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Employee Ownership Blog
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NCEO

Understanding the PPP: Application Date, ESOP Eligibility, Required Signatures, and More

Updated April 14, 7:12 am PT

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), part of the CARES Act stimulus package appears to be starting this morning, with some banks accepting applications. Some ESOP experts feared that the PPP may have been drafted in a way that would effectively have delayed ESOP companies’ participation, but some ESOP companies are reporting success. On April 13, we began reporting results from our survey of ESOP companies, which show, for example, that among companies that had filed a loan application, just under half (43%) had received confirmation that their loan was approved by the SBA. Approval typically took just over three days.


NCEO

CARES Act Provides Substantial Economic Assistance in an ESOP-Friendly Manner

Title 1 of the CARES Act directs the U.S. Small Business Administration to make certain loans to qualifying small businesses to cover payroll, costs related to continuing group health care benefits, salaries or commissions, payment of interest on any mortgage obligation, rent, utilities, and debt obligations incurred before the covered period. Generally, the law applies to companies with 500 or fewer employees, with some exceptions, most notably for multi-location restaurants and hospitality companies and for larger companies that meet the SBA size standards anyway. ESOP companies can apply for this assistance, and some of the normal barriers that they might face have been removed.