But instead of a rebound, Ratio’s sales plunged sharply after the first week of March as the coronavirus outbreak suddenly and drastically changed consumer spending.

“It just hits you like a freight train,” said Powell, 38, who is based in Denver. “I knew things were coming, but I didn’t anticipate how bad it was going to get.”

Ratio’s experience shows that e-commerce isn’t being spared from the outbreak — even companies that are technically operating normally since they have few or no stores to close. Since the start of 2020, online sales growth for apparel has plunged to zero from a growth rate of about 30% the previous quarter, according to data from e-commerce software firm ChannelAdvisor. The steepest drop came at the beginning of March, the study shows.

Meanwhile, data from e-commerce research company Edison Trends shows that from March 2 to March 22, a handful of e-commerce brands including Stitch Fix and ThirdLove saw a weekly average drop of 7% in sales.

As consumers grapple with the pandemic and a stalling economy, their spending priorities are shifting amid the uncertainty, said Mike Shapaker, chief marketing officer at ChannelAdvisor.

“Right now everybody’s focused on getting enough food, toilet paper and whatever you need to live,” Shapaker said. “If we come out of this, we can see everything spike back up, or this becomes a new normal for quite a long time.”

—

While it’s still early, major brands appear to be experiencing less of a blow amid the outbreak, Edison Trends data shows. Nike’s online sales posted comparatively modest declines in the first two weeks of March, while Adidas experienced a sharp increase due to a broad promotion.

Nonetheless, most retailers will only absorb a fraction of lost sales from store closures, according to a report from Moody’s Investors Service. While companies selling groceries and essentials may benefit, “most brick-and-mortar operations will not be able to offset the steep loss from store sales with their online platforms,” Moody’s analysts including Christina Boni wrote.

Powell, meanwhile, is quickly running through his options to keep his business afloat. For now, he has furloughed several employees after scaling back advertising on Google and Instagram until the “dust settles.” Because Ratio sells customized shirts, it carries less finished product in its inventory, so offering discounts isn’t feasible, he said.

“While we’re hoping for the best, we have to plan for the worst, and we simply can’t predict how long this will last,” he said.

—

Caitlin Mociun, 38, is facing the same bind at her jewelry business, Mociun. In early March, she said demand for her products, which include rings, necklaces and earrings, was strong. But then came a “massive drop.” For five days, she watched her online sales fall sharply.

“As a small business, if people don’t keep buying things, we will cease to exist,” Mociun said.

Son discussed the idea with investors including Elliott Management and the Abu Dhabi sovereign-wealth fund Mubadala in the past week, the Financial Times reported, before moving ahead with a plan to sell assets instead.

The Japanese billionaire is backing himself in other ways. A regulatory filing Tuesday shows his stake has risen to 26.9% from 25.5% and, with SoftBank’s shares gyrating wildly, he also pledged more stock against his holdings.

Son committed an extra 600,000 shares, or about 0.3% of his holdings, to lenders, the filing shows. It means 38.6% of his stake is now pledged to global banks including UBS Group and Nomura Holdings, more than triple the level in 2013.

He also loaned 30 million shares — about 5% of his holding — to Son Equities, according to the disclosure. The holding company is invested in GungHo Online Entertainment, a gaming firm founded by his youngest brother Taizo Son whose shares have dropped 33% this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The size of Son’s pledges — 216.9 million shares worth $7.4 billion — are among the most significant tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That amount trails only Larry Ellison, Russia’s Suleiman Kerimov and China’s Qin Yinglin on the ranking of the world’s 500 richest people.

“It’s most common among controlling shareholders,” said Michael Puleo, assistant professor of finance at Fairfield University’s Dolan School of Business in Connecticut. The practice is rare right now because of the stock market rout and it is much more expensive to satisfy margin calls, he said. “Banks want nothing to do with high-risk loans.”

SoftBank spokeswoman Hiroe Kotera declined to comment on Son’s personal finances.

SoftBank’s shares have tumbled since February with investors concerned about some of its investments.

The past week Son began thinking of a leveraged buyout after Gordon Singer of Elliott’s London office expressed interest in buying more SoftBank shares last week, one person said, according to the FT. The plan was eventually abandoned for a number of reasons, including difficulty in getting an investor consortium together so quickly for a large deal, Tokyo listing rules and tax considerations.

