Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.
Articles by Sean Murray
Forgiven Debts: The Hidden Tax Time Bomb That Could Kick Small Businesses While They’re Down
May 12, 2020
Small businesses that stay out of bankruptcy but have some portion or all of their debts forgiven (excluding PPP debt) are in for a rude awakening come tax time next year. In a variety of circumstances, cancelled debt can be classified as taxable income for the debtor per the IRS. This, according to a new tax study titled Did The IRS Forget Non-PPP Debt? authored by Grassi & Co, a leading accounting and business firm based in New York, that was produced in collaboration with deBanked.
At face value, it would appear that taxpayers who have non-PPP debt canceled, forgiven or discharged during the COVID-19 crisis and do not meet any of the specific exclusions mentioned in the report, would be subject to tax on the cancelled debt as income.
This tax treatment, which pre-existed COVID-19, could be devastating in this era where the prevalence of debt forgiveness is likely to reach unprecedented levels.
In many cases this year, debt cancellation will be the direct result of government mandated shutdowns that were of no fault of the businesses themselves. Should they refrain from filing for bankruptcy and successfully negotiate a cancellation of some debt, it seems quite disastrous that the same government that shut them down might deliver a second blow by taxing the acts that enabled the businesses to survive.
One must also consider that a lender may just cancel some or all of a portion of a debt without any direct action of the debtor, with the end result being the same, a potential tax bill to the business on the cancelled portion.
It’s important to understand the various exclusions to the IRS guidelines that govern cancelled debt. The full report can be ACCESSED HERE.
$100 Million in PPP Fees
May 12, 2020
$100 million. That’s the gross revenue floor that Ready Capital reported yesterday will be earned from its PPP loan origination efforts. PPP lenders earn between 1% to 5% of the loan amount in the form of a fee from the SBA and Ready Capital was the 15th largest PPP lender by dollars in the first round alone.
The SBA pays 5% for loans under $350,000, 3% for loans between $350,000 and $2 million, and only 1% on loans over $2 million. With the majority of Ready Capital’s loans being for less than $350,000, the pure volume of loans originated (40,000+), translates into significantly larger fee income against a lender who may have originated the same dollar amount but with a much larger average loan size. JPMorgan’s average PPP loan size in Round 1, for example, was $515,000 (an average of a 3% fee) versus Ready Capital’s $73,000 (an average of a 5% fee).
Ready Capital clarified that on a net basis of those fees, they will take home substantially less, since the economics of those fees were in many cases split with referral agents and other partners that contributed in the process. Without committing to a firm figure, they estimated that their net revenue on PPP originations is actually going to be in the neighborhood of 35%-50% of the gross ($35 million to $50 million).
That is so far. Ready approved $3 billion in loans and has so far only funded $2.1 billion of them. The company said it expects that a large percentage that remain will still be funded and they will earn additional fee income respectively from those.
The company also addressed funding delays that had been reported across social media. “While there have been some challenges outside our control that have caused some delays in the distribution of funds, we have facilitated the funding of 2.1 billion through last Friday and are actively working through the remaining population to disperse funds as quickly as possible.”
Ready’s exposure on the loans themselves may be limited. The company said “we do not expect to carry much of the production on the balance sheet at all. So a very small portion will remain on the balance sheet. The majority of it will now be sold off balance sheet.”
Interview With Polling Expert Scott Rasmussen
May 7, 2020On Tuesday, I interviewed nationally recognized public opinion pollster Scott Rasmussen, who is the publisher of ScottRasmussen.com and is the editor-at-large for Ballotpedia, about the trajectory of the presidential race and how the current environment is affecting how people think.
Mr. Rasmussen will be a guest speaker at Broker Fair 2020 Virtual on June 11, 2020. You can watch the video interview below.
Shopify Shows Strength in Q1 Results, Issues $162.4M in MCAs and Loans
May 6, 2020eCommerce platform Shopify, 2nd only to Amazon in retail eCommerce sales, issued $162.4M in merchant cash advances and business loans in Q1, up from $115.9M in the previous quarter. The statistic pushed them past the $1 billion threshold of funds cumulatively issued since inception.
