Page 7 - Riverwater 2020 Sustainability Report

2020 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
COVID EFFORTS OF OUR PORTFOLIO COMPANIES
COVID EFFORTS OF OUR PORTFOLIO COMPANIES
As the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding in early 2020, companies, like individuals and governments, were scrambling to continue to operate within the confines of the new normal. As investors, we were trying to discern which of the companies in which we had invested were best positioned to do so – in the immediate time frame and over the long-term.
Headlines flooded the newswire, and there was much to be concerned with. People were becoming infected, hospitals were filling up, patients were dying, PPE was in short supply, employees and students were trying to work from home, businesses were closing, the economy was sinking, and so on.
In response, the Fed acted swiftly to reduce the Fed Funds rate to near-zero and flooded the system with money via asset purchases. In addition, Congress enacted the CARES Act, which provided immediate funds to individuals
and small businesses. And how did businesses respond?
Riverwater’s portfolio companies acted swiftly to protect their workers and supply chains by implementing work-from-home arrangements where possible, by providing PPE, social distancing, and staggered shifts where physical presence was required, by retaining the majority (in many cases 100%) of their workforce with full pay and benefits, and often bonuses.
They protected their communities with deferral of payments due for services, donations of PPE for front-line workers, contributions of food, drink, money, and time. And they worked to protect and return their world to normal, employing their business expertise and efforts toward developing, manufacturing, and distributing PPE equipment, ventilators, COVID tests and vaccine
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