Good morning, and welcome to Horizon Technology Finance's Third Quarter 2015 Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute. We will conduct a question-and-answer session after the opening remarks. Instructions will follow at that time. I would now like to turn the call over to Megan Bacon of Horizon for introductions and the reading of the Safe Harbor statement. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to the Horizon Technology Finance third quarter 2015 conference call. Representing the company today are Rob Pomeroy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Gerry Michaud, President; and Chris Mathieu, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to point out that the Q3 press release is available on the company's website at www.horizontechnologyfinancecorp.com. Now, I will read the following Safe Harbor statement. During this conference call, Horizon Technology Finance will make certain forward-looking statements, including statements with regards to the future performance of the company. Words such as believes, expects, anticipates, intends, or similar expressions are used to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to the inherent uncertainties in predicting future results and conditions. Certain factors could cause actual results to differ on a material basis from those projected in these forward-looking statements. And some of these factors are detailed in the Risk Factor discussion in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Rob Pomeroy.

Good morning and thank you all for joining us. During the third quarter of 2015, we continue to selectively grow our investment portfolio. Our success in both originating quality loans with attractive onboarding yields and realizing profitable liquidity events during the quarter enables Horizon to generate strong net investment income of $4.1 million or $0.35 per share which covered our distributions to shareholders. As we've stated on the second quarter call, our target was to cover our distributions with NII by year-end and we achieved this objective in the third quarter. We also experienced merger and acquisition activity in our portfolio which resulted in success fees and warrant gains. This highlights our ability to provide both interest income and an upside opportunity to our shareholders. During the quarter, we funded new loans totaling $33 million growing the portfolio by $9 million. Notably for the nine month period, our disciplined approach to sourcing and pricing high quality loans has resulted in portfolio growth of approximately $44 million. We experienced eight liquidity events in the third quarter as compared to five liquidity events during last year's third quarter. Five of the liquidity events were prepayments which produce accelerated income and returned capital for redeployment into new investments, while we often retain warrants in the prepaying portfolio of companies. As a reminder, the number, dollar amount, and timing of prepayments in any quarter are not predictable but are an important aspect of the venture lending model. Our success originating loans with attractive onboarding yields and realizing profitable liquidity events enables Horizon to earn a portfolio yield of 14.2% for the quarter and 14.1% for the first nine months of 2015. We ended the third quarter with a portfolio of secured loans to 52 companies with an aggregate fair value of $242 million. As…

Thank you, Rob. Good morning everyone. During the third quarter, Horizon continued to successfully execute on its strategy to selectively grow its venture loan warrant and success fee portfolio. Horizon also benefited from liquidity events, which were partially driven by an improving M&A market in the technology industry. In Q3, Horizon funded $33 million to eight companies, three of which were new portfolio companies. These results compare favorably to $23 million in new funding to nine companies in Q3 of 2014. Horizon continued to earn attractive onboarding yields of 11.9% which when combined with eight portfolio liquidity events in the quarter resulted in a portfolio yield of 14.2%. The loans funded in Q3 were senior term loans. Three of the transactions were senior term loans secured by a first lien and five transactions were senior term loans secured by a first lien behind a bank revolver. After funding $33 million in the quarter, our committed, approved, and awarded backlog at the end of the third quarter was $50 million. Subsequent to the end of the quarter we have been awarded three new transactions totaling $17 million. In the fourth quarter, we have taken a conservative approach in narrowing a number of opportunities at the top of our pipeline to account for a tightening funding environment for both debt and equity in the VC market over the coming quarters. With our current backlog and our discretion to be highly selective on new opportunities, we are well-positioned to use our liquidity to grow our venture loan portfolio in the coming quarters, and expect to increase our portfolio by between $5 million and $10 million during the fourth quarter. At the end of the third quarter, we held warrant, equity, and success fee positions in 98 portfolio companies. During the quarter, we monetized…

Thanks, Gerry, and good morning, everyone. Our consolidated financial results for the third quarter have been presented in our earnings release and our Form 10-Q both distributed after the market closed yesterday. For the three months ended September 30, total investment income was $8.4 million compared to $7.7 million for the third quarter of 2014. This increase was primarily due to higher interest income on investments from the higher average size of our loan portfolio, partially offset by a decrease in accelerated fee income from lower prepayments and lower fee income. Total investment income for the quarter included $7.7 million from interest income on investments and $700,000 of fee income. New loans funded in the quarter had an average onboarding yield of 11.9% compared to 12.2% in the third quarter of 2014, and 12.4% in the second quarter of 2015. We continued to focus our loan originations on floating rate debt investments which make up 91% of the outstanding principal of the loan portfolio as of September 30. Further 51% of the outstanding principal amount of the loan portfolio was made up of floating rate loans with no caps, 40% was made up of floating rate loans with caps, and 9% were fixed rate loans which were match funded to our asset-backed notes which have a fixed 3% annual borrowing rate. We continue to focus our loan originations on secured term loans. As of September 30, 47% of our loan portfolio were senior term loans secured by a first lien, and 51% of our loan portfolio was senior term loans secured by a first lien behind bank revolver. For the third quarter, our portfolio yield was 14.3% compared to 15.8% for the third quarter of 2014, and 13.1% for the second quarter of 2015. The primary changes quarter-to-quarter to portfolio…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Jonathan Bock of Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Hey, guys, this is Jamie Stockton filling in for Jonathan. I'd want a couple of quick questions here. First, you guys kind of talked about the slowdown in the venture market. Just kind of curious, with the volatility in the equity markets, are you seeing an increase in certain companies' demand for loans given it might not be an opportune time for them to IPO or issue equity?

