Billionaire Zell Sees Economy Permanently Scarred by Pandemic… Some Companies Began Preparing for Downturn Before Pandemic…

Billionaire Zell Sees Economy Permanently Scarred by Pandemic…

(Bloomberg) — Sam Zell, the billionaire known for buying up troubled real estate, said the coronavirus pandemic will leave the same kind of impact on the economy and society as the Great Depression 80 years ago, with long-lasting changes in human behavior that imperil many business models.

“Too many people are anticipating a kind of V-like recovery,” Zell said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “We’re all going to be permanently scarred by having lived through this.”

Just as the depression left behind a generation that couldn’t shake the experience of mass unemployment, hunger and desperation, the burdens this crisis has forced on society may be similarly hard to forget. Zell, 78, said it won’t be easy for people to live as they did before the “extraordinary shock” of the pandemic.

He expects some amount of social distancing and working from home to persist long after the acute phase of the outbreak is over, possibly for years. Retail, hospitality, travel, live entertainment and professional sports are some of the industries he sees continuing to struggle.

“How soon will anybody get on an airplane? How soon will anybody stay in a hotel? How soon will anybody go to a mall?” he asked. “The fact that these places may be open doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be doing business.”

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Some Companies Began Preparing for Downturn Before Pandemic…

MSCI, Aflac and others last year extended debt maturities, brought down borrowing costs in anticipation of a slowdown in 2020