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Lenders to ABC Carpet & Home, the more than century-old New York luxury home goods retailer, are mulling a distressed takeover of the company after financial hits from COVID-19 and real estate problems left it unable to pay its bills, Bloomberg News reported. An offer last year from private-equity firm MHR Fund Management fell through this April after reaching advanced stages. An investor group with experience in home and carpet retailing may take over the company through a bankruptcy filing or an out-of-court restructuring. New York-based ABC Carpet & Home, which is working with advisers from B. Riley Financial Inc. and Greenberg Traurig, has been seeking new financing or a buyer for over a year since the planned private-equity sale fell through. The company’s popular restaurant business, including ABC Kitchen, wouldn’t be affected by a restructuring.

President Joe Biden's administration said it will extend the pause on federal student loan payments one last time, until Jan. 31, for a total of almost two years' reprieve for borrowers, USA Today reported. "This final extension will give students and borrowers the time they need to plan for restart and ensure a smooth pathway back to repayment," Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said on Friday. Since the pandemic first struck, millions of student loan borrowers have been spared the obligation of paying on their accounts. The freeze had been scheduled to expire Sept. 30. It also included a 0% interest rate on loans, and the government had directed loan servicers to pause collection attempts. Collecting on the nation’s $1.6 trillion student loan bills is already a daunting task during normal times. Expecting borrowers to restart payments after they have been paused for nearly two years will be an even more difficult challenge. And the departure of two companies that had been running the government’s loan programs further complicates matters. Lawmakers and borrower advocates had said these colliding incidents warranted another extension of the federal student loan payment pause. Borrowers also wanted more time. In a survey conducted on behalf of the Pew Charitable Trusts, nearly two-thirds of borrowers said it would be difficult to start payments again if the moratorium lifted at September's end. Read more.

In a related Wall Street Journal editorial, Congress in March 2020 relieved borrowers from making payments on federal student loans and waived interest accumulation through last September. Like other “temporary” pandemic programs, the student loan reprieve has been repeatedly extended, first by President Trump and then Mr. Biden, even as the labor market has strengthened. Forbearance was supposed to expire at the end of September, but Education Secretary Miguel Cardona says a four-month extension is necessary to give borrowers “the time they need to plan for a restart.” They have the next two months to plan. Most don’t need that. The unemployment rate among bachelor’s degree recipients was 3.1% in July. Borrowers haven’t had to show they’ve been hurt by the pandemic to receive forbearance, and nearly 90% of the 43 million student borrowers as of March 2021 (the latest Education Department data) weren’t making payments. Forbearance is saving borrowers on average $400 per month, which many are using to invest or pay down higher-interest debt. Read more. (Subscription required.)
*The views expressed in this editorial are from the author/publication cited, are meant for informative purposes only, and are not an official position of ABI.

The apartment was just what Chanque Jones needed: four bedrooms, and $500 cheaper than the run-down house she had been renting back in Chicago. It was a fresh start for her three sons, as well as for her mobile manicure business. Then an old eviction case turned up on a routine background check prepared for her landlord. It didn’t matter that she had gone to court and won. The fact that the case was filed at all was enough to mark her as a risk: what tenant advocates call a Scarlet E — the E standing for eviction, the New York Times reported. Eviction cases are a stubborn blot on any renter’s history. They are nearly impossible to scrub away, even if the tenant made good on obligations or it was only a scare tactic by an aggressive landlord. The pandemic has given the problem new urgency: Although the Biden administration has announced a new eviction moratorium for much of the country through Oct. 3, millions of renters are behind on their payments after more than a year of economic upheaval and could face eventual eviction.

A federal judge has for now sided with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. in its bid to invalidate Florida’s rule that bars businesses from requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination from their customers, the Wall Street Journal reported. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami on Sunday granted the cruise operator’s request for a preliminary injunction that prevents the enforcement of the Florida ban on its vessels departing from the state. The company in July sued Florida’s surgeon general, Scott Rivkees, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. “While litigation is a strategic tool of last resort, our company has fought to do what we believe is right and in the best interest of the welfare of our guests, crew and communities we visit,” said Daniel Farkas, Norwegian’s general counsel. The decision comes as Norwegian is set to offer cruises from Florida to the Caribbean starting Aug. 15. Florida is a cruise hub that in 2019 accounted for about 60% of cruise embarkations in the U.S., according to the industry group Cruise Lines International Association. The company is sticking with its policy to require full vaccinations for all crew and passengers, including children, for initial sailings through Oct. 31 after more than a yearlong hiatus and billions of dollars in losses. On Saturday, Norwegian resumed its U.S. cruise from Seattle to Alaska.

Landlords filed a legal challenge to President Joe Biden’s extension of the coronavirus eviction moratorium until October, saying it goes against a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in July, Bloomberg News reported. The Biden administration’s edict should be struck down because the high court clearly said when it allowed the moratorium to be continued it was relying on an assurance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the agency had no intention of authorizing a further extension, according to a filing late Wednesday in the Atlanta-based federal court of appeals by the Alabama Association of Realtors. The CDC extended a ban on evictions in areas of the country with substantial and high transmission of COVID-19 on Tuesday, after a firestorm of criticism from Democrats following the lapse of a previous moratorium on Saturday. In July, the justices rejected calls by landlords and real-estate trade associations from Alabama and Georgia to block the moratorium while their challenge played out in court. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s three liberals in the majority. Kavanaugh cast the pivotal vote, saying he was letting the ban stay in effect temporarily even though he thought the CDC had exceeded its power.

Defaults in the U.S. private credit market slid in the first quarter as the nation’s abating pandemic triggered a surge in economic growth, and investors hunting for yield grew more willing to finance struggling companies, Bloomberg News reported. The proportion of loans that defaulted or remained in default fell to 2.4%, according to a private credit market index from law firm Proskauer. That’s down from 3.6% in the fourth quarter and a peak of 8.1% in last year’s second quarter. The index tracks the performance of over 700 active senior secured and unitranche loans representing $131.1 billion in original principal. Companies that sell junk debt are seeing similar improvements in credit quality. Defaults on liquid debt for U.S. speculative grade companies, at $5 billion in the first quarter, hit their lowest level since 2018, according to a Friday report from Moody’s Investors Service. The $975 billion global private credit market, where funds lend directly to companies that traditionally were small or mid-sized, is seeing a raft of larger transactions as money pours into funds. This year, companies including Calypso Technology Inc. and Bourne Leisure Holdings Ltd. have tapped private lenders for more than $2 billion in financing each for buyouts.