So this is Gerry Michaud. So the answer to that is we have not seen that yet. I think that there is a substantial amount of liquidity that has come into the market over the last couple of years particularly in terms of IPOs and venture debt. And so I think there is a digestive process going on in the marketplace right now where that liquidity is being used up by companies and investors are looking for that liquidity to demonstrate some value creation for potential exits. We are actually seeing a very significant improvement in M&A activity specifically on the tech sector which has been very slow for the last really eight quarters almost. So we think that that's a very interesting and positive kind of silver lining to the slowdown in overall credit, but we have not seen yet, but I do believe that if things continue we probably will see increased activity on the life science side relative to venture debt demand increasing next year if the IPO market continues at its present level.

Sure, thanks. And then a question on the share repurchase program, last quarter you guys stated that you didn't think it was the right time to repurchase shares, it might not be in the best interest of shareholders. I'm just curious what changed for you guys to implement this program?

Thanks, Jamie. The principal thing that changed was the stock price. The time we made and made those decisions in August, the stock price was trading higher, our stock, by the time we made this decision had traded considerably lower. But there are a lot of strategic and other issues that went into our decision both in August and September and those are still valid but we did make that announcement late September.

Sure, sure. And then obviously you guys are trading lower and that your share reprises are definitely going to be beneficial. You mentioned slowdown in the vendor market. Is $5 million the right amount or could there be opportunities for more?

We believe that for us and on our balance sheet our market cap and our equity that $5 million represents about 5% of the shares. And so at these prices that we think that it's scaled appropriately for us.

Awesome. And just one quick follow-up. Just curious if any of your credit providers have any kind of limitations regarding the amount of equity you can repurchase?

The quick answer is no.

Okay.

Based on the size of our facility that we put out there is no restriction.

Okay. Awesome thanks that will be all from me.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Troy Ward with KBW. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

One of the companies in your portfolio Semprius I think it has been there since gosh 2012 has been on and off non-accrual, mainly on non-accrual, I thought come off this quarter can you just provide some color? What's interesting though it's always been marked really high as a cost of fair values quite honestly been in 100% I think most of the time. What's going on their why that keeps kind of oscillating on and off non-accrual?

Yes, it's actually been on non-accrual since March of 2014. It was the company that was in stress really in '14 and in solar-related industry that often, with wounds, we had several issues back down. Troy, as you know, so we were I think appropriately cautious in downgrading it to one and putting it on non-accrual. It has actually been paying us for almost two years. And we finally got to the point where the investors have been supporting it they're making regular P&I payments our debt is down now to 1, around $1 million. And their prospects have continued to improve. So we did upgrade it to $2 million at the end of the third quarter.

So as they kept paying you instead of running it through the income statement you were using that to pay down the principal on the outstanding?

We actually had it on cash non-accrual. It means that to the extent that they paid us we've recognized the income and reduced the principal, when they made principal payments.

Okay. And then this quarter were they getting the upgrade to number two and then going on accrual status. Did it have any additional income outside of what we would expect for a three month quarterly period?

No.

Okay, great. And then, Chris, you talked a little bit about professional fees just from a modeling standpoint. They have -- this quarter NIM and other G&A both were lower than our expectations, which is great. And you mentioned that the professional fees you thought could stay kind of in this level. Are there any seasonal professional fees as we look towards year-end that are kind of one-time that we would expect to bump them up or is the third quarter run rate you think a good number?

Yes, I think that the only real seasonal item is the first quarter for pretty much all BDCs which is the period where audit fees come through. But otherwise I think you're right if you take an average of the past couple of quarters for each of those G&A and professional fees that's a good number.

Okay, great. And then, one bigger kind of big picture to follow-up a little bit what Jamie was talking about that. There is pretty high profile we see in general articles all the time about how the IPO market has slowed and just remind us how when you think of that how much does that change your business or does it concern you at all that the IPO market may be is not the window is now kind of wide open right now?

