Commentary

Two recent developments will help many in the hospitality, restaurant and tourism industries avoid permanently shuttering their businesses due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

In the current changing market, "normal" expectations are changing day by day.

Senior housing has been hit hardest by the pandemic. Most transactions are on hold, and new starts are expected to plummet to near zero.

The drafters of the bankruptcy code never anticipated the shutdown of the economy that we are seeing.

The principals at George Smith Partners knew that there would be very few deals at that juncture, so it was critical to their survival to be positioned as one the few capital market advisers that were still doing deals.

Since the federal government has been ineffective about ramping up testing and providing sensible guidelines, the public health monitoring process, including contact tracing, may be months away from effective implementation.

Under more normal circumstances, funding and regulatory requirements would be barriers to creating new healthcare spaces quickly, those traditional barriers are being torn down to meet this unprecedented challenge.

Here's one idea: taxpayers could supercharge their 2018 NOLs by amending 2018 tax returns to take advantage of bonus depreciation on QIP.