The regulatory filing doesn’t explain the rationale for Son’s 30-million-share transaction but the shifting of stakes is a reminder of the complex web of relationships that have long underpinned one of Japan’s largest fortunes.

When GungHo was spun out of SoftBank in 2015 all the shares owned by Taizo Son’s holding company were pledged to his brother’s Son Holdings, according to a statement at the time. Son has also leveraged his stake in the Vision Fund, which invests in tech startups, including WeWork and DoorDash. That boosts his returns if things go well, with outsize losses if they don’t.

Leveraged bets are common among the wealthy, but the marketwide plunge triggered by the spread of the coronavirus is pressuring rich families across the globe, who over the years used share-backed debt facilities. Some are now facing margin calls, adding to broader financial turmoil.

India’s Gautam Adani and his family put up an additional $1.4 billion of stock as collateral on existing debt earlier this month. In China, shareholders of at least 14 firms were asked to supply additional shares. The Hinduja family, one of the world’s richest clans with interests in finance, energy and real estate, are repaying debt backed by equity they hold in lender IndusInd Bank Ltd. after a stock rout caused a breach in loan terms.

Like Son, SoftBank isn’t averse to pledging its holdings. Its stakes in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and SoftBank Japan both include pledged shares.

The company’s enormous debt load and ties to unprofitable startups from WeWork to Oyo Hotels through its $100 billion Vision Fund are worrying investors. Other assets like chipmaker Arm Holdings aren’t listed and may prove difficult to monetize quickly. Moody’s Japan downgraded SoftBank’s unsecured debt rating on Wednesday, saying the Japanese investment firm’s plan to sell off assets during a market downturn threatened the value of its entire portfolio. SoftBank responded to the downgrade by saying it was “biased and mistaken.”

SoftBank shares have tumbled 27% since Feb. 12, even after soaring this week on Son’s plan Monday to unload 4.5 trillion yen ($41 billion) of assets.

The disposal includes the sale of about $14 billion of its shares in prize asset Alibaba. That amount will probably increase, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Anthea Lai said in a note this week.

Even for a billionaire who embraces risk as much as Son, the past few weeks have been tumultuous.

At the start of the month his fortune stood at $17 billion. In two weeks it was cut in half. So far this week it has climbed by about 50% as markets embraced his plan.

Son may be comfortable with such swings. He saw $70 billion wiped from his net worth in the dot-com crash. But falling fortunes aren’t the only potential downside of pledging shares.

“It can get painful for more than one reason,” said Fairfield University’s Puleo. “There’s the loss of wealth but it also creates very negative headlines.”

Power plants under the management of CKP comprise the Xayaburi Hydroelectric Power Plant, Nam Ngum 2 Hydroelectric Power Plant, Bangpa-in Cogeneration Power Plant 1 (BIC-1) and Plant 2 (BIC-2) and Bangkhenchai Solar Power Plant.

Regardless, guidelines have been issued to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and to safeguard the safety of our employees at head offices and power plant areas, both in Thailand and Lao PDR, in accordance with the announcement of the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand and the Lao PDR, are listed below:

The measures earmarked for power plant areas, defined by the company as restricted area with strictly limited access. are not limited to the following.

Whilst working, if any employee has a body temperature exceeding 37.5 degrees celsius, fever, cough, nasal congestion, sore throat, shortness of breath, or a cold, he/she must visit a doctor immediately. The entry/exit of third parties, only in case of an emergency and when it is necessary, has to be considered by the power plant manager on a case by case basis. Once approved, a physical examination of the visitor by the power plant doctor must be first conducted. And lastly, all employees must strictly refrain from assembling for any type of activity within the power plant.

The measures for employees including contract employees and regular contractors who work in the company’s area as well as all employees in subsidiary companies are listed as follows.

1. No traveling abroad allowed for either business or personal purposes, and previously approved leave for travel shall be cancelled.

2. In case of employees having obtained special case approval to travel abroad, or in case of any close contact of employees especially family members (living together) who travels back from abroad, employees must report to the supervisor and the Human Resources Department immediately and start to work from home (WFH) for 14 days. In this regard, health reports must be submitted to the supervisor and the Human Resources Department on a daily basis for 14 straight days since the day such employees start WFH. Medical certificate shall also be provided to the company at least 1 day prior to returning to work.

