(Bloomberg Opinion) — In the pre-coronavirus days, the Los Angeles Lakers was one of the most valuable and profitable sports franchises on the planet. Forbes estimated last year that the team earned $147 million in 2018 and would fetch about $3.7 billion in a sale. A trust controlled by the children of the late Jerry Buss, a wealthy investor, owns a majority stake in the team. Other co-owners include Philip Anschutz, a billionaire with a broad portfolio of holdings in energy, real estate, media, entertainment and other industries; Edward Roski Jr., a successful commercial real estate developer; and Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns the Los Angeles Times.
The Lakers, as ESPN reported on Monday, received $4.6 million in bailout funds from the federal government as part of the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program meant to backstop struggling small businesses sideswiped by Covid-19. The Lakers operation has fewer than 500 employees, which qualifies it as a small business under the government’s aid guidelines. But the Lakers hardly seem as immediately vulnerable, or without access to other resources, as, say, your corner grocer, baker, barber or dry cleaner. The Lakers, undoubtedly aware of a wave of recent disclosures about unlikely companies receiving PPP funds, told ESPN it returned the $4.6 million.
The Lakers said it decided to disgorge the money after learning the entire $349 billion in federal aid was scooped up in two weeks, thereby leaving out tens of millions of other small businesses the team described as “most in need.” Indeed, only an insignificant percentage — 5% or less — of U.S. small businesses appear to have received funding from the problem-riddled program according to my own take on the data. And much of it, according to Bloomberg News, hasn’t even found its way to small businesses in regions most severely derailed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite gaping holes in the program’s launch — or perhaps precisely because of them — the government had to approve a second, $380 billion round of funding last week. The doors opened to prospective small-business borrowers on the new round on Monday, and, like the first round, application and administrative problems erupted. Banks also took to social media to complain about all of the snafus they were encountering.
The Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration have overseen the PPP program and haven’t provided enough public information about exactly which companies have received money and how they were screened. It bodes poorly for how effectively this new huge pool of funding will be deployed.
“It is reckless for the Small Business Administration and Treasury Department to release a second round of funding before clarifying the major gaps and issues with the Paycheck Protection Program. The program still lacks clear terms for forgiveness, rules prohibiting banks from again prioritizing applications of larger clients, and guidance for new lenders to come online to the program,” the Main Street Alliance, an advocacy group for small businesses, said in a statement on Monday. “With funding likely to run out in 48 hours, it is ludicrous that Congress thinks it has done its job supporting small businesses.”
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Source: Yahoo
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