9 Companies With Gov. Newsom Ties Received Nearly $3M in PPP Loans

Nearly $3 million in federal COVID-19 loans meant for small businesses went to nine companies with ties to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, reports The Mercury News.

Newsom’s winery and hospitality company, PlumpJack Management Group LLC, received a loan worth nearly $3 million through the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program.

PlumpJack Management Group LLC includes four Napa Valley wineries, five restaurants and bars, a ski resort, a sports retailer, and more. Newsom in 2018 placed his ownership interests in the PlumpJack Group into a blind trust, meaning he would have no knowledge or role in the company’s business decisions made while he was in office. But Newsom is receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from these companies in gross income.

Villa Encinal Partners Limited Partnership received the highest loan among the companies affiliated with PlumpJack: $918,720 on April 14, 2020. The company is connected to a PlumpJack Winery in Napa.

The SBA requires companies receiving PPP loans to spend 60% of it on payroll in order to receive loan forgiveness. But PlumpJack Winery only has 14 employees, which means each employee would be making around $160,000 a year if the loan was equally divided, San Francisco’s KGO-TV reports.

"It seems to be a small business, but it got a lot of money. I'm not sure how the company justifies taking that much money when there were a lot of companies looking to get assistance," Sean Moulton, a senior policy analyst at independent watchdog Project on Government Oversight, which tracks $1.6 trillion in COVID-19 relief, told The Associated Press. "You hope they're using it wisely because there's an opportunity cost there — that money didn't get used for another small business that may be out of business now."

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