3. In the event that any employee has been in close contact with those infected with Covid-19 and those at risk, such as people who recently returned from abroad, those with travel history or were in areas affected by the ​​epidemic, he/she must notify the supervisor and the Human Resources Department immediately and start to work from home (WFH). Health reports must also be submitted to the supervisor and the Human Resources Department for 14 straight days from the date of notification to work from home.

4. In the event that an employee developed any respiratory illnesses, fever, cough or cold, he/she must notify the supervisor and stay at home or see a doctor immediately. And if an employee in the high risk group is deemed necessary by a doctor to be tested the Covid-19 infection, that person must notify the supervisor and the Human Resources Department immediately.

5. Pregnant employees and those with congenital disease at risk of serious illness must start working from home, if infected.

6. For those who have been screened and told by the hospital to undergo a Covid-19 test or been informed of Covid -19 infection and require treatment, the company would provide full reimbursement as a special case (In addition to the budget for normal medical welfare benefits which still can be reimbursed as a company’s policy).

7. Employees must disclose all information regarding previous travel records, contacts, or close contacts with Covid-19 patients and keep the company informed.

8. All employees need to refrain from organising and participating in sports and social gathering activities.

“I think people are grasping the fact they need to do their jobs when everyone is home, and you have to deal with your family and chores,” said David Gandler, chief executive officer of FuboTV Inc., which agreed on Monday to merge with FaceBank Group Inc. “This is creating some chaos but not too much. We all understand the situation.”

Indeed: Deals are still getting done, despite market turmoil whipsawing stocks, threatening liquidity and muddling valuation predictions. Companies announced $62.5 billion of mergers, acquisitions and investments since the virus was deemed a pandemic on March 11, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

To be sure, that’s less than half the amount during the same period a year earlier, meaning 2020 could be one of the worst years for M&A in a decade if that pace holds. And some transactions coming together now will have been percolating since before the outbreak.

Still, private equity buyers in particular have been snapping up assets despite the volatility. Buyout firm KKR & Co.’s $4.9 billion (4.2 billion pound) deal for Pennon Group Plc’s waste-management arm Viridor Ltd. came together much faster than a regular auction, people familiar with the negotiations said.

In the early stage of the process, KKR leapfrogged the request for nonbinding bids and instead came to Pennon with a fully financed proposal on March 13, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the details aren’t public. KKR was betting that the company would prefer the certainty of a firm offer instead of risking additional bidding rounds. It was right: the parties entered negotiations within hours and announced a deal five days later.In the age of social distancing, most of the hurried negotiations took place over video conferences, the people said, with the associated technological glitches and unpredictable interruptions that those interactions entail.

The team advising gold miner Endeavour Mining Corp. on its $690 million all-share deal for Semafo Inc., announced Monday, ran into similar issues, according to Jan Sanders, a partner with Endeavour’s advisory firm Gleacher Shacklock LLP.

On-site visits and other physical due diligence took place before the pandemic ruled out in-person meetings, Sanders said. That made it possible for the deal to still come together.

Special care was taken as Endeavour Chairman Michael Beckett is 83 years old and so considered higher risk if he were to catch the virus, CEO Sebastien De Montessus said in an interview.

“What’s going to be challenging, to be frank, will be if we need to start the integration by video conference,” De Montessus said. “That’s unprecedented.”

Private equity firm Nordic Capital’s recent agreement to buy U.K. eye-treatment provider SpaMedica shows how it’s becoming a buyer’s market. Nordic won an accelerated sales process because the seller determined it had the best chance of closing the deal, according to people familiar with the matter.

“For a long time we’ve been in a seller’s market,” said Chris Abbinante, a partner with law firm Sidley Austin LLP, which wasn’t involved in the SpaMedica deal. “In the current environment, I expect that dynamic to shift.”

For example, on some deals bidders are adding so-called earnouts, or clauses that give sellers more money after the deal closes if the target company hits certain performance metrics. Long popular in the energy and technology industries they’re now popping up in other sectors to bridge pricing expectations, dealmakers said.

FaceBank and FuboTV executives wrapped up their final rounds of negotiations last week on Zoom, the popular video conferencing application from Zoom Video Communications Inc., according to FaceBank CEO John Textor.

They signed a deal on Thursday and debated delaying the announcement.

“The merger timeline is now,” Textor said in an interview. “When you get through all of that work, the last thing you want do is leave an attractive transaction on hold. Even before the pandemic, windows open and shut all the time.”