This study estimates that at least $5.3 billion in CARES Act money went to 611 portfolio companies owned or backed by private equity firms that held $908 billion in cash reserves.
AFR joined a letter to the Small Business Administration calling for the release of data pertaining to Paycheck Protection Program recipients’ loan forgiveness requests, which represents $194.5 billion of taxpayer money, most of which has already been forgiven. The letter urges the SBA to release the number of jobs borrowers supported with PPP funds, information on any pay reductions experienced by workers employed by borrowers, whether the borrower applied for or received a second draw PPP loan, among other important data points.
Private equity has had a disastrous impact on the retail industry, driving dozens of firms into bankruptcy, shutting down tens of thousands of stores, and costing hundreds of thousands of jobs nationwide.
While it’s true that the largest banks currently look solvent in the face of economic stress, this is in significant part because they have benefited greatly from regulatory forbearance and from Federal Reserve intervention in financial markets. This report, based on analysis of regulations and bank financial reports by Americans for Financial Education Fund and Risky Finance, lays out some of the clearest ways in which the nation’s six largest banks have benefited from regulatory forbearance and the Federal Reserve’s financial market interventions.
A group of financial reform, labor, and public interest organizations today warned the Federal Reserve not to water down rules that limit the access of companies owned by private equity firms to emergency lending facilities created during the COVID-19 pandemic. Allies of the industry have pressed the Fed to loosen the affiliation rules for its new Main Street Lending Facility, a step that would ease the way for private equity to access public money despite its ready access to capital markets and uninvested capital.
New Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund report found that private equity owned and backed nursing home chains have higher resident infection and death rates and a larger share of Coronavirus cases and deaths compared to their share of residents relative to for-profit, non-profit, and public facilities in New Jersey.
Private equity-owned and -backed nursing homes had higher COVID-19 infection and fatality rates for residents, and those same facilities had a disproportionate share of the COVID-19 resident and staff cases and deaths relative to public, non-profit, and other for-profit nursing homes in New Jersey, according to a new report from Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF).
Letter from over 50 groups urging Senate leadership to include mortgage protections in the next COVID-19 relief package.
AFR Ed Fund and 59 other organizations sent a letter to FHFA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac asking them to provide ways for tenants to be able to determine whether their homes qualify for additional protections as a result of their landlord’s forbearance so that they can plan accordingly and protect themselves from eviction and other consequences.
Now that Wall Street is reporting earnings for a quarter that took place entirely during the coronavirus pandemic, it is clear that the Federal Reserve has bailed out the bankers quite effectively. Workers, families, small businesses, states, and municipalities have not fared nearly as well.