The company’s provision and allowance for loan losses ticked up from significantly from the same period the prior year but Shopify at that time was originating 50% less volume.
The company reported a GAAP net loss of $31.4M on $470M in revenue. Shopify also has approximately $2.36B in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet.
The company reported an increase of monthly recurring revenue, thanks to an increase in the number of merchants joining the platform, strong app growth, and Shopify Plus fee revenue growth.
Shares of Shopify (NYSE: Shop) jumped by more than 5% after the announcement.
Round Two of PPP Is Targeting Much Smaller Businesses
May 4, 2020
$79,000. That’s the average loan size reported in Round Two of the PPP so far. The figure is about a third of the average size approved in Round 1. Some of that is by the SBA’s design. On April 29th, the SBA disabled submission access to all lenders whose assets exceed $1 billion to prioritize small lenders and their small business customers.
Though the pause button for big lenders was only in effect for eight hours that day, it was recognition that the playing field had not been level in the first round. JPMorgan Chase, the largest lender in round 1, for example, had an average PPP loan size of $515,304 in that round.
It’s a competitive process for limited dollars. 5,400 direct PPP lenders have already participated in the second round. More than 80% of those have less than $1 billion in assets. Senator Marco Rubio, a champion of PPP, called the latest figures released by the SBA as “all good news.”
Square Capital, meanwhile, has taken small to the extreme. Their average PPP loan approval as of April 29th was just $16,000, according to stats published by Square Capital head Jackie Reses on twitter. But only 2,711 of the 38,000+ approved had received the funds so far.
Still, that average is significantly smaller than the average loan size of $73,000 approved by Ready Capital in Round 1, a non-bank lender that got widespread attention for approving more PPP loans than any other lender in the country. Those record-breaking numbers, however, led to delays in borrowers receiving their funds to the point where as of April 30th, the responsibility of funding those loans had reportedly transferred to Customers Bank.
OnDeck has also played a role in the PPP, though only as an agent despite being approved by the SBA to lend. That news, which was revealed last week in the company’s quarterly earnings call, is likely due to the company’s current predicament brought on by government-mandated shutdowns.
OnDeck Reports Q1 Net Loss of $59M, Suspends Non-PPP Lending Activities
April 30, 2020O
nDeck has suspended the funding of its Core loans and lines of credit to new or existing customers (unless the loan agreement has already been executed).
The company has also suspended its pursuit of a bank charter. The company has instituted a 15% pay reduction for its full-time employees, a 60% pay reduction for part-time employees, and furloughed additional employees that will receive benefits but no salary. OnDeck CEO Noah Breslow and members of the Board took a 30% pay reduction.
The company said that PPP funding has not really reached real small businesses like the ones they serve and as such only a handful of their customers have received PPP funds. While OnDeck is approved to operate as a PPP lender themselves, they have been acting as an agent of them in the interim and will dedicated their resources almost entirely to this endeavor. The company anticipates that originations of its own products could contract by 80% or more in Q2.
The company has not tripped any covenants or triggers with its own lenders as of yet but is currently in discussions with them on a path forward in this environment.
OnDeck reported a Q1 net loss of $59M on Thursday morning. The first quarter loss was driven by an increase in the Allowance for credit losses to reflect the increase in expected credit losses related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Provision for credit losses was $107.9 million. The Allowance for credit losses increased to $206 million at March 31, 2020, up $55 million or 36.1% from year-end and $58 million or 39.5% from a year ago. The 15+ Day Delinquency Ratio increased to 10.3% from 9.0% the prior quarter and 8.7% a year-ago reflecting a broad-based decline in portfolio collections since mid-March.
Noah Breslow, chief executive officer, is quoted in the announcement:
“In the span of several weeks, the spread of COVID-19 led to government-mandated lockdowns for small businesses both in the US and globally, placing our customers under unprecedented economic stress.After a successful and rapid transition to remote work, we effected immediate changes to our business to preserve liquidity, support our customer base, manage our loan portfolio and reduce costs. With an uncertain timetable for the reopening of the economy, and the effectiveness of government stimulus for small businesses unclear, we will be reducing debt balances in the second quarter and focusing on managing our portfolio, delivering government stimulus to our customer base and ensuring the company has the runway to scale operations again when the economy reopens.”
