James Balda, CEO and President of Argentum, a leading senior living association, states that the elderly prefer residing in senior living and care facilities on account of the available support and socialization opportunities. People generally move into senior living and care facilities in their mid 80s. United Nations reports the global population of those aged over 80 at 143 million in 2019 with 53.9 million living in Europe and North America. With such sound fundamentals, the long term prospects for the sector are bright. On the other side of the coin are the estimated 20% rise in labour costs and 100% escalation in the cost of supplies. Since the sector cannot arrange walk thru for potential clients, occupancy rates can drop in the near future. However, the senior living and care sector is lobbying for $20 billion of the $100 billion healthcare stimulus under the CARES Act, which should offer relief.  

As many as 55% of family offices had proactively modified their investment strategies in view of the imminent challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic would unleash, reveals the Global Family Office Report 2019 by Campden Wealth Research and UBS. SDS Family Office Managing Member, Peter Sasaki outlines the various actions of family offices to mitigate risks and improve returns viz. hedging against heightened volatility and expanding safe holdings such as precious metals which have placed them in a position to purchase good but depreciated assets. KPMG believes family offices will look to protect wealth instead of expanding it, an observation confirmed by 42% family offices shoring up cash reserves since 2019, before the crisis erupted. Then again, the private wealth industry has to come out of its comfort zone and utilize cutting edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) while also responding to the tech savvy demands placed on them by their next generation clients and the remote working culture. 

With over 400 million Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) across the world employing 60-70% of the global workforce, economic recovery is possible only by factoring them in. Many governments have already started acting in this direction in order to prevent fall in employment and incomes. While some of these measures focus on delivering immediate relief, others are long term in nature and direct SMEs towards better integration with the realities of a changed economic-geographical scenario. Considering that the relatively limited resources of SMEs – funds, workforce skills, technology – they are more exposed to the shocks imparted by the COVID-19 pandemic. M&A activity in the SME sector will be on hold as they find their way out of the challenging situation. 

Private Equity (PE) is sitting atop $2.5 trillion dry powder in the form of uncalled capital, including $800 billion in buyouts. As valuations fall in the wake of the lockdown, General Partners (GPs) have to channelize these funds. Plus, the companies with dropped valuations have excellent fundamentals. Banks’ reluctant to lend make Private Equity a preferred investor. Legal and valuation uncertainties can slow down the forward march of the Private Equity sector as can inflation-inspired interest rate hikes, falling returns, and the reluctance of Limited Partners (LPs) to allot funds to an already expanding component of their portfolio