COVID Mergers

The COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis it brought on have clarified and exacerbated many of the most glaring problems and inequities in our economy – and concentrated economic power is no exception.

At the end of March 2020, Congress passed, and President Trump signed into law the CARES Act to address the economic and financial crisis caused by the coronavirus. The legislation expanded unemployment insurance and created an emergency small business lending program. It also authorized the Federal Reserve to intervene in financial markets to keep borrowing rates low for large corporations and financial institutions.

Advocates and political leaders encouraged Congress to adopt a merger ban to prohibit the use of this cheap financing by large institutions to engage in merger boom. But the merger ban was not adopted in final or subsequent legislation. In other words, the CARES Act allowed large corporations and financiers to take advantage of the economic crisis by providing them cheap financing they could use to buy up smaller competitors and businesses in distress, further consolidating economic and political power. Our research shows they have done just that.

To fully understand the scope of the merger wave sparked by COVID-19, Economic Liberties acquired access to Mergr, an online database that gathers merger and acquisition data, to collect and verify information about the largest deals made since the CARES Act was signed. Not all of the deals catalogued were financed with CARES Act funding, but they show that unlike small businesses, large corporations were positioned to survive the pandemic and accumulate even more power.

With this data, we hope to further support efforts by the Biden administration, Congress, and local and state antitrust enforcers to secure an equitable recovery.

This data was last updated January 20, 2021.