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The U.S. Senate will begin debate next week on a fifth coronavirus-response bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said yesterday, as he forecast tough negotiations with Democrats who are seeking broader aid than Republicans, Reuters reported. McConnell added the legislation, which has not yet been unveiled, will likely be more contentious than the previous four coronavirus aid bills. Those pumped more than $3 trillion into the hobbled economy with a combination of business loans, expanded unemployment benefits for workers and direct payments to families. “I do think we’ll get there and do something that needs to be done” before Congress begins an August recess, the Republican senator predicted. But there are also divisions among Republicans — in the White House and in Congress — over the precise direction of the upcoming bill, including whether there should be another round of direct payments to individuals and families. McConnell has talked about a bill costing no more than $1 trillion, while Democrats in the House of Representatives passed a $3 trillion measure in mid-May that McConnell has so far ignored. McConnell wants to focus on liability protections for business, schools and other entities as they reopen their operations even as coronavirus cases surge in many parts of the U.S., including Kentucky.

The parent company of century-old women’s apparel brand New York & Co. has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans to liquidate all its stores after being hurt by forced closures and supply-chain issues during the coronavirus pandemic, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. New York-based specialty retailer RTW Retailwinds Inc., which also owns the Fashion to Figure and Happy x Nature brands, filed for chapter 11 protection on Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newark, N.J., listing assets of about $405 million against nearly $450 million in debt. RTW said that it has started store-closing sales and inventory liquidations at its 387 retail stores in 32 states while it considers a sale of its e-commerce business and intellectual property. The retailer has hired liquidators Great American Group LLC, a subsidiary of B. Riley Financial Inc., and Tiger Capital Group LLC to conduct the closing sales, which are expected to conclude by Aug. 31, court papers show. The company said 92 percent of its brick-and-mortar stores have reopened after temporary closures due to the pandemic. Founded in 1918 as Lerner Shops and formerly known as New York & Co., the business changed its name to RTW in November 2018. RTW had employed about 5,000 people in February, with roughly 3,600 of those employees working part time.

More owners are permanently shutting their doors after new lockdown orders, realizing that there may be no end in sight to the crisis, the New York Times reported. It was harrowing enough for small businesses — the bars, dental care practices, small law firms, day care centers and other storefronts that dot the streets and corners of every American town and city — to have to shut down after state officials imposed lockdowns in March to contain the pandemic. But the resurgence of the virus, especially in states such as Texas, Florida and California that had begun to reopen, has introduced a far darker reality for many small businesses: Their temporary closures might become permanent. Nearly 66,000 businesses have folded since March 1, according to data from Yelp, which provides a platform for local businesses to advertise their services and has been tracking announcements of closings posted on its site. From June 15 to June 29, the most recent period for which data is available, businesses were closing permanently at a higher rate than in the previous three months, Yelp found. During the same period, permanent closures increased by 3 percent overall, accounting for roughly 14 percent of total closures since March. Researchers at Harvard believe the rates of business closures are likely to be even higher. They estimated that nearly 110,000 small businesses across the country had decided to shut down permanently between early March and early May, based on data collected in weekly surveys by Alignable, a social media network for small-business owners. Christopher Stanton, an associate professor at Harvard Business School who was one of the researchers, said it was difficult to accurately gauge how many small businesses were closing because, once they shut their doors for good, the owners were hard to reach. He added that it could take up to a year before government officials knew the true toll the pandemic was taking on small businesses. Read more. 

In related news, the House Small Business Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET titled "Long-Lasting Solutions for a Small Business Recovery." According to the committee, the hearing will explore efforts to stimulate small business growth following the Great Recession, applying those programs to the COVID-19 crisis, and new ideas to help industries that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Click here for a list of witnesses and a link to access the live webstream tomorrow of the hearing. 

Travelport Worldwide Ltd. is asking a court to block lenders from seizing cash or taking control of the business over a dispute with Elliott Management Corp., warning of a possible bankruptcy if they aren’t restrained by an injunction, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Elliott-backed booking platform filed papers in New York state court yesterday seeking to prohibit lenders from declaring more than $3 billion in debt immediately due and payable or exercising other rights stemming from an alleged debt default. Without such an order, Travelport said the lenders could cut off access to cash, push aside board members and force the company into a defensive bankruptcy. Generally, lenders rarely invoke their collateral rights against companies as large and indebted as Travelport. A bankruptcy filing by the company isn’t likely, in part because of the costs and risks of a chapter 11. The lenders have been locked in a standoff with Travelport for months after the company shifted valuable property out of their reach to secure a $1 billion rescue loan. Travelport said that the lifeline, which came from shareholders Elliott and Siris Capital Group LLC, provided much-needed cash to weather the drop-off in passenger flight bookings due to the coronavirus pandemic. But the maneuver touched off an unusually tense confrontation with some of the biggest investors on Wall Street, including the debt-investing divisions of Blackstone Group Inc. and Bain Capital LP. To secure the financing package, Travelport shifted intellectual-property assets out of the lenders’ grasp to serve as collateral for Elliott and Siris, which took the company private in 2018. Lenders said that the debt transaction isn’t allowed under their debt terms and that it siphoned off assets that should be available to satisfy their claims.