Yes, this is Gerry. So it doesn't concern us because these are very rationale and I think normal cycles in the venture lending process. Sometimes generally speaking when the IPO market slows at some point in time you're going to see an increase in loan originations because companies look for alternative financing I think we'll see that not necessarily now but probably in the first or second quarter next year that continues on that base. It sometimes improves M&A activity companies recognize that there isn't going to be an opportunity to go public in the recent future they will be more active in looking at M&A. I think we saw a little bit of that here in the third and fourth quarter. So these are normal cycles and the great thing about -- one of the great things about venture debt is because we're fully secured, no matter how the cycle works we're going to be the first one to be paid out. And we're going to recognize value whether it's from an M&A or it's an IPO to kind of get to the root of your question I guess if there was an extended period of no IPOs and so that drove down value significantly relative to M&A's because the buyers would have a very large advantage not having to compete against the IPO market. Then you have start looking at with that means to the market place. But right now, we feel a lot of what's going on is really just a normal digestive period. Some companies have taken on lot of equity and debt. They are now being acquired because they actually created value with that money. Even in our own portfolio we're seeing two of the four companies that were acquired between Q3 and Q4 were poor rated credits in our portfolio. So this is kind of normal activity. We actually like to see this kind of activity at some point even if that does mean slower originations per period of time, kind of flush out the portfolio. So this is pretty normal and right now we feel kind of pretty, pretty good spot. The only other thing I would mention is that because of a little bit less competitive environment, we are beginning to see that we are getting better pricing, a little bit on the cash-on-cash side of it, but more so on the warrant and success fees side where we're getting higher concentrations of warrants for the size of our commitments.

And then just one follow-up kind of on that last topic there. You talked in your prepared comments about lot of fundraising activity over the last several years, but really slowed down in the most recent quarter very near-term. How will that play? I mean how much of that capital that's been raised is still on the sidelines and how long will it take kind of the slowdown in VC fundraising to filter through into what should be lower dollar chasing new ideas, which could and like you said, may be any higher yields in the future? How does that play out from a timing perspective?

Yes. So one of the thing that happens in this kind of market is VC start taking to look at their own portfolios and increasing reserves for those companies that have been executing successfully. And they want to continue to fund them and let them grow during this period where may be the IPO market is not as interesting to them. So it's not just a question of how much money they have on the sidelines. It's a question of what they are doing with it. And, generally speaking what happens, as you see, fewer new investments, and you see more capital going into existing companies. And it's only because even if you look within our own portfolio in the last quarter, some of the best investments we made were in existing top tier transactions in our own portfolio companies, which we created that opportunity early on and now there's an opportunity as they have gotten more successful to increase our investment there. So I think the venture debt market in some ways mirrors that as well. We will see what happens little bit next couple of quarters. I do think that there is still a fair amount of dry powder especially with some of the bigger VCs. Whether, no matter what the market is good, better, and different we'll -- are certainly capable of raise another fund may be it won't be as big they would like, but they are certainly capable. So again this is all part of what I -- what we're noticing is in our just a normal progression of transactions companies coming into the market, doing what they're supposed to, building value. VCs exiting the companies, taking some liquidity off the table, and then obviously they have that available for reinvestments. So I think you're just going to see a slowdown over the next couple of quarters, but this isn't in 2008 or anything like that where everybody had the pullback, there is a global markets everything just pulled back. This looks like a more normal course for us.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line from Leslie Vandegrift with Raymond James. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

I had a quick question about I know you mentioned in your prepared remarks, the unfunded commitment issue with nine others and a lot of back and forth with the SEC not just with you guys but with other companies as well. Your correspondence is somewhere that was released recently with the SEC was a much different response than a lot of your peers on that issue. I was hoping you could give a little bit color on that. And also, if there has been anything since then obviously we talked about this quickly at the end of the second quarter but that correspondence is coming up since.

Yes, so as it relates to further correspondence or discussions with the SEC right now, there's been no conversations I think everyone's gone to business as usual waiting for further guidance. I think the updating of the shelf registrations that everyone had to go through in the first half of the year was when they had the engagement with the staff in that process. For Horizon, the reason we believe that it will have a minimal impact, is as we've said on the prepared statements is that we tend to have a more modest level of committed backlog we essentially fund at the time of making the commitment as opposed to other strategies which include kind of unit tranche structures with very long commitment periods where others have to manage that. So we're just different in that way not that one strategy necessarily is better than another we like our strategy and others like their strategy.

Okay. I was just -- I was one, when the context of how you guys wrote down that you would not if you had to, you would not consider the ones you do have as unfunded commitments where they got asset senior securities for determination of asset coverage that was more where I was talking about.

You're saying why do we believe that unfunded commitments are not senior securities.

