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Industrial Protection Products in Salem produces non-public protective equipment, but EPI for COVID-19. That’s why he expects revenue to drop by at least $2.2 million this year, according to disclosures made through two federally funded systems in which he participated: the state-run Payment Check Protection Program and the state-run Main Street Aid Fund.
“The latest thing other people are thinking about right now is shoes and glasses designed to make an impact,” said Rick Murphy, president of the company.
Founded in 1977 through Murphy’s father, the company adapts the protective appliances of tradition for commercials and workers.
“It’s for on-site workers, but there are few workers on site, and even when there are other people, they don’t allow outdoor suppliers,” Murphy said. Initially, it took leave to almost all of its 32 workers. “We’ve never had layoffs of any kind,” he said.
With the help of PPP, he was able to bring them back, “but when you just don’t have the job, that’s the other challenge.”
IPP seeks to meet this challenge by contacting online companies, installing protection devices for on-site visits and promoting thermal scanners. Business resumes slowly, but not en masse, under any circumstances. The turning point. Our peak life quarter is April, May and June, so we have a higher stock in anticipation of a great spring,” Murphy said.
Instead, it anticipates a big loss, which is why IPP then searched through the Main Street fund.
PPI is not alone. Leading law firms in New Hampshire, high-end restaurants, offshore manufacturers, established structure companies, well-known experts, all affected by coronavirus, have reported massive losses even after securing thousands or even millions. PPP Dollars.
According to the revelations, nearly 5,400 New Hampshire employers forecast a $2.6 billion drop in earnings this year due to the pandemic. Employers received assistance from the state’s Main Street Fund, which went to corporations with profits of less than $20 million. It also excludes organizations that obtain cash from other sources, adding physical care and child care providers, farmers, nonprofits, and freelancers.
Main Street’s $332.5 million covered 17% of a company’s expected losses after taking into account federal assistance, adding PPP, which the government fund intended to supplement.
The PPP and Main Street Fund were made imaginable through the federal CARES Act. PPP consists of providing bank loans, approved and secured through the U.S. Small Business Administration, to corporations with fewer than 500 employees. As of July 17, just over 24,000 New Hampshire companies had earned $2.55 billion in PPP funds.
The Main Street Fund, which expired on June 12, earned the largest $1.25 billion in health care funds. He went to smaller corporations without any conditions. Limited to $350,000 according to the company, it is based on the difference between last year’s and this year’s revenue, having subtracted some of the earned from THE PPP, as well as everything it earned from other federal programs, adding the SBA’s emergency injury disaster loan. Program.
Main Street was designed as a complement to SBA programs, and about four-fifths of Main Street beneficiaries earned a total of $440.7 million in PPP funds. (About a third earned nearly $70 million in other grants and loans.)
These are the systems and the numbers, but what about the individual corporations involved? Why do they expect such big losses and what do they do to them?
NH Business Review tested the corporations that benefited the most from any of the systems: those that got the main public loan maximum of $350,000 and earned at least the same amount of PPP money.
They were also expected to suffer the biggest losses: their projected minimum earnings decline ranged from $2.2 million to more than $3 million.
But many indicated that their losses were even greater, even if they were reluctant to disclose the exact amount.
“We’ve been defeated by our revenue,” said Michael Boyle, CEO of Boyle Energy Services and Technology Inc., a Merrimack-based company that installs its generation worldwide, a challenging company with existing foreign restrictions. “We haven’t had a single user in the room since March. We’re fucked,” Boyle said.
The corporate was able to put its workforce on the payroll in July thanks to PPP. Main Street’s budget was used to pay for insurance and electric bills, but in August Boyle had to lay off his workers to the fullest. He’s waiting for some other APP funding circular, but what if that doesn’t happen?
“My paintings are still optimistic,” he said. “We’ll take a path. We’ve been in tough areas, but this is the hardest area of all time.”
Rath Young Pignatelli’s lawyers on how to get cash for coronaviruses, but that wasn’t enough to make up for the company’s losses when many of those clients and the courts shut down.
“In fact, we suffered a loss of profit due to the downturn in the economy,” said Christopher Sullivan, president of Concord Legal Corporation, which employs 49 people. “We were luckier than most. We didn’t have any firing. Our entire company started operating remotely. Some companies haven’t gone to do that.”
The company earned credit for federal and state programs, “because we have compatibility in those categories. We are suffering significant losses. It’s not something we should communicate about, but we’re in the same boat as everyone else.”
Magic Foods Restaurant Group one of the few corporations to suffer the largest minimum loss: $2.5 million to $3 million.
