The 20 Publicly-Held Companies Rewarded With Small Business (?) Round #1 PPP Loans of $10 Mil or More Had an Average Number of Employees of 4,952, an Average Annual Total Revenues of $1.021 Bil and an Average Annual CEO Total Compensation of $2.814 Mil

From a review of SEC 8-k filings, OTCBQ market information, company news releases, Washington Post  and finviz, so far I have found 20 publicly-held companies which were awarded with Small Business (?)  Round #1 PPP Loans of $10 mil or more.

The table below shows key information related to each of these 20 Companies.  I wouldn't call a single one of them a truly small businesses and 19 of them aren't even close.

								Most	Most
					Most		Most	Recent	Recent
					Recent		Recent	FYE	FYE
Publicly-Held Company	PPP				FYE	Stock	FYE	Pretax	Disclosed
Receiving CARES ACT	Loan		City	State	# of	Market	Total	Income	CEO
Forgivable PPP Loan	Amount	Business	HQS	HQs	Employees	Cap	Revenues	(Loss)	Pay
	000's of $s					mils of $s	mils of $s	mils of $s	000's of $s
Auto Nation	$95,000	US Largest Auto Retailer 231 Auto Dealership Stores	Ft Lauderdale	FL	25,000	3,210	21,336	613	14,501
Ashford Hospitality Trust	$76,000	Hotel REIT: Owns 117 Upper Scale Hotel Properties of Hotel Brands of Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt and Intercontinental Hotel Group and 90 Hotel Condominium Units at World Quest Resort in Orlando, Florida	Dallas	TX	N/A	86	1,503	(142)	3,111
Braemor Hotels & Resorts (Formerly Named Ashford Hospitality Prime)	$34,300	Hotel REIT: Owns 13 Luxury Hotels and Resorts Properties	Dallas	TX	N/A	96	488	3	2,114
Ashford Inc	$16,100	Hotel Management Consulting Services	Dallas	TX	N/A	18	291	(14)	5,669
Meritage Hospitality Group	$29,100	Restaurants: 331 Wendy's Franchisee Stores and Also Other Restaurant Concepts	Grand Rapids	MI	11,000	69	468	17	1,874
Ruth's Hospitality Group	$20,000	Restaurants: 159 Upscale Ruth's Chris Steak Houses	Winter Park	FL	5,740	278	468	50	6,106
J. Alexander Holdings	$15,100	Restaurants: 47 Huge Upscale Dining Locations	Nashville	TN	4,200	69	247	9	1,461
Fiesta Restaurant Group	$10,000	Restaurants: 142 Mexican Pollo Tropical Stores in Florida & 164 Taco Cabana Stores in Texas	Dallas	TX	10,480	170	661	(75)	1,298
Potbelly Corp	$10,000	Restaurants: 474 Sandwich Shops	Chicago	IL	6,000	72	410	(9)	1,668
Shake Shack Inc	$10,000	Restaurants: 275 Modern Day "Roadside" Burger Stands	New York	NY	7,603	2,120	595	28	3,805
Luby's Inc	$10,000	Restaurants: 41 Fuddruckers and 78 Luby's Cafeterias	Houston	TX	6,133	23	323	(15)	10
Quantum Group	$10,000	Tech: Computer Storage Devices	San Jose	CA	800	157	403	(40)	2,253
Hallador Energy	$10,000	Coal Mining	Terre Haute	IN	915	21	323	(82)	546
MiMedx Group	$10,000	Surgical & Medical Instruments & Apparatus	Marietta	GA	753	411	359	(3)	N/A
Gulf Island Fabrication	$10,000	Fabricated Structural Metal Products	Houston	TX	944	47	303	(50)	1,581
CalAmp Corp	$10,000	Communications Equipment	Irvine	CA	882	218	364	24	2,814
IDT Corp	$10,000	Communication Services	Newark	NJ	1,285	146	1,409	1	1,559
Harte Hanks	$10,000	Direct Mail Advertising Services	San Antonio	TX	1,151	11	218	(25)	304
Freight Car America	$10,000	Railroad Equipment Manufacturing	Chicago	IL	496	19	230	(75)	2,161
Universal Stainless & Alloy Products	$10,000	Steel Products Manufacturing	Bridgeville	PA	795	66	243	4	634
		Totals all 20 Companies			84,177	7,307	30,641	217	53,469
		Average Per Company			4,952	365	1,021	11	2,814

Researchers Have So Far Uncovered 199 Publicly-Held Companies Which Received the Coveted, Forgivable PPP Loans in the $350 Bil First Round of Small Business Loans, With 53 of Them Receiving PPP Loans of More Than $5 Mil of the 4,412 Companies (Both Privately-Held and Publicly-Held) Which Received PPP Loans of More Than $5 Mil Each For a Total of $30.9 Bil. And a Handful of Them Are Foreign Companies. The Final Number Should Be Substantially More Than 199 Publicly-Held Companies. This PPP Small Business (?) Loan Program Sucks and is a Complete Embarrassment to the US Government, to the Hotel and Restaurant Industries and Also to JPMorgan Chase.

