Specialty Retailers, acquired in the late 1980s by Bain Capital, was the buyout firm’s most ambitious and risky deal up to that time. Mitt Romney helped arrange $300 million in junk bond financing with Michael Milken’s investment bank.

1988 Bain Capital invests $10 million to create Houston department store chain Specialty Retailers Inc. It borrows $300 million in junk bonds from Drexel Burnham Lambert to finance the deal.