As part of Goldman Sachs' small-business stimulus program, $25 million will be distributed in grants to community development financial institutions that will provide loans to small businesses. The firm also will directly make emergency loans to U.S. small businesses.
Goldman Sachs has $1.818 trillion of assets under supervision.
BlackRock Inc., New York, rolled out its $50 million global COVID-19 relief program in late March.
"As this unprecedented global crisis continues, sustaining healthcare staff and other heroes on the front lines is key to supporting and protecting our communities. I'm proud to share that over the past (few) weeks, BlackRock has sent over $20 million in support around the globe to response efforts," Deborah Winshel, managing director and global head of social impact at the $6.47 trillion firm, said in an email.
Ms. Winshel said one recent example of support for essential workers was a $1 million donation to New York City Health & Hospitals Corp., the largest health-care system in the U.S., to provide employees with fresh meals and subsidies for laundry, scrubs and personal protective equipment.
Providing sustenance to vulnerable people through food banks around the world is a recurring theme for BlackRock across the COVID-19 projects the firm is funding.
"We've learned from past emergency relief efforts that in addition to nourishment, food banks also provide a vital lifeline amid uncertainty and confusion," BlackRock said in a March 23 news release.
In the same release, BlackRock pledged to match employee contributions to local organizations that are working on COVID-19 issues.
The partners of Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel LLC, including founder and CEO Kenneth C. Griffin, as well as sister company Citadel Securities LLC, have donated a total of about $20 million since February to a wide range of projects, spokeswoman Megan Ingersoll said in an email.
Early projects included sending humanitarian aid and 17 tons of supplies to China, as well as facilitating the repatriation of more than 800 Americans from Wuhan, where the virus was first reported last year.
Closer to home, Ms. Ingersoll said Citadel partners donated $1 million to maintain food distribution locations at more than 500 Chicago public schools for 335,000 students and their families, and $1.5 million in support of the Citywide Emergency Food Distribution Plan in Chicago, the equivalent of 4.5 million meals for needy people.
Citadel's leaders also have provided funding of more than $5 million for research into COVID-19 vaccines and ways to improve human immunity to viruses like COVID-19.
Citadel manages $30 billion in multistrategy hedge funds.
In addition to supporting medical professionals and first responders, ensuring food security, providing access to needed supplies and backstopping local small businesses, private equity companies are working closely with some of their portfolio companies experiencing hardships as a result of COVID-19 impact on global economies.
KKR & Co. Inc., New York, for example, is "providing access to benefits and financial coaching for dislocated portfolio company employees and supporting workforce recovery for challenged populations more generally," the firm's executive team told its limited partner clients in an April 7 letter.
The company has created a $50 million relief fund, which also will support global relief efforts.
The relief was seeded with "significant contributions by executives across the firm" with the company providing the balance of the funding, the letter said.
In fact, to help fund the coronavirus relief program, KKR's senior leadership team — co-chairmen and co-CEOs Henry R. Kravis and George R. Roberts and co-presidents and co-chief operating officers Joseph Y. Bae and Scott C. Nuttall — said in the letter that "as part of this important initiative, we feel it is appropriate for the four of us to (forgo) any further salary, as well as annual bonuses in 2020."