The company fully utilized its initial $50 million share repurchase authorization in the first quarter of 2020. On February 10, 2020, the Board authorized the company to repurchase up to an additional $50 million of common shares, and the company has approximately $23 million of remaining capacity under that authorization. The company suspended share repurchases late February but maintains authorization to resume purchases at its sole discretion.
For 2020, OnDeck expects:
- Portfolio contraction reflecting an 80% or more reduction in second quarter origination volume
- Increased delinquency and charge-offs stemming from COVID-related economic deterioration
- Reduced Net Interest Margin reflecting a lower portfolio yield
- Reduced operating expenses, on pace to cut second quarter expenses by approximately 25%.
The company had been on a modestly positive trajectory as of year-end 2019.
The company’s stock had a somewhat minor rally on Wednesday, closing at $1.61. That’s still substantially down from where it stood on February 20th at $4.22. It hit a low of 66 cents on March 18th. The share price dropped by nearly 19% after earnings were released on Thursday morning.
This story will be updated as the information becomes available.
Ready Capital Was The Biggest PPP Lender By Volume in Round 1 of PPP Funding
April 22, 2020
Ready Capital, a multi-strategy real estate finance company and one of the largest non-bank SBA lenders in the country, was the top PPP lender by loan volume in the country. Company CEO Thomas Capasse appeared on Fox Business yesterday and announced key statistics that aligned with data published by the SBA. By dollars, Ready Capital was the 15th largest PPP lender.
“As a leading non-bank, SBA lender, there’s 14 of us, we’re number two in terms of originations last year,” Capasse said on Fox Business, “we focused broadly, we don’t have deposit relationships, so we open our doors broadly to in particular the smaller mom and pop, the local deli, the pizzeria, the nail salon, so just in terms of the numbers, round one of the PPP, we approved 40,000 loans which is number one in the US, it was about $3 billion in total approvals. And our average balance was only $73,000 versus $230,000 for the average in round one.”
Among Ready Capital’s channels for acquiring PPP loan applications is Lendio, who reported consistent figures (a rough average of $80,000 per PPP loan facilitated), and high volume. Lendio has said on social media that they have been working with several partners, Ready Capital among them.
Ready Capital’s Capasse reasoned that their speed could probably be attributed to an affiliated fintech lender. “We are maybe more efficient than some of the banks because we have an affiliated fintech lender which is able to create online portals and processes to work in a more efficient manner and that enabled us to not only process these loans more efficiently but also to provide broad access to the program, to the smaller business owners.”
The company acquired Knight Capital, a small business finance provider, late last year.
Small Business Group Advocates For Community Anchor Loan Program (CAP) In Wake Of PPP Wind Down and Possible Refresh
April 17, 2020
At last tally, more than 800,000 small business PPP applications have gone unfunded since the program reached its limit, many of which are genuine mom-and-pop shops that employ less than 25 people.
Congress is considering another round of additional PPP funding but Americans may be worrying that such funds will once again go into the hands of some of America’s largest chains. (44.5% of the $349B PPP funds went toward loans over $1 million)
Outspoken successful businessman Mark Cuban has proposed a solution, a lottery system next time around to improve the chances that smaller businesses get their share of the pie. While the public debates the merits of such an approach, one organization (the SBFA) is calling for something much more direct, a targeted fix via a Community Anchor Loan Program (CAP) that would appropriate $10 billion for businesses that were PPP-eligible for loans under $75,000 but did not receive funds.
Deployment of this capital under CAP can and should be administered by non-bank alternative lenders with proven success with this particular small business market, they say.
The proposal also calls for 25% of the funds to specifically be allocated for minority, women, and veteran-owned and agricultural businesses.
In a letter the SBFA submitted to Congress earlier this week, the organization said:
“Women and minority-owned businesses are historically smaller and employ fewer people and, in some communities, are under-banked without the established relationships required to secure a PPP loan. Small farms and agricultural businesses are important to communities and often have trouble qualifying for traditional financing.”
The Small Business Finance Association is a non-profit advocacy organization whose mission “is to take a leadership role in ensuring that small businesses have access to the capital they need to grow and thrive.”
