Main Street Monday — SBA Issues Affiliation Rules Effective July 27th

June 27, 2016

By Bob Coleman
Editor, Coleman Report

federalregisternoticeMain Street Monday — SBA Issues Affiliation Rules Effective July 27th

The seven page notice dated today dumped very early Saturday morning, even late Friday night depending on your time zone..

The meat of the announcement:

9.Amend § 121.301 to revise the section heading and to add paragraph (f) to read as follows:
§ 121.301 What size standards and affiliation principles are applicable to financial assistance programs?
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(f) Concerns and entities are affiliates of each other when one controls or has the power to control the other, or a third party or parties controls or has the power to control both. It does not matter whether control is exercised, so long as the power to control exists. Affiliation under any of the circumstances described below is sufficient to establish affiliation for applicants for SBA’s Business Loan, Disaster Loan, and Surety Bond Programs. For this rule, the Business Loan Programs consist of the 7(a) Loan Program, the Microloan Program, the Intermediary Lending Pilot Program, and the Development Company Loan Program (“504 Loan Program”). The Disaster Loan Programs consist of Physical Disaster Business Loans, Economic Injury Disaster Loans, Military Reservist Economic Injury Disaster Loans, and Immediate Disaster Assistance Program loans. The following principles apply for the Business Loan, Disaster Loan, and Surety Bond Guarantee Programs:

(1) Affiliation based on ownership. For determining affiliation based on equity ownership, a concern is an affiliate of an individual, concern, or entity that owns or has the power to control more than 50 percent of the concern’s voting equity. If no individual, concern, or entity is found to control, SBA will deem the Board of Directors or President or Chief Executive Officer (CEO) (or other officers, managing members, or partners who control the management of the concern) to be in control of the concern. SBA will deem a minority shareholder to be in control, if that individual or entity has the ability, under the concern’s charter, by-laws, or shareholder’s agreement, to prevent a quorum or otherwise block action by the board of directors or shareholders.

(2) Affiliation arising under stock options, convertible securities, and agreements to merge. (i) In determining size, SBA considers stock options, convertible securities, and agreements to merge (including agreements in principle) to have a present effect on the power to control a concern. SBA treats such options, convertible securities, and agreements as though the rights granted have been exercised.
(ii) Agreements to open or continue negotiations towards the possibility of a merger or a sale of stock at some later date are not considered “agreements in principle” and are thus not given present effect.
(iii) Options, convertible securities, and agreements that are subject to conditions precedent which are incapable of fulfillment, speculative, conjectural, or unenforceable under state or Federal law, or where the probability of the transaction (or exercise of the rights) occurring is shown to be extremely remote, are not given present effect.
(iv) An individual, concern or other entity that controls one or more other concerns cannot use options, convertible securities, or agreements to appear to terminate such control before actually doing so. SBA will not give present effect to individuals’, concerns’, or other entities’ ability to divest all or part of their ownership interest in order to avoid a finding of affiliation.

(3) Affiliation based on management. Affiliation arises where the CEO or President of the applicant concern (or other officers, managing members, or partners who control the management of the concern) also controls the management of one or more other concerns. Affiliation also arises where a single individual, concern, or entity that controls the Board of Directors or management of one concern also controls the Board of Directors or management of one of more other concerns. Affiliation also arises where a single individual, concern or entity controls the management of the applicant concern through a management agreement.

(4) Affiliation based on identity of interest. Affiliation arises when there is an identity of interest between close relatives, as defined in 13 CFR 120.10, with identical or substantially, identical business or economic interests (such as where the close relatives operate concerns in the same or similar industry in the same geographic area). Where SBA determines that interests should be aggregated, an individual or firm may rebut that determination with evidence showing that the interests deemed to be one are in fact separate.

(5) Affiliation based on franchise and license agreements. The restraints imposed on a franchisee or licensee by its franchise or license agreement generally will not be considered in determining whether the franchisor or licensor is affiliated with an applicant franchisee or licensee provided the applicant franchisee or licensee has the right to profit from its efforts and bears the risk of loss commensurate with ownership. SBA will only consider the franchise or license agreements of the applicant concern.Show citation box

(6) Determining the concern’s size. In determining the concern’s size, SBA counts the receipts, employees (§ 121.201), or the alternate size standard (if applicable) of the concern whose size is at issue and all of its domestic and foreign affiliates, regardless of whether the affiliates are organized for profit.

(7) Exceptions to affiliation. For exceptions to affiliation, see 13 CFR 121.103(b).

If you want to put all this into an easy to understand presentation, please join me at our July 19th webinar.