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Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Ariana Lindquist | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Mall of America changed the terms of its $ 1.4 billion mortgage and is currently on loan after missing months of payments during the Covid crisis as stores were temporarily closed and tenants did not pay rent.

The Triple Five Group, the owner of the largest mall in the United States, started missing out on mortgage payments in April, CNBC previously reported. But it has struck a deal with lenders who expressed “strong confidence in the long-term success and viability of the Mall of America,” the owners said.

The loan has been on-line since December, according to Trepp, a New York-based research firm that tracks the commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) market. Beginning with the payment in December, the loan was converted to interest-free until maturity, Trepp said.

The Mall of America was closed from mid-March to June due to the pandemic. According to Trepp, retail tenant collections in the property fell to a low of 33% in April and May.

“In these unprecedented economic times, we immediately began working with our credit partners to resolve the cash flow problems caused by this loss of revenue,” said Dan Jasper, vice president of communications for Mall of America, in a statement.

“We are pleased to be able to resolve the outstanding issues to the satisfaction of all parties, including a change in the loan terms,” ​​he said.

The Star Tribune first reported the updated status of the loan.

“This is a trophy item and trophy items are more likely to get mixed up by the pandemic than B. [or] Shopping malls, “Manus Clancy, Trepp’s senior managing director, told CNBC.

There are around 1,000 malls left in the US today, according to commercial real estate services company Green Street. A vast majority of these malls are classified as what’s called a B, C, and D rated malls, which means they have less revenue per square foot than an A rated mall. For example, an A ++ mall could generate sales of up to $ 1,000 per square foot, while a C + mall could generate around $ 320.

“When you have an A mall, see this as a vote of confidence,” said Clancy. “If you B. [or] C, there is no warehouse. The lower rated malls … won’t make it. “

With the reopening of restaurants, retailers, and entertainment venues in the Mall of America, traffic has picked up again – especially during the holidays, according to the Triple Five Group. The company, which also runs the mega mall American Dream in New Jersey, hopes 2021 will be a better year for business.

Nevertheless, the Covid cases in the USA continue to increase, and there is a threat of reinstatement of lockdowns. U.S. Covid vaccination efforts, which were believed to instill consumer confidence, are also falling far short of original estimates.

“As the months ahead continue to present unique challenges, we remain optimistic about our business and look forward to the day we can again welcome visitors from around the world,” said Jasper.

Aviation safety discussions are now dominated by the global pandemic, but the “Top Twenty Safest Airlines 2021” list compiled by the airline website AirlineRatings.com has nothing to do with Covid-19.

The list, released this week, analyzes crash records and safety compliance to highlight the airlines that are said to lead the way in aviation safety.

The top 10 list

AirlineRatings.com analyzed crashes and major incidents, fleet ages and audits of 385 airlines carried out by governments and aviation associations.

With this analysis, the 10 safest airlines for 2021 were named as follows:

1. Qantas
2. Qatar Airways
3. Air New Zealand
4. Singapore Airlines
5. Emirates
6. Eva Air
7. Etihad Airways
8. Alaska Airlines
9. Cathay Pacific
10. British Airways

Qantas, Australia’s flagship, has been named the world’s safest airline for the third year in a row.

Qantas is the only airline that would fly Dustin Hoffman’s character in the 1988 film “Rain Man” because he “never crashed”. The airline suffered fatal small aircraft crashes prior to 1951, but has had no fatalities in the 70 years since.

Qantas has not killed any passengers since the beginning of the “jet era” in the 1950s.

Scott Barbour | Getty Images News | Getty Images

“Qantas has been the leading airline in virtually every major advancement in operational safety over the past 60 years and has never had a fatality in the jet-only era,” said Geoffrey Thomas, website editor-in-chief. “But Qantas is not alone. Established airlines like Hawaiian and Finnair have perfect records in the jet era.”

Alongside Air New Zealand and British Airways, the rest of the list is dominated by the “Middle East Three” – as Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad Airways are collectively known – and Asian airlines like Taiwan’s Eva Air and Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific.

Alaska Airlines is the only American airline named among the 10 safest airlines in the world.

The list: 11-20

US and European airlines play a prominent role in the second half of the list. This includes:

11. Virgin Australia / Virgin Atlantic
12. Hawaiian Airlines
13. Southwest Airlines
14. Delta Air Lines
15. American Airlines
16. SAS (Scandinavian Airlines)
17. Finnair
18. Lufthansa
19. KLM
20. United Airlines

US airlines were particularly positive in the top 20. Only two of the six American airlines on the 2021 list – Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines – were added to last year’s list.

Alaska Airlines has been named one of the world’s safest airlines for the past six consecutive years.

Robert Alexander | Stock photos | Getty Images

Thomas said that overall there is little real difference in terms of safety between the 20 airlines on the list: “They are all outstanding.”

Safest low-cost airline for 2021

In response to public interest, AirlineRatings.com also announced the 10 safest and “best” low-cost airlines on Monday.

In alphabetical order these are: Air Arabia, Allegiant Air, EasyJet, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue, Jetstar, Ryanair, Vietjet Air, WestJet and Wizz Air.

Safest airline for Covid

Regardless, the airline rating website announced on Monday the top 20 airlines for compliance with Covid-19 safety regulations.

These airlines are AirBaltic, Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airways, AirAsia, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta Air Lines, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Eva Air, Japan Airlines, JetBlue, KLM, Korean Air, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines , Southwest Airlines, Qatar Airways and WestJet.

Singapore Airlines was named one of the safest and most Covid-compliant airlines in the world in 2021.

GOH CHAI HIN | AFP | Getty Images

The website added a Covid-19 check to its airline safety comparison tables.

