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Who Received P.P.P. Rescue Loans? - The New York Times

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We now know the names of many of the businesses that received small-business rescue loans, after a huge data dump yesterday by the Trump administration, which had initially fought to keep the details secret. So far, the system, called the Paycheck Protection Program, has guaranteed 4.9 million forgivable loans worth a combined $521 billion via 5,500 lenders.

The loans helped support more than 50 million jobs, according to the Small Business Administration. The average loan size was $107,000, although borrowers can take out up to $10 million. Not included in the data is the roughly $30 billion in loans that were returned by companies that realized they weren’t eligible, worried about meeting the conditions to make the loans forgivable or frightened by the public outcry about big firms getting funds. Only the names of borrowers who took out more than $150,000 were released.

• The loans are forgivable if borrowers use the bulk of the money to rehire workers on the same salaries as before the pandemic (or make a “good faith” effort to do so). If not, the fee-free, unsecured two- and five-year loans levy a 1 percent annual interest rate, which is still an attractive offer. “My 1,000-foot takeaway is that the government was handing out free money and the line went around the corner,” Aaron Klein, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, told The Times.

Here are some of the recipients of P.P.P. money that may raise eyebrows:

• Investment firms that manage billions, including Semper Capital Management, Domini Impact Investments and Brevet Holdings.

• At least 45 major law firms, including Boies Schiller Flexner, Kasowitz Benson Torres and Wiley Rein.

• Some companies connected to federal lawmakers or their families, including the Republican representatives Markwayne Mullin and Devin Nunes and the Republican senator Susan Collins (whose brothers’ business later returned its loan), as well as Ms. Collins’s Democratic challenger, Sara Gideon.

• Several start-ups that still laid off employees.

• The Ayn Rand Institute, which is dedicated to the anti-statist philosopher, and an arm of Americans for Tax Reform, the group founded by the famously anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.

Many companies listed as recipients said they hadn’t taken aid money. The C.E.O. of the electric scooter start-up Bird denied applying for P.P.P. money, explaining on Twitter that the company had considered an application but had not gone ahead with it. The investment firm Index Ventures also denied applying for federal aid money, despite appearing on the list. And a loan described as going to Andreessen Horowitz actually went to one of the venture firm’s portfolio companies.

Credit...Steve Marcus/Reuters

Tech companies won’t comply with the Hong Kong government’s data requests. Facebook, Google and Twitter all said that they would temporarily halt processing of such demands in light of a new security law that binds the territory closer to Beijing. TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese giant ByteDance, is pulling out of Hong Kong altogether.

Palantir filed for an I.P.O. The data start-up, one of Silicon Valley’s biggest privately held companies, was most recently valued at $20 billion and would be one of the largest tech stock offerings this year.

A federal judge ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline shut down pending a review. The decision, which is subject to appeal, is a victory for environmental groups. It follows the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline on Sunday, amid legal and logistical challenges deemed too costly by its backers.

The home solar company Sunrun agreed to buy a rival. The $3.2 billion deal for Vivint would widen Sunrun’s lead in the residential solar power market, ahead of second-ranked Tesla.

Quibi faces a reckoning. Vulture takes a long look at Jeffrey Katzenberg’s embattled short-video streaming service, which has struggled to attract subscribers despite raising $1.75 billion in funding.

Credit...Charles Krupa/Associated Press

Harvard, Princeton and other schools have begun to outline how the coming academic year will play out amid the pandemic. It’s a mix of online and on-campus education — with a heavy emphasis on the former.

Here’s what different schools are doing:

• Harvard will allow up to 40 percent of undergraduates on campus this fall, with first-year students getting priority. All classes will be held online, regardless. The university will charge full tuition — currently set at about $50,000 — but some students studying remotely will receive a $5,000 stipend.

• Princeton won’t allow more than half of undergraduates on campus at any point. Some small classes might be held in person. The school will cut its tuition by 10 percent, to $48,500.

• Georgetown will invite first-year students on campus only. It hasn’t yet decided whether to cut tuition, currently set at $57,000.

Expect lots of coronavirus testing. Harvard will test students on campus every three days, while Cornell will test weekly. Georgetown says tests will be available whenever they are needed.

Plenty of questions remain:

• What are students getting for their (mostly full-price) education? “They are exposing the kids to increased virus risk, something that is arguably justifiable in exchange for in-person learning, which everyone agrees is better than online,” Ken Bradley, the father of a Yale student, told The Times. “But no, the kids will do remote learning, from campus! At full tuition!”

• Can institutions afford widespread testing? Big, rich universities have the money and resources to test students for the illness regularly. That is not the case for other institutions, including primary and secondary schools.

• What about older faculty members who are more at risk of contracting serious illness? Over 850 instructors at Georgia Tech signed a letter opposing the school’s reopening plans, which do not mandate face masks.

International students in the U.S. face visa headaches. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said yesterday that such students — who are highly lucrative for many universities — can’t stay if all their classes are held online. And if in-person classes are available, foreign students must be on campus.

The race is on to become the world’s biggest, most prestigious public relations strategy firm — the advisers that manage corporate clients’ reputations, deal with headline-grabbing crises and shepherd the rollout of complicated mergers. This morning, three of the most prominent firms in the sector announced a tie-up: Finsbury of Britain, Glover Park Group of the U.S. and Hering Schuppener of Germany.

Behind the deal: The linkup would create a company with nearly 700 employees in 18 countries, making the new entity a strong competitor to Brunswick, headquartered in London, which has 1,100 employees in 15 countries and often compares itself to McKinsey, the high-end management consulting firm.