The Most Egregious Offender Uncovered So Far of the Lot is Grand Rapids, Michigan-Based Meritage Hospitality Group, Which is a Franchisee of 331 Wendy's Restaurants Along With Operating Other Restaurant Concepts, Has 11,000 Employees, is an Aggressive Acquirer of Restaurants and Which Also Received a (Small Business?) PPP Loan of $29.1 Mil, Which Is Effectively Stealing Money From Many Michigan Truly Small Businesses Which Desperately Need the Money To Survive in This Horrific COVID-19 Environment.

And Meritage Hospitality Group did not disclose the bank which made the PPP Loans.

The second most egregious offender so far are two related publicly-held Hotel Income-Tax-Free REITs as well as a related hotel management services company all based in Dallas, Texas ..... The two Hotel REITs are Ashland Hospitality Trust and Braemar Hotels and Resorts (formerly named Ashland Hospitality Prime), which is a spinoff from Ashland Hospitality Trust.

Ashland Hospitality Trust owns 117 upper scale hotel properties of hotel brands Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt and Intercontinental Hotel Group as well as 90 hotel condominium units at Quest Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Braemor Hotels and Resorts owns 13 luxury hotels and resorts properties.

Ashland Hospitality Trust has either received or expects to receive PPP Loans totaling $76.0 mil and Braemar Hotels and Resorts has either received or expects to receive PPP Loans of $34.3 mil.

Ashford Inc is the hotel management company and has either received or expects to receive $16.1 mil.

Thus the total of these three PPP Loans are $126.4 mil.

And who was the bank that approved these large Paycheck Protection Program Loans?  KeyBank.

The third most egregious offender so far is Fort Lauderdale-based Auto Nation, the nation's largest chain of auto dealerships ..... 231 stores.  The Washington Post reported that Auto Nation received nearly $95 mil in total PPP Loans.  And Auto Nation deceptively refused to file the required 8ks to the SEC informing the public that it received this $95 mil in total PPP Loans.

There Have To Be More Than 100 Large Privately-Held US Restaurant Chains (Mostly Franchisees with Multiple Locations) As Well As More Than 20 Large Privately-Held US Hotel Chains (Mostly Franchisees With Multiple Locations) And With Both Having More Than 1,000 Employees Which Received Coveted Forgivable PPP Loans of $10 Mil or More in the $350 Bil First Round of Small Business Loans, Thereby Stealing This Money From Truly US Small Businesses Fighting to Survive in This Horrific COVID-19 Environment. The US Government Should Publicly Expose These Companies, Their Number of Consolidated Employees, the Amount of Their PPP Loans and With Which Bank, And Also Expose the Member of the US Congress Whose "Carve Out" Legislative Action Caused This Unfairness To Happen and Also Expose Both the Lobbyist and the Lobbying Organization Demanding That This All-Out Economic Assault on Truly Small Businesses To Happen and Also Having the Power To Get Their Wish.

Nearly 100% of franchisees are not publicly-held Companies but rather privately held companies,  Thus, they would not be filing their financial statements and other key information with the SEC.

Thus there is no way the public can know precisely how many franchisees have taken advantage of PPP Loans and how much money was involved.

However, all publicly-held companies are required to make an 8-k filing with the SEC for any new material financial obligation and PPP Loans would certainly qualify.

Bloomberg.com did an excellent job in finding 52 publicly-held companies which so far filed 8-k's with the SEC and which  disclosed information related to their PPP loans.  I verified the accuracy of their 52 Companies receiving PPP loans although I did find one that they missed.

Leading this list of these 52 Companies were six restaurant chains all receiving PPP loans of $10 mil or above.

These six Restaurant Chains received an average PPP Loan of $15.7 mil, had an average number of employees of 7,508 at the most recent fiscal year end, posted Average Total Revenues of $475 mil for the most recent fiscal year end and paid Average Total Compensation of $2.702 mil to its CEO in the most recent fiscal year that it was disclosed.

Of these six restaurant chains, a very large 331 store Wendy's franchisee ..... Meritage Hospitality Group ..... with 11,000 employees had the highest PPP loan of $29.1 mil.  For some reason, Meritage Hospitality Group didn't disclose which Bank it received the PPP loan from.

Meritage Hospitality Group was the only restaurant franchisee of the top six restaurant chains.

Second on this list was Ruth's Hospitality Group, which operates 159 luxury dining Ruth's Chris Steak Houses, has 5,740 employees and which received a coveted PPP loan of $20 mil.  In the most recent year, its CEO received Total Compensation of $6.1 Mil.  And it has been very aggressive in buying back its own common stock in the market, frivolously spending $153 mil in the past six years.  JPMorgan Chase was the Bank making the PPP loan.

