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The House Financial Services Committee will hold a virtual hearing on Friday at noon ET titled "Insuring Against a Pandemic: Challenges and Solutions for Policyholders and Insurers." Witness list, prepared materials and a link to the live webcast will be posted here.

The weakest oil and gas companies are facing heightened liquidity pressure after bank lenders cut their exposure amid low commodity prices, Bloomberg News reported. Most high-yield borrowers saw their reserve-based loans cut after their spring redetermination, according to a new report from S&P Global Ratings. Borrowing bases, which are determined by the collateral value of oil and gas reserves, were cut by an average of 23 percent. Credit commitments were cut by 15 percent on average, the ratings company said. “This redetermination cycle has been more prolonged and less forgiving than previous cycles, with a number of the most distressed E&Ps still working through the process,” S&P analysts Paul O’Donnell and Carin Dehne-Kiley wrote in the report. S&P looked at 34 companies that have announced the results of their bank redetermination. A reduction in borrowing capacity for high-yield energy companies comes at a time when they most need access to liquidity. Oil and gas prices fell to historic lows as the coronavirus pandemic slashed demand, and Saudi Arabia and Russia competed for market share. Capital markets have remained closed to most energy borrowers, sending the weakest companies into bankruptcy. The average drawn balance on high-yield producer credit facilities is now more than 50 percent, with about a third of producers drawn at more than 70 percent of elected commitments, according to S&P.

John Mercadante’s e-commerce delivery business was burning cash, missing debt payments and struggling to raise capital, regulatory filings show, before two events brightened his company’s fortunes. First the coronavirus pandemic hit, leading to increased delivery orders for his Transportation and Logistics Systems Inc. of Jupiter, Fla. And even as the business got busier, two of its subsidiaries qualified for forgivable loans totaling $3.4 million under the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, the Wall Street Journal reported. The publicly traded company, known by its ticker symbol TLSS, hasn’t been accused of impropriety. But its financial situation and those of other public companies that received PPP loans are expected to come under scrutiny as the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration determine whether PPP loans qualify for forgiveness. In April, Treasury asked publicly traded companies that received loans to return the money, and updated its guidance to make it clear that borrowers must take into account “their current business activity,” including their ability to access cash to support ongoing operations. David Bamberger, a lawyer representing TLSS, said the company’s request for a loan was appropriate, and it plans to seek to have the loan forgiven. “The federal government offered a lifesaver, we qualified and we were kept afloat. As a result, so were our employees,” Bamberger said in response to emailed questions. But others say that companies that haven’t suffered during the crisis should have to pay back the loans, which were designed to help small companies — generally defined as having 500 or fewer full-time employees — maintain their payroll through the pandemic.

Bowing to political pressure, the Trump administration said on Friday that it would disclose borrower information for recipients of millions of small-business loans through the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program, the New York Times reported. The decision is a reversal for the administration, which had closely guarded the information and argued that private businesses should not have their names or the amount of money that they took from the federal government disclosed. The move comes as Democrats had seized on the secrecy surrounding the program to suggest that the bailout was an example of the Trump administration engaging in corporate cronyism. The new disclosures will apply to loans of more than $150,000. The information will be broken down into five loan ranges, topping out at the maximum amount of $10 million. The Small Business Administration will release business names, addresses, demographic data and jobs supported. The Treasury Department, which jointly administers the loan program with the SBA, did not say when the new information would be made public; however, some of the demographic data will be included in loan forgiveness applications, which might not be submitted for months. Treasury officials said on Friday that the decision, which has bipartisan support, would provide transparency while maintaining protection for small businesses. It does not appear that any additional legislation will be required, and the Treasury maintains that the law did not mandate the disclosure of additional data.

Chuck E. Cheese, the troubled restaurant chain and children’s party venue, is fielding interest from creditors and other potential suitors, according to people familiar with the matter, as some bricks-and-mortar establishments struggle to survive the coronavirus pandemic, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The chain, owned by private-equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc., has drawn interest from potential buyers including New York grocery magnate John Catsimatidis. Chuck E. Cheese’s parent company, CEC Entertainment Inc., is also in talks with a group of bondholders who have offered to invest more than $100 million in the company and keep it out of bankruptcy. Catsimatidis, who has scooped up some CEC bonds, is exploring a possible offer for the family-entertainment company. CEC is now reopening venues and planned to have 100 of its 741 Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza restaurants open by mid-June, according to a letter to employees sent last week by Chief Executive David McKillips. While the doors were closed, Chuck E. Cheese was burning too much cash to continue operating without raising additional capital, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Still, the company had enough of a cash cushion to keep its doors closed until the fall, Moody’s said. CEC has close to $1 billion in debt stemming from Apollo’s leveraged buyout in 2014, but faces no debt maturities until 2022. CEC’s top-ranking loans traded at about 59 cents on the dollar of face value on Friday, according to IHS Markit.