180 DEGREE CAPITAL CORP. ISSUES UPDATE LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS

MONTCLAIR, N.J., March 24, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 180 Degree Capital Corp. (NASDAQ:TURN) (“180” and the “Company”), today published the following letter to shareholders.

Fellow 180 Shareholders,

To say this has been a trying month may be the understatement of the century. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to worldwide economic dislocation with quarantines essentially shutting down business as we know it.  My first hope is that our shareholders are being safe, vigilant, and are listening to the advice of the world’s healthcare experts.  As for TURN, we believe we are well equipped to weather the storm and come out on the other side.

To be clear, it is our view that despite the recent drastic fiscal and monetary stimulus, this crisis will not end until the virus is contained. While the fiscal and monetary stimulus will help, I view it not as a solution, but as a bridge to the containment of the virus. This situation didn’t start as a financial crisis. This is a healthcare crisis for which we simply weren’t prepared.  I refresh the following website about 100 times a day: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.  China, which was two months ahead of us, is presently seeing life slowly returning to normal as the number of new infections has dropped dramatically. This trend came only after the curve of the rate of new infections flattened.  The questions we face now are will we be able to contain the virus in the United States, and if so, how long will it take? It is certainly easier to contain a disease when you are a state run government and can order people home. China did that. Free flowing democracies have not only taken longer to acknowledge the severity of the crisis, but also to limit the movements of its citizens.  I am not telling you anything you don’t know. I just wanted to make sure you understand that our view is there will continue to be economic duress, stock market dislocation, and heightened volatility until we contain COVID-19. 

In the near term, Let me offer a few thoughts on what we have been doing and some general views we have of our company.

• Other than one person, which for now happens to be me, we are all working from home and communicating as frequently as we would if we were all in the office together. In fact, the lessons of 9/11 prompted Wall Street to make it possible to be fully functioning at home. Bloomberg Terminals work from anywhere, and we have the ability to trade without limitations no matter where we are physically located. If you add in text, email, video conferencing, and cell phones, communication is free flowing.