test comes next year, when each vote costs less but there are many, many more of them.

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At the time of publication, Tim Middleton didn't own any securities mentioned in this article.

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