Yes. You rather break down but I did not see any more color around that obviously it was a lot into the derivatives rule and just different parts of the investment company act itself. But just some color around your reason why you won't count that for your asset coverage.

Yes. So we don't think we need to and along with pretty much everyone in the industry and what we're really trying to communicate to the Street is that even if the SEC was to mandate it based on our strategy we would be in compliance. So we actually run the test both ways with the right way the current rates and then the way that the staff is communicating that they may want to see it in the future. And for Horizon we need to test in both methods. And beyond that we're not really commenting on what the staff should or should not be doing, we're going to wait and see.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line from Christopher Testa with National Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

So just with regards to kind of the broader picture on leverage, I know you had mentioned China ramped towards 0.75 to 1. I know you had mentioned that the opportunities in the next couple of quarters are going to kind of be light. I mean what potential is there do you get to 0.75 times and start to shed assets and delever or if you do see robust pipeline and things turnaround, are you comfortable taking that up to 0.85, 0.9 just a broad sense of how to look at that?

Yes, so couple of things. One is that we’re continuing to see good opportunities; we’re managing the top of our funnel, Chris. Our target leverage is 0.75 to 1. I think you have to remember that we have amortized, both amortizing portfolio and the dynamic portfolio with prepays. So we are trying to stay fully invested as we move from the level at September towards the 0.75 but we're not really considering going past that.

Okay, great. And really so the tech M&A market remaining strong. What do you think is driving the tech M&A markets kind of above the trend in the IPO market in general and how long do you think that this could kind of remain robust?

Yes, so I think there is a couple of things that are driving it. First of all M&A activity in the tech sec has been on the sidelines for a very long time, so I think that that's part of it. Secondly what generally happens is you get a catalyst of a couple of large M&A transactions that take place and the rest of the buying market seize that and recognizes that if they want to update their products and continue to be relevant in the marketplace they can no longer sit on the sidelines because there were a couple of active players in the marketplace that are acting, actively acting. So it tends to be on itself a little bit and then the question is how long does that go, could that be just one or two quarters or does it go well into 2016 as companies really start looking strategically at new products they need to get in what their competitors are doing and it can run for a few quarters depending on again how that cycle looks. But there is no question that there has been a couple of big events that have taken place, and also again I think there has just been the tech sec has been sitting on the sidelines for quite a while both as it relates to both M&A and of course IPO is very few technology IPOs. So I think we're starting to see that loosen up a little bit, we feel pretty good about that given that we've made a substantial investment in the technology sector relative to our own portfolio over the last eight quarters. So we expect it to continue at least in the first half of 2016.

Okay. Great. And sorry if I missed this earlier in the call, I got disconnected, but was there so you had 373 grand about in prepayment fees. How much of the prepayment for that company went into acceleration of interest payments?

Let me just correct it.

Sure.

The number we mentioned that was a success fee. We had also gotten normal prepayment and accelerated payments in addition to that. So that was just success fee and movable warrant, weekly audit.

Got it. Okay. And just given the spillover income, is there a chance for potentially a special distribution albeit may be a small one declared in the fourth quarter this year?

Our strategy has been and continues to be to cover our distributions with net investment income and that will be remaining, Chris.

Okay.

First income, we want to make sure that that happens. All right.

Okay. And last one from me, just you had mentioned the higher concentration of warrants coming through pricing power along with the cash-on-cash yields, is that something that you are already experiencing or is that something that you expect to continue to pick up?

We did experience some of that in transactions we did in the third quarter. And we do expect that we will have an opportunity to get higher levels of warrant coverage, success fees at least probably well into the first quarter of next year.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Casey Alexander with Ladenburg. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

First of all there seems to be a reduction in the speed of the regular amortization of payments, is that kind of a good go-forward rate or do you expect that to pick back up in future periods?

Yes, it's a function of a couple of things and it's sort of ebbs and flows. Casey, you’re right, the $6 million that we had in third quarter was seemed a little bit low, it has to do with the relative age of the portfolio so that it what's in interest only was not and also the fact that with M&As and prepays sometimes the later stage amortizing loans are the ones that have taken out. We would expect it to be at a sort of increasing level in the coming quarters from that $6 million.

But more of a gradual ramp than a step function?

Yes.

Secondly, you mentioned that three portfolio companies signed letter of intent to be acquired in Q4. Is the acquisition value of those already incorporated in the equity marks on those companies?

Two have and one have not.

Okay. Actually what would you suggest is the sort of the cash yield on the portfolio right now?

The onboarding yield is kind of an extended period has been between 12 and 12.5 excluding any acceleration benefits. So I would say that a good estimate would be kind of that 12.5 range.

Thank you. There are no further questions. I will now turn the call back to Rob Pomeroy for closing comments.