“It’s a conservative number,” said Scott Ouellette, owner of Lake Region’s upscale restaurant chain.
The company, which was forced to close its Canoe restaurant in mid-May, has five other locations: Canoe Restaurant in Center Harbor, O Bistro in Wolfeboro, O Steaks – Seafood in Concord and Laconia and Suna in Sunapee.
Ouellette said it was going to continue because “we made a massive bet when we didn’t use PPP cash in the first place.”
App’s original regulations stipulated that it had to spend three-quarters of its 199 workers within 8 weeks of receiving the budget on April 3, but restaurants were not even open for food until May 18, and some other months before they simply settled for a limited interior. Eat.
“I think there’s no way they’re going to stay in eight weeks,” Ouellette said, and he was right.
The regulations were replaced to give beneficiaries 24 weeks to spend the funds, and he was able to rent the maximum of his workers when they needed them at most. But there is still a six-foot distance requirement for internal food and 50% limits for indoor seats in the 4 southern counties.
“Even when it’s a better internal and external day, we’re still below our current capacity. Concord is the slowest. It’s probably gone down 60%,” Ouellette said. “We don’t know what will happen this fall when tourism disappears and the outdoor seats disappear.”
Restaurants are the only corporations waiting for such losses.
I’d think Air Solutions – Balancing would thrive. After all, do everyone talk about expanding ventilation and airflow as a way to make indoor workplaces safer?
“There’s a lot of discussion,” admitted Olaf Zwickau, the 18-year-old president of the Manchester-based firm. “But it’s not that simple.”
Air Solutions measures air to meet various indoor air pollutant standards, basically for new structures. Construction was thought to be a key industry in New Hampshire, but in many states it stopped and Air Solutions had to lay off its 83 employees. He was able to bring back some of the staff thanks to the PPP, and then the structure resumed. The company has also begun marketing “our Covid defense solution” for existing buildings.
“We have been very successful, very interesting,” Zwickau said, but it is much less difficult to budget ventilation in a new structure than to renovate an existing one. “It’s a slow process. Harder to sell.”
The company is busy now, he said, but “I’m very, very afraid of a momentary wave.” In addition, it is now catching up on paintings that have been suspended and the new paintings are slow to arrive.
So you expect even more than the $2.5 million to $3 million in losses you expected? “I can’t wait for the numbers right now. It’s too much uncertainty. It’s been a very difficult six months that I’d like to forget.”
But it’s not just about numbers. “These are other people we had to abandon. We rehired them with the government, but I have to say, ‘I can’t wait how long.’ I feel like I’m playing with other people’s emotions. That’s the hardest thing as an employer. They’re smart, hard-working people,” he said.
Cubicle Solutions, a Windham-based company that employs 114 people, is one of five companies with the greatest expected loss of profit, as it has lost profits at the close of the business and also because many more painters paint from home. Cubicle now offers social distance barriers for paintings, places and spaces.
The others are Jewell Instruments, a manufacturer and distributor of Manchester sensors, meters and avionics instrumentation for industries ranging from aerospace to medical. It employs 104 people. People’s Linen Service, a Keene-based company with 162 people, the fifth.
The next point of more than 70 corporations projected profit declines of between $2.2 million and $2.5 million. They come with 603 Manufacturing, a Hudson manufacturer of electronic cables and mechanical gaming for the defense, aerospace, commercial and medical industries. Most of its 1,500 employees paint at 4 offshore facilities in China and one in Taiwan, and have obtained an APP loan for 93 employees, possibly in the United States.
603 is a spin-out of RF Logic, a BAE Systems defense contractor founded through a former BAE employee, Sanders Associates.
603 Manufacturing responded to the inquiries, but Brian Blanchette, vice president of sales and operations at APR-R LLC at Exeter, which operates under the name New England Truck Center, did so.
The company sells cranes, maintains them and is itself a towing service. Traffic slowdown and structure damage the company, but thanks to PPP, it was able to recover the maximum of its 60 employees. The challenge is that few other people buy trucks, which sell for between $150,000 and $800,000. “We have a few million dollars in inventory,” Blanchette said.
The value of moving them has dropped at almost a cost, he said. This would possibly mean that the company would possibly not assume the loss of sales it expected, just a drop in profits, possibly meaning it would have to pay some of the main street money.
“It would hurt us, ” he said. “I hope Main Street takes this into consideration. But we agree to make a profit if you allow everyone to work.
You can contact Bob Sanders at [email protected].
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