The corporations in the Yellowhammer State listed on the New York Stock Exchange have not received loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) meant for companies with less than 500 employees, according to a database compared by the financial website FactSquared.
Alabama is home to the headquarters of 16 publicly traded companies as of 2019, including Vulcan Materials and Regions Financial in Birmingham.
The database compiled by FactSquared was created by an artificial intelligence program that scanned 6,569 form 8-K documents. It is the most comprehensive list of publicly traded companies receiving PPP loans that is available.
The database, when downloaded, can be sorted by the state in which the businesses are headquartered. Doing so reveals that no Alabama-headquartered company has received a loan from the much-publicized relief program.
The Paycheck Protection Program was created as part of the $2.2 trillion federal stimulus bill also known as the CARES Act. It is designed for companies with less than 500 employees, with some exceptions granted if a firm has more than 500 workers but meets certain SBA standards.
Large, nationwide companies like Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs and Potbelly Sandwiches have drawn public derision for taking money from the program meant to help small businesses. Both of those firms have returned the money they received.
“The average loan that these publicly traded companies got was $2.4 million. That was money that did not go to a small independently owned business on main street and that is very troubling,” Rosemary Elebash, Alabama NFIB state director, told WSFA.
Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: [email protected] or on Twitter @HenryThornton95
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