Brian Gerson
Analyst · Jefferies
Thanks, Dan. I'll provide a summary of the financial results for the third quarter of 2019. You can find this information, starting on Slide 4 of the earnings presentation. For the three months ended September 30, 2019, our net investment income was $0.22 per share, which compares to $0.19 per share in the second quarter of 2019. The increase in net investment income quarter-over-quarter was largely driven by the look-back provisions impact on incentive fees. That said, excluding the impact of the look back, net investment income still covered the dividend this quarter. As Michael mentioned earlier, we believe that the look-back provision is a shareholder-friendly component of our investment advisory agreement, which resulted in approximately $16 million of incentive fee reductions in the third quarter. Absent material portfolio appreciation, we would anticipate that the look-back provision will continue to reduce incentive fees over the next several quarters, providing additional net investment income. Assuming stable underlying performance, we currently project incentive fee reductions in aggregate of approximately $60 million over the next 4 quarters or approximately $0.12 per share. Getting back to Q3. Net realized gains were $21 million and unrealized losses were $65 million, resulting in net losses of $44 million or $0.08 per share. Our net asset value was $7.86 per share as of September 30, 2019, as compared to $7.88 per share at June 30, 2019. The main drivers of the change in NAV can be seen on Slide 6 of the earnings presentation, which include realized and unrealized gains and losses, the benefit of the share repurchase activity and are over-earning the dividend. During the quarter, we paid a regular $0.19 per share dividend, representing a 9.7% annualized yield based on September 30, 2019, net asset value. Our Board of Directors declared a fourth quarter dividend of $0.19 per share, which will be paid on or about January 3, 2020, to our stockholders of record as of the close of business on December 18, 2019. One of our key initiatives is to deliver to our shareholders a competitive dividend supported by recurring net investment income. While we were pleased that our NII through the first 9 months of the year has covered our dividend on a cumulative basis, we believe we have the ability to further enhance dividend coverage. This information can be seen on Slide 17 of the earnings presentation. First, we are focused on further reducing our equity exposure and rotating out of nonincome-producing assets. At the end of the third quarter, equity investments represented approximately 7.4% of our portfolio based on fair value. We are targeting a 3% to 5% allocation over the long term. Second, the maturation of our asset-based finance investments will continue to increase recurring dividend income as illustrated by our investments in Toorak Capital and K2 Aviation. Asset-based finance investments represented 9.7% of the portfolio based on fair value as of September 30, and we are targeting a 10% to 15% allocation. Third, as Dan spoke about earlier, we will continue to increase our exposure to our strategic joint venture. Our joint venture now has $1 billion of equity commitments. And as of September 30, this allocation represented 5.9% of our total portfolio based on fair value, and we are targeting up to a 10% allocation. And fourth, we look to increase our regulatory leverage target to 0.95x to 1x debt-to-equity from our previous target range of 0.75x to 0.8x. We believe all of these actions can provide incremental returns as well as continue to further diversify our investment portfolio. Now turning to the portfolio. As seen on Slide 8 of the earnings presentation. At September 30, our investment portfolio had a fair value of $7.2 billion, consisting of 201 portfolio companies. At the end of the third quarter, our top 10 largest portfolio companies by fair value represented 22% of the portfolio compared to 21% of the portfolio at the end of the second quarter. We continue to focus on portfolio diversification, which we view as a key risk mitigation tool. Additionally, we remain focused on senior secured investments, as our portfolio is comprised of 72% senior secured loans, with 51% in first-lien loans by fair value as of September 30. Also, consistent with our focus on financing borrowers at the upper end of the middle market, the median EBITDA of our borrowers were $58 million, and the median leverage was 5.1x. This compares to a median EBITDA of $53 million, and median leverage of 5.1x at June 30, 2019. As far as the portfolio return profile, the weighted average yield on accruing debt investments was 10.1% at September 30, 2019, as compared to 10.5% at June 30, 2019. The decline in portfolio yield was attributable to the decline in LIBOR as well as the repayment of certain higher-yielding investments. At the end of the third quarter, approximately 1.7% of FSK's portfolio was on nonaccrual on a fair value basis as compared to 1.2% at June 30, 2019. During the third quarter, we had 3 investments placed on nonaccrual, Acosta, Bellatrix Exploration and Art Van Furniture. We placed Acosta on nonaccrual due to ongoing restructuring negotiations during the quarter and chose to exit this position after the quarter end at a gain to our third quarter mark. Bellatrix files the bankruptcy protection in Canada, and we expect the company to run a sale process in the near future. Art Van Furniture is the Midwestern value-oriented furniture retailer. While the company continued to pay us cash interest during the quarter, we elected to place it on nonaccrual given our concerns regarding the deteriorating financial performance of the company. The company does have a meaningful revenue base and geographical footprint, and we are working closely with the sponsor, we recently hired a new CEO and several other senior managers to maximize the value of our investments. Turning to our balance sheet. As of September 30, 2019, total investments at fair value were $7.2 billion. Total cash was $126 million and total assets were $7.8 billion. This compares to total investments at fair value of $7.3 billion, total cash at $288 million and total assets of $7.7 billion at June 30, 2019. Moving to the right-hand side of the balance sheet, total debt was $3.5 billion, with total committed debt of $4.8 billion, diversified across lenders and markets. Our net debt-to-equity at the end of the third quarter was 78% as compared to 76% at June 30, 2019. Our weighted average interest rate on debt was approximately 4.3% at September 30, 2019, relatively in line with the end of the second quarter. As we highlighted in our last call, we have made significant progress on the liability side of our balance sheet during the past 2 quarters, further strengthening our capital structure through our first middle market CLO and 2 unsecured bond offerings. In addition, over 90% of our liabilities has the maturity of 2022 or greater, and we have approximately $1.3 billion of undrawn revolving debt capacity. I will now turn the call back to Michael.