PPP Update and EIDL Funding Update 04272020
OVERVIEW:
Phase 3.5 Legislation Enacted, New Tranche of $310B Provided for PPP. On April 24, President Trump signed a $483B package which is generally referred to as the Phase 3.5 coronavirus package. The bill includes $310B in additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), $60B in funding EIDL small business grant/loan programs, $75B for hospitals, and $25B for testing efforts. Notably, of the $310B PPP funding, $30B is for mid-sized depositories (i.e., $10B to $50B in assets) and $30B is for community financial institutions and smaller depositories (i.e., <$10B in assets).
Effectively, the statute creates three separate funding pools and it is unclear at this stage how the SBA will police those volumes. The initial tranche of PPP funding was exhausted in roughly two weeks and it is expect this tranche to be disbursed in a relatively similar time period, which suggests that Congress will be forced to consider a third tranche of PPP funding as part of the forthcoming Phase 4 negotiations.
PPP New FAQ
There is only one new question:
- Question:To determine borrower eligibility under the 500-employee or other applicable threshold established by the CARES Act, must a borrower count all employees or only full-time equivalent employees?
Answer: For purposes of loan eligibility, the CARES Act defines the term employee to include "individuals employed on a full-time, part-time, or other basis." A borrower must therefore calculate the total number of employees, including part-time employees, when determining their employee headcount for purposes of the eligibility threshold. For example, if a borrower has 200 full-time employees and 50 part-time employees each working 10 hours per week, the borrower has a total of 250 employees.
By contrast, for purposes of loan forgiveness, the CARES Act uses the standard of "fulltime equivalent employees" to determine the extent to which the loan forgiveness amount will be reduced in the event of workforce reductions.