• The new company would be called Finsbury Glover Hering and would have more than $200 million in combined annual revenue.

• The three companies have already worked together in recent years, under the umbrella of the multinational WPP, which owns Finsbury and Glover Park outright and has a minority stake in Hering Schuppener. WPP will be the majority owner of the combined group.

• Finsbury Glover Hering would count companies like Adidas, Apple, Disney, the National Football League and ViacomCBS among its clients.

The Coronavirus Outbreak

  • Frequently Asked Questions

    Updated July 7, 2020

    • What are the symptoms of coronavirus?

      Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.

    • Is it harder to exercise while wearing a mask?

      A commentary published this month on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine points out that covering your face during exercise “comes with issues of potential breathing restriction and discomfort” and requires “balancing benefits versus possible adverse events.” Masks do alter exercise, says Cedric X. Bryant, the president and chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise, a nonprofit organization that funds exercise research and certifies fitness professionals. “In my personal experience,” he says, “heart rates are higher at the same relative intensity when you wear a mask.” Some people also could experience lightheadedness during familiar workouts while masked, says Len Kravitz, a professor of exercise science at the University of New Mexico.

    • I’ve heard about a treatment called dexamethasone. Does it work?

      The steroid, dexamethasone, is the first treatment shown to reduce mortality in severely ill patients, according to scientists in Britain. The drug appears to reduce inflammation caused by the immune system, protecting the tissues. In the study, dexamethasone reduced deaths of patients on ventilators by one-third, and deaths of patients on oxygen by one-fifth.

    • What is pandemic paid leave?

      The coronavirus emergency relief package gives many American workers paid leave if they need to take time off because of the virus. It gives qualified workers two weeks of paid sick leave if they are ill, quarantined or seeking diagnosis or preventive care for coronavirus, or if they are caring for sick family members. It gives 12 weeks of paid leave to people caring for children whose schools are closed or whose child care provider is unavailable because of the coronavirus. It is the first time the United States has had widespread federally mandated paid leave, and includes people who don’t typically get such benefits, like part-time and gig economy workers. But the measure excludes at least half of private-sector workers, including those at the country’s largest employers, and gives small employers significant leeway to deny leave.

    • Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?

      So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.

    • What’s the risk of catching coronavirus from a surface?

      Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.

    • How does blood type influence coronavirus?

      A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.

    • How can I protect myself while flying?

      If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

    • What should I do if I feel sick?

      If you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

What’s it worth? The companies aren’t saying. But Teneo, another big player in the P.R. strategy industry, was valued at $700 million last year when it sold a stake to the investment firm CVC. Teneo was said to have had about $56 million revenue in 2018, according to PR Week.

Credit...Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

Steven Davidoff Solomon, a.k.a. the Deal Professor, is an academic at the U.C. Berkeley School of Law and the faculty co-director at the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy. Here, he considers the shape of deal making to come.

M.&A. is back. Sort of.

With Uber agreeing this week to buy Postmates, and Lululemon announcing its acquisition of Mirror last week, we are starting to see the new face of M.&A.

It will not be marked by huge, industry-changing deals. Instead, as antitrust regulators scrutinize big deals, we are going to see a steady stream of acquisitions of medium-sized companies by technology giants and other big companies in high-growth industries. It will be about building brands and network effects.

That is what the Postmates deal is about. Having lost out on buying Grubhub over antitrust issues, Uber is buying a much smaller contender in food delivery. Still, the market loved it, sending Uber’s market cap up by more than the transaction’s $2.65 billion purchase price.

This is the kind of acquisition Wall Street likes. The U.S. food delivery market will go from four to three main competitors (DoorDash with more than 40 percent of the market, Uber-Postmates with around 30 percent and Grubhub with just over 20 percent). The deal will face an extended antitrust review, and Uber will argue that the deal won’t lessen competition in many major markets.

Lululemon’s $500 million takeover of Mirror is out of Google’s playbook of entering new, adjacent businesses and capturing lucrative network effects. Mirror sells an expensive mirror that displays live fitness classes for home workouts. It’s a way to showcase Lululemon apparel for people who aren’t shopping or going to gyms as much as before.

This is what post-pandemic M.&A. is all about: the big getting bigger and pushing their brands into new places, amassing customers via formidable networks. As the Nasdaq rises higher in response, these companies will use deal making to corner and capture their markets, leaving older rivals further behind.

Deals

• SiriusXM is reportedly near a deal to buy the podcasting business Stitcher from E.W. Scripps for about $300 million. (WSJ)

• Sequoia has raised $1.35 billion for two new investment funds dedicated to India and Southeast Asia. (TechCrunch)

Politics and policy

• The president of the Atlanta Fed, Raphael Bostic, said that he had seen data suggesting a “leveling off” of the U.S. economy’s recovery from the coronavirus. (FT)

• Political campaigns choose their fonts very carefully. (Business Insider)

Tech

• Traditional consumer giants like Unilever may be boycotting Facebook, but fast-growing upstarts like Glossier and Harry’s aren’t. (Business Insider)

• Conservative personalities are flocking to the social network Parler — and the company is worried that the partisan lean will reduce its influence and user growth. (Politico)

Best of the rest

• Investors are starting to reckon with what a Joe Biden presidency might mean for stocks. (NYT)

• Coronavirus testing failures and a rising number of infected players threaten Major League Baseball’s abbreviated season before it even begins. (WaPo)

We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.

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