Third on this list was J. Alexander's Holdings, which operated 47 luxurious dining locations in 16 US States, had 4,200 employees and received a PPP loan of $15.1 mil with the Bank being Pinnacle Bank.

Tied for fourth on this list was Fiesta Restaurant Group, which operates 142 Mexican restaurants in Florida and 164 in Texas, has 10,480 employees and received a $10 mil PPP loan with JPMorgan Chase as the Bank.

Also tied for fourth was Potbelly, which operates 474 sandwich shops, has 6,000 employees and received a $10 mil PPP loan with JPMorgan Chase being the Bank.

Also tied for fourth was Shake Shack, which has a stock market cap of $1.6 bil, has 7,603 employees and received a coveted PPP loan of $10 mil from JPMorgan Chase.

After discovering that it was effectively stealing money from truly small businesses, it ethically and patriotically returned this $10 mil so that truly small businesses would be able to receive it.

So JPMorgan Chase clearly rules the large restaurant chain coveted forgivable PPP loan market.

Now let me do some simple math.

The 52 bloomberg.com publicly-held companies received Total PPP Loans of $254.6 mil, which is a minuscule .0007 or .07 of 1% of the $350 bil First Round Total PPP Loans.  Thus bloomberg.com's six publicly-held Restaurant Chains with PPP Loans of $10 mil or more would equate to roughly 8,571 privately-held Restaurant Chains with PPP Loans of $10 mil or more:

...... i.e. 6 Cos/.0007 = 8,571 Cos

Now that 8,571 privately-held Restaurant Chains with employees of 4,200 or more is clearly overstated mainly because, in these desperate times, there are so many fraudulent PPP loans that have been received by non-publicly-held companies included in the $350 bil number.  And also, the $350 bil number is inflated by the Bank Fee, mostly by JPMorgan Chase's fee.

But it is certainly safe to conclude that there are more than 100 privately-held Restaurant Chains (mainly restaurant franchisees with multiple locations) with more than 1,000 employees which received PPP Loans of $10 mil or more.

And there are also many non-restaurant franchisees/licensees doing likewise ..... Let me address just one group of them ..... Hotel and Motel Chain franchisees/licensees.

The two largest hotel chains in the US are Hilton and Marriott.  From a review of their SEC filings, a clear majority of their hotels are franchised and these franchisees are all privately-held companies and thus they wouldn't be filing financial information with the SEC.

Hilton has 4,631 US franchised properties with the breakdown as follows:

..... Hampton .............. 2,193
..... Hilton Garden Inn .. 682
..... Homewood Suites ...468
..... Home2 Suites ......... 374
..... Double Tree............. 328
..... Embassy Suites........ 207
..... Hilton Hotels........... 178
..... Other Brands .......... 201

..... Total ......................4,631


Marriott didn't disclose its number of US franchised and licensed hotels, but did provide information that lets you get to a reasonably rough  estimate.

Marriott's has 5,205 franchised and licensed hotels worldwide, which represents 71% of its total 7,349 hotel properties worldwide.  It also has 5,396 or 73% of its worldwide hotel properties located in North America.  Thus a rough estimate of its franchised and licensed properties located in the US is 3,500 to 4,000.

There are also many other franchised hotel brands in the US other than Hilton and Marriott, all of which are privately-held companies and thus which don't file financial information with the SEC.

Given that there are somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 US franchised hotel properties in the US and also given that there are a large number of employees in each of these hotels, there have to be more than 20 privately-held franchisee hotel chains in the US with more than 1,000 employees and which received PPP loans of at least $10 mil in the $350 Bil First Round of PPP Loans.  And there could well be up to 50 of them.

The 16 Publicly-Held (Small Business?) Companies Receiving the Largest Forgivable PPP Loans Guaranteed By the SBA Had an Average Number of Employees of 3,495, an Average Annual Revenues of $322 Mil, an Average Annual Pretax Loss of $(20) Mil and an Average Annual CEO Total Compensation of $2.333 Mil. If I Worked On This Approval Process For Either the Bank or For the SBA, I Would Have Approved the PPP Loans of Only Two of These 16 Companies As Truly US Small Businesses.

From a review of bloomberg.com, coupled with a review of Company 8k SEC filings, so far there were 16 publicly-held Companies which received the cherished Forgivable Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Loans under the CARES Act of more than $5 mil.

Of these 16, only 3 of them had fewer than 500 employees which has always been the qualification of a small business by the SBA.

Of these 3 Companies, one of them is headquartered in Singapore.  Thus that leaves only two of them that are truly US small businesses ...... SIFCO Industries and Perma-Fix Environmental Services.