The airlines receive a compliance star for the introduction of four of the following six criteria: information on the Covid-19 website, social distancing when boarding and during the flight, deep cleaning of aircraft at night, provision of face masks for passengers, personal protective equipment (PPE) ) for cabin crew and changes in catering services.

According to Thomas, 119 airlines achieve the highest Covid-19 rating.

“But it’s disappointing to see 117 get a zero for compliance or have no information to the public about their Covid guidelines on their website,” he said.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb warned that vaccinating Americans against Covid is more critical than ever, especially since the new South African variant seems to inhibit antibody drugs.

“The South African variant is very worrying at the moment as it appears that it obviates the need for some of our medical countermeasures, particularly the antibody drugs,” said the former FDA head of the Trump administration in an interview on CNBC’s The News with Shepard Smith “Tuesday night.” At the moment, this burden seems to be widespread in South America and Brazil, the two parts of the world currently in its summer but also experiencing a very dense epidemic, and this is worrying.

The South African variant is also known as 501.V2, and in mid-December, officials reported that 501.V2 had largely replaced other strains of the coronavirus as early as November. South Africa has already suffered the more than 1.1 million COVID-19 cases and more than 30,000 deaths, most of them in the African continent.

Quoting experimental evidence from Bloom Lab, Gottlieb stated that 501.V2 appears to partially escape previous immunity. This means that some of the antibodies that people produce when they become infected with Covid, as well as the antibody drugs, may not be quite as effective.

“The new variant has mutated part of the spike protein that our antibodies bind to in order to try to kill the virus itself. So that is worrying,” said Gottlieb. “Now the vaccine can be a backlash against those variants that are really gaining a foothold here in the US, but we need to speed up the vaccination rate.”

Operation Warp Speed ​​Director of Supply Production and Sales Ret. Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski told host Shepard Smith on Dec. 3 that anyone who wants a vaccine can get one by June. However, the forecasts are currently insufficient. More than 17 million doses of Covid have been distributed to states, but only 4.8 million Americans received their first shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gottlieb suggested working through prioritized categories of people faster, increasing the number of vaccination sites, and keeping a lower percentage of the dosages in order to vaccinate more Americans.

“It is really a race against time trying to get more vaccines into people’s arms before these new varieties become more common here in the US,” said Gottlieb.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the boards of directors of Pfizer, the genetic testing startup Tempus, and the biotech company Illumina. Pfizer has signed a manufacturing agreement with Gilead to manufacture Remdesivir. Gottlieb is also co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean’s Healthy Sail Panel.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer announced Tuesday that market participants are beginning to determine the pandemic-winning stocks that will hold their shape in a post-pandemic world.

With the advent of vaccines, forward-thinking investors are slowly focusing on re-opening games of stocks that benefit from a stay-home environment.

Cramer said it is now time to separate the sustainable Covid-19 winners from the unsustainable ones after many stocks made big gains in 2020.

“Once we have this vaccination program under control, the sustainable stocks should continue to rise, but the unsustainable ones will no longer be available at the moment,” said the Mad Money host, adding that “they will have to be cut if they are not sold until Covid is hit. “

The comments come after stocks reclaimed some of the losses they saw in the first trading session of the new year, when key averages all fell more than 1%.

The blue-chip Dow Jones index rose more than 167 points one day after falling 382 points to close at 30,391.60, an increase of 0.55%. The S&P 500 rose 0.71% to 3,726.86. The Nasdaq Composite was up almost 1% to close at 12,818.96.

After the coronavirus pandemic plunged global markets into bear markets and economies into recession nearly a year ago, tech and other companies in the US that benefited from an unexpected move to remote work and schooling made some of the biggest gains last year . This year’s pandemic investments have been largely driven by Zoom, Peloton, Amazon, and other companies driving digital transformation.

As governments around the world begin distributing coronavirus vaccines in hopes of halting the deadly Covid-19 outbreak, Cramer reiterated that investors should focus on companies that are tailored to high-performing long-term themes.

These topics include e-commerce, travel and leisure, digitization, cybersecurity, 5G, relationships with China, wealth management, remote working, healthcare and large retailers benefiting from the economic spending.

Last year’s winners had some spectacular rallies because people believe their strength is sustainable in a post-Covid world, Cramer said.

“I think we’re giving too many companies the benefit of the sustainable doubt here. Many of these steps are unsustainable,” he added.

The host commented on a handful of companies. In the “Sustainable” column, it included DocuSign, PayPal, and Johnson & Johnson. Unsustainable winners include Peloton, Kimberly-Clark, Coca-Cola, Moderna, Pfizer, and Square.

Cramer questioned Peloton’s $ 43.4 billion market valuation. The stock rose 434% in 2020.

“While Peloton has a great product,” he said, “you’d better believe they’ll get a hit when it’s safe for people to get back to the gym.”

Kimberly-Clark and Coca-Cola are household names and dependable defensive stocks. However, Cramer worries about their viability when the world puts the pandemic in the rearview mirror.

“I don’t expect Kimberly-Clark or Coca-Cola stocks to be sustainable investments in the immediate aftermath of taking Covid,” he said. “Once the economy recovers, Wall Street will have no more interest in these slow and steady producers.”

Square was another triple digit producer last year, rising nearly 248% to $ 217.64 to close the year. While the company’s payment systems are critical to a digital money world, Cramer fears the company faces fierce competition.

“Square is in a very crowded business and while they’re … great at what they do, they don’t have a real moat,” said Cramer. “I think it’s only a matter of time before banks or other fintechs find out their advantage at the point of sale and then duplicate it.”

Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable foundation owns shares in Amazon and Johnson & Johnson.

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