Dave Dullum
Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets
Thanks, Mike, and good morning to everyone. Generally, I like to briefly review what it is we do, in other words, what our long-term goals are, just so we keep in focus that and then as we go through these near-term results.
So Gladstone Investment Corporation provides capital for the buyout of businesses. These are companies generally with annual sales between $20 million and $100 million. We provide what is called subordinated debt, and we do that in combination with equity in these companies. And in some cases, if required to get a transaction closed, we will also provide some of the senior debt. So this combination, really, of investment, produces the mix and assets that Gladstone Investment is interested in doing because it really provides the basis of our strategy. And effectively, what this means is that the debt portion of the investments provide the income which will pay and help grow our monthly distributions while we look to the equity portion of those investments to increase in value and provide a capital gains from time to time, which we have been able to actually demonstrate.
We take -- why are we different from other BDCs and other finance companies, sometimes we get asked, and the answer is basically that we take large equity positions in the companies that we purchase. And this differs from most of the public BDCs that are predominantly debt-focused. So for instance, the proportion of equity and debt for the investments in our portfolio is approximately 30% on the equity and roughly 70% on the debt. Most other BDCs you'll find are closer to about 10% on equity and 90% on debt, and some are even higher in regards to the debt side.
So also, we generally do not buy syndicated loans or portions of loans where there is no equity participation. And certainly, we are very different from banks or finance companies that are only lenders. As far as difference per se versus other, say, private equity funds, most of those are generally 10-year, high private partnerships that have a longer liquidity horizon. And we are different as a publicly traded entity because our structure allows daily liquidity for our shareholders through the stock market. So it's important to keep in mind that we keep looking to the equity portion of our assets as the contributor to the overall value of our company even though quarterly equity valuations of our portfolio could be volatile.
So for example, and I've mentioned this before, where we had a sale in actually August of last year, which was our last actual sale of a portfolio company, a company called Venyu Solutions that we purchased with the original management team in late 2010. The original investment of roughly $6 million in equity generated cash proceeds of approximately $32 million, which resulted in a significant realized capital gain of around $25 million, and we also had dividend income along the way of about $1.4 million. That sale of Venyu was the fourth exit from our management supported buyout investment since June of 2010. During this period, we also had 4 -- those 4 liquidity events generated approximately $54.5 million in realized gains.
So as I've mentioned before, the buyout market is currently frothy. Prices being paid for good companies continue to be quite steep. So while, say, selling a portfolio company in this market may appear to be tempting, it would really reduce our asset base, and then we would, of course, be challenged with incrementally having to replace that investment in clearly what is a high purchase value environment and with other uncertainties like management teams, et cetera. So while we are always looking for potential ways to generate a capital gain and continuing to evaluate that, we really have to be careful of just being willing to go out and sell a good quality company in our portfolio and having the -- as I mentioned, the issue with having to replace it.
So with this continued growth in our operating income and the periodic realized gains that we've had, our board was able to declare a distribution of $0.06 per share per month for October, November and December, which is a run rate of $0.72 per share per annum. Additionally, our board declared a onetime special distribution of $0.05 per share, which is payable in December. So this represents the third calendar year in a row that a onetime special cash distribution to common stockholders has been declared.
So what is -- from the deal origination standpoint, we are very proactive in deal generation. We have offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and, of course, in our headquarters outside of Washington, D.C. And so we have a very broad and deep geographic footprint. Primarily, we are calling on what we know as independent sponsors, middle-market investment bankers and other sources that helped to create what we think of as proprietary investment opportunities, in other words, those that perhaps are not in a broadly auction type of a sale process.
We generally do not depend on others to negotiate or structure our investments. And generally, our investments do include, though, partnering with the management teams of those companies and occasionally, as I mentioned, independent sponsors or other folks that may originally find the opportunity and they need us to participate with them, bringing the capital to make the transaction work.
So our strategy then of providing this financing package, including both the debt and the majority of the equity, is a competitive advantage as it gives the seller, who might be the independent sponsor, if one is involved, the management team, for instance, a very high degree of comfort that if we get to the point of negotiating a value, that the purchase will take place at least from the ability of the financing perspective.
So -- and in addition, from time to time, we might have an outright purchase where we find opportunities to partner with a business owner who will sell a portion of the company to us and use that capital to grow the business. So our focus for the sorts of things we look for, we generally are going to invest in companies with at least $3 million of consistent cash flow, operating cash flow. Some of the areas -- industry areas we look at are light, especially manufacturing. We've looked at specialty consumer-type products and services. We are very much in favor of industrial-type products and services, and we also have some exposure and continue to look at aerospace and broadly defined energy areas.
So turning to the activity that we've had for the quarter, which ended September 30, 2014. We invested $21.9 million, and this was the first of which in September, we purchased a company called Cambridge Sound Management, Inc. through a combined debt and equity investment of approximately $20.2 million. Cambridge Sound is based in Waltham, Massachusetts [indiscernible] known as sound masking systems and solutions, very nice business and very nice cash flow at the current time.
In August, we also purchased the manufacturing plant and the head office of one of our portfolio companies and did essentially a sale and leaseback on that transaction. It's a small dollar investment.
And then subsequent to September 30 to the end of the quarter, we purchased a company called Old World Christmas, again, through a combined debt and equity investment of approximately $24.4 million. Old World is headquartered in Spokane, Washington. It is a designer and a distributor of an extensive collection of blown glass Christmas ornaments, tabletop figurines and vintage-style light covers and nostalgic greeting cards that go into primarily the independent gift channel.
So essentially, right at quarter end and subsequent to quarter end, we had 2 very nice new acquisitions in our portfolio.
Leading then into what sort of activity we have in our pipeline. Of course, our goal, as we've mentioned generally, is to find opportunities that fit our investment parameters, which generally means at least a 2x cash-on-cash return for the equity portion of the investment and certainly a high yield on the debt portion of those investments to allow us to generate the combined cash income that drives our distributions. And as I mentioned again, this is a very challenging buyout environment. Values are quite high, quite steep. But as we've demonstrated in the 2 new investments I just briefly talked about, we are able to keep adding to our asset base, and right now, I'm frankly encouraged with the pipeline activity we see and some new investment prospects. However, we really need to keep our -- really, our value proposition is important to us, so we have to stick to that. And to do that, we really need to keep expanding as we do our marketing efforts and continue to grow our presence in the marketplace.
So in the outlook and in summary, the goal for the fund is to maximize distributions to shareholders, with solid growth in both the equity of our investments and the income portion of our assets.
So with that, I'll turn it over to David Watson, our CFO, and Treasurer. David?