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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Treasury Department on Monday released the names of more than 650,000 companies that received funds from the government’s small business lending program—the Paycheck Protection Program—a massive effort intended to support the economy as states shut down in April to contain the viral outbreak.
The Treasury identified just a fraction of the total borrowers, naming only those companies that got more than $150,000. Those firms made up less than 15% of the nearly 5 million small companies that received loans.
The list included 24 Indianapolis companies and not-for-profit organizations that received loans of between $5 million and $10 million: American Structurepoint Inc.; Buckingham Management LLC; Cunningham Restaurant Group LLC; Diverse Staffing Services Inc.; Envigo RMS LLC; Hall Render Killian Heath & Lyman PC; Heart of the House Hospitality Inc.; Highpoint Digital Inc.; HKP Corp.; Huse Culinary Inc.; Ice Miller LLP; IF&P Foods LLC; Key Benefit Administrators Inc.; KSM Business Services Inc.; Materials Processing Inc.; Micrometl Corp.; Naab Road Surgical Group; Project Lead the Way Inc.; Protrans Holdings Inc.; Shiel Sexton Co. Inc.; Superior Oil Co. Inc.; Tube Processing Corp.; V Global Holdings LLC; and Wood-Mizer LLC.
The list also included Buckingham Management LLC, but the company later issued a statement saying it had returned the money.
“Buckingham returned the funds shortly after closing and is not a participant in the program,” the company told IBJ. “After applying and receiving funds in good faith within the program guidelines, the loan was returned based on uncertainties in the program guidance and evolving economic conditions.”
In all, the Treasury Department list includes 2,499 Indianapolis entities and 11,853 entities statewide that received PPP loans of $150,000 or more. That list includes Indianapolis Business Journal, which received a loan of between $350,000 and $1 million. The newspaper declined to be more specific.
The government also released information on those who borrowed less than $150,000, though it did not release the names of recipients for these smaller loans. Statewide, 67,295 Indiana entities received PPP loans of less than $150,000. That number includes 9,731 recipients in Indianapolis.
The average loan amount for the entire program was $107,000, the Treasury Department said in a broad summary of the program. The government handed out $521 billion through the paycheck protection program, a crucial piece of the government’s $2 trillion rescue package. The loans can be forgiven if the businesses mostly use the money to continue paying their workers.
The recipients employed 51 million people before the pandemic began, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, or about 85% of all workers at companies with fewer than 500 employees. Not all of those jobs were saved. The government won’t know how many were until companies apply to have the loans forgiven, a process that is just beginning.
While the data included demographic information on some the borrowers, the officials said it was incomplete because companies were not required to supply information on their race, ethnicity and gender. More of that data may become available when borrowers apply to have the loans forgiven.
But the government was able to determine that 27% of the loan money went to low- and moderate-income areas, the officials said.
The PPP was up and running just days after being approved by Congress in late March. It provided loans of up to $10 million for small businesses to help them recover from the government-ordered shutdowns and revenue losses caused by the virus outbreak. The ability to convert the loans to grants made the program particularly appealing.
Once opened April 3, the PPP sparked a flood of applications from desperate small business owners. The SBA approved more than 1.6 million loans worth $349 billion in less than two weeks, exhausting the initial funding. Millions of other businesses had to wait nearly two more weeks for Congress to approve an additional $310 billion. Nearly 3.2 million loans worth $172 billion were approved in the second round as of June 30, leaving around $132 billion unclaimed. Congress approved an extension of the program this week until Aug. 8.
Economists generally credit the program with helping prevent the job market meltdown from being much worse. Employers added 7.5 million jobs in May and June, a solid increase though it left the economy with nearly 15 million fewer jobs than before the pandemic. Many economists credit the PPP with driving some of that gain.
Yet other analyses, such as one conducted by economists at Standard & Poor’s, found that businesses in states with fewer job losses received more loans than those in harder-hit states.
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Please proofread the above article and get your millions and billions in order.
Here’s my list of those I think might invite scrutiny if they really needed loans of $5-$10 million and/ or if their business was adversely affected: American Structurepoint (Engineering consultants); Envigo RMS (animal research); Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman PC (nation’s largest law firm focused exclusively on matters specific to the health care industry); Ice Miller (one of Indy’s largests law firms).
Ice Miller should have returned the money! Ridiculous!
Why such a large amount?! How many of these businesses have already let go many of their employees?
Spread that huge amount of money around to smaller businesses with fewer employees, they are suffering the worst.
The poor get poorer as the rich get richer. I would like to know the number of employees impacted vs the number of impacted employees in truly small businesses. Some people never have to experience the anxiety and uncertainty that others experience on a regular basis.
Major law firms receiving government assistance??.Really??? This does not pass the sniff test.