Brendan McGovern
Analyst · SunTrust. Please go ahead
Thank you, Katherine. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter earnings conference call. To outline the call, I'll start by providing an overview of our results for the fourth quarter and provide key highlights for 2016. I'll then turn the call over to Jon Yoder to discuss our investment activity and portfolio metrics. Jonathan Lamm, our CFO, will discuss our financial results in greater detail. And finally, I'll conclude with some closing remarks before opening the line for Q&A. We are pleased to report solid results for the fourth quarter and full year 2016. Net investment income per share was $0.50 for the fourth quarter, which brought net investment income per share for the full year to $2.10. For the full year ended 2016, our NII return on common equity was 11.3%. You’ll also note that our net investment income continued to immensely exceed our dividends. This quarter NII cover our dividend by 111%. For the full year 2016, NII covered our dividend by 117%. We believe this performance is result of attractive yields on our assets, and our continued focus on maintaining an efficient expense structure. As we announced after the close yesterday, our Board declared a $0.45 per share dividend payable to shareholder record as of March 31st. Moving on to investment performance and credit quality. Since our inception in 2012 and including investment activity through our strategic joint venture, we have made over 100 discrete loans to companies in our target middle market universe, and have generated a gross unlevered IRR of 13.3% on fully exit investments. We are pleased that 2016 demonstrated a continuation of this stock record with similarly strong results on fully exit investments. Of our 100 plus investments since inception, just two have gone through a balance sheet restructuring. And in both situations, we have been able to attain a stake in the Company that we believe gives us the potential to recover our invested capital. We believe that this is evidence of our prudence in negotiating terms and structures that give us meaningful control over our collateral, and demonstrates the focus and expertise we bring to managing underperforming investments. As we close the year, we had two investments on non-accrual status, representing 1.4% of the portfolio at fair value. The first investment, Iracore, is a manufacturer of pipes containing an elastomer lining that’s used primarily in oil and gas applications. Our investment thesis centered on the existing installed base of the Company’s pipes that need to realigned on a recurring basis. We underwrote a first lien investment at a low leverage multiple of debt to EBITDA in conjunction with a sponsor that invested a significant amount of cash equity beneath our debt. Subsequently, oil prices fell dramatically and Iracore’s customers reduced their capital budgets, pushing out maintenance of their existing pipes. While management has undertaken efforts to preserve liquidity through rightsizing its cost structure, the Company did not pay its coupon in December. Currently, we and other lenders are engaged in negotiations with Iracore and we expect to reach a consensual agreement shortly. Consistent with the outcome of the two restructurings since inception we referenced earlier, we’re aiming to attain a meaningful stake in the company that could enable us with the opportunity to recoup our initial investments, should the operating environment improve. We look forward to providing you an update on the progress of this investment in our next quarterly conference call. The other investment we had on non-accrual status as of quarter end was our loan to Washington Inventory Services, or WIS. WIS provides physical inventory counting and other services to retailers and operates in, what I would characterize as an attractive [indiscernible] market structure. Numbers for the company have been solid. WIS has experienced margin pressure, resulting from execution related inefficiencies and high labor cost. Notwithstanding with the dynamic, we are hopeful that with active management, WIS will be able to mitigate these issues by taking advantage of its strong market position. We are actively engaged with the company and its advisors and are focused on obtaining a favorable outcome for our investments. We are pleased to report that we placed our investment in NTS communications back on accrual status from the quarter. As you may recall, we’ve previously worked with NTS and its sponsor back in July to provide additional capital and flexibility in order to facilitate more aggressive investment in the company’s fiber and telecommunications network and to promote subscriber growth. NTS has executed well against this plan with capital programs coming in on-time and below budget, and new fiber subscriber additions showing positive trends. During the quarter, we were hard at work on the right side of our balance sheet as well. We achieved a significant milestone by issuing $115 million in principle amount of convertible notes. We believe this demonstrates our ability to access the institutional unsecured financing market on attractive terms and provides our shareholders with the benefit of greater diversity and funding sources and increase financial flexibility. In addition, we enhanced the terms of our revolving credit facility by extending the maturity date for an additional year to December 2021, and upsizing the total commitments to $605 million. We are one of a handful of the B2Cs that were successful last year, in both continuing to extend maturity of its revolving credit facility and attracting new capital to increase its size. We believe that this is a reflection of the strength for our platform. In addition, subsequent to quarter-end, our Board of Directors renewed the Company’s stock repurchase plan to an additional year, which extends the plan to March 18, 2018. Under the plan, the Company may repurchase up to 25 million of its common stock if the market price is below the Company’s most recently announced NAV per share, subject to certain limitations. We believe that buying back shares at a discount to NAV should the opportunity arise, is in fact a use of the Company’s capital. With that, let me turn the call over to Jon Yoder.