Truly US small businesses whose loans were previously rejected by the Bank or by the SBA or not even had their loan application considered would certainly like to get a second chance at this $154 mil of loans that were made to clearly not US small businesses.

But this $154 mil is just a drop in the bucket of all Companies whose loans were approved by the SBA even though they are not truly small businesses.

First, there's the other PPP loans under $5 mil made to publicly-held Companies.

But second and much more importantly, the amount of the PPP loans made to publicly-held companies is minuscule as compared to the amount of PPP loans made to private Companies.

In all fairness, the US Government should provide to the public a list of all private companies receiving PPP loans, the PPP loan amount received and the number of employees of each private company receiving PPP loans ...... with all of this information supplied on a consolidated or combined Company basis rather than on a location basis.

The US Government should also supply a list of foreign-headquartered Companies receiving PPP Loans and the amounts of their PPP Loans.

After reviewing the individual company SBA list by City and US State (but without Company names) of approved PPP Loans and the incredibly high number of various "services" , "financial", "education" and so many other questionable industry-type companies included, there is no question that in these desperate times where so many previous middle-class people are now getting food to feed their family from Food Banks , many unethical people were successfully gaming the system and the Banks and the SBA both facilitated this deceptive, unpatriotic process.  Thus in all fairness, the US Government should supply a list of all of these companies in these questionable industries and the amount of their PPP Loans received and also single out the ones where their business location was one of their home residences.

From Company SEC filings, below is a table summarizing key information related to these 16 publicly-held Companies receiving PPP loans of above $5 mil.

									Most
								Most	Recent	Most
							Most	Recent	Year End	Recent
Publicly-Held Company							Recent	FYE	Total	FYE
Receiving CARES ACT	Amount of					Stock	FYE	Pretax	Stkhldrs	Disclosed
Paycheck Protection Program	Forgivable		City	State	# of	Market	Total	Income	Equity	CEO
Forgivable SBA Loan	SBA Loan	Business	HQS	HQs	Employees	Cap	Revenues	(Loss)	(Deficit)	Pay
	000's of $s					mils of $s	mils of $s	mils of $s	mils of $s	000's of $s
		Forgivable Loans Above $5 Mil
Meritage Hospitality Group	29,100	Restaurants: 331 Wendy's and Also Other Concepts	Grand Rapids	MI	11,000	74	467.5	16.5	83	1,874
Ruth's Hospitality Group	20,000	Restaurants: 159 Ruth's Chris Steak Houses	Winter Park	FL	5,740	217	468.0	50.4	94	6,106
J. Alexander Holdings	15,100	Restaurants: 47 Huge, Upscale Dining Locations in 16 US States	Nashville	TN	4,200	60	247.3	8.5	131	1,461
Fiesta Restaurant Group	10,000	Restaurants: Fast-Casual 142 Pollo Tropical locations in Florida and 164 Taco Cabana locations in Texas	Dallas	TX	10,480	169	660.9	(75.0)	158	1,298
Potbelly Corp	10,000	Restaurants: 474 Sandwich Shops	Chicago	IL	6,000	79	409.7	(9.4)	69	1,668
Shake Shack Inc	10,000	Restaurants: 275 Modern Day Roadside Burger Stands	New York	NY	7,603	1,610	594.5	27.5	322	3,805
Quantum Group	10,000	Tech: Computer Storage Devices	San Jose	CA	800	157	402.7	(40.4)	(200)	2,253
ZAGG Inc	9,444	Retail: Miscellaneous	Midvale	UT	628	101	521.9	5.9	191	2,225
Air T Inc	8,215	Air Courier Services	Denver	NC	769	33	249.8	4.7	23	50
WaVe Life Sciences Ltd	7,235	Pharmaceuticals Preparations	Singapore		301	266	16.0	(193.6)	64	5,840
New Age Beverages	6,868	Healthy Beverages	Denver	CO	934	127	253.7	(77.2)	92	363
Lindblad Expeditions Holdings	6,600	Expedition Cruising and Adventure Travel	New York	NY	650	236	343.1	20.9	123	1,658
Kura Sushi USA Inc	5,983	Restaurants: Japanese 23 Locations With 81% ownership by a Japanese Parent Corp	Irvine	CA	1,400	84	64.2	1.5	62	259
Perma-Fix Environmental Services	5,666	Hazardous Waste Management	Atlanta	GA	325	70	73.5	2.9	29	305
Drive Shack Inc	5,277	Golf-Related Leisure and Entertainment	New York	NY	4,650	72	272.1	(54.2)	66	7,383
SIFCO Industries	5,025	Aerospace and Energy Parts Manufacturer	Cleveland	OH	434	14	112.5	(8.2)	36	787
	164,513	Total all 16 Companies			55,914	3,369	5,157	(319)	1,343	37,335
		Average of all 16 Companies			3,495	211	322	(20)	84	2,333