Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Horizon Technology Finance’s First Quarter 2019 Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host Ms. Megan Bacon. Ma’am, you may begin.

Thank you. And welcome to the Horizon Technology Finance first quarter 2019 conference call. Representing the company today are Rob Pomeroy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Gerry Michaud, President; and Dan Trolio, Chief Financial Officer. I would like to point out that the Q1 earnings press release and Form 10-Q are available on the company’s website at horizontechfinance.com. During this conference call Horizon Technology Finance will make certain forward-looking statements, including statements with regard 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, 2018. 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. Our first quarter saw us continue to build on our success from 2018 with an overall solid performance in all facets of our business. We grew our portfolio for the fourth consecutive quarter and ended the quarter with a total portfolio of $266 million including $235 million in venture debt investments. We recorded net investment income per share in the first quarter of $0.28, $0.02 below our distribution rate but we should note that we funded two separate $15 million venture loans one on March 31, and the other on April 1, and thus generated no interest income from those loans during the first quarter. We will see the full benefit of those investments in our second quarter performance. We finished another quarter with improved overall asset quality and continue to maintain strong standards. We had a weighted average debt investment yield for the first quarter of 14.4% which takes into account regularly scheduled interest and fee income as well as income from liquidity events. Our predictive pricing strategy continues to enable us to maintain a quality, premium yield floating rate portfolio. We successfully completed a common equity offering above NAV generating $23.3 million in net proceeds and further enhancing our liquidity profile. Our NAV as of March 31, was $11.55 impacted primarily by the new shares issued from the capital raised as well as markdown of a license agreement and partially offset by improve marks on warrants and realize gains on warrants and equity. And based upon our outlook and our performance our Board declared monthly distributions of $0.10 per share for July, August, and September 2019. Overall, we remain pleased with our current portfolio and are well positioned to succeed for the remainder of 2019 and beyond. Turning to…

Thanks Rob. Good morning everyone. Our first quarter saw us start the year nicely from a funding standpoint adding six new floating rate transactions to our portfolio totaling $40 million. That momentum continued into the second quarter as we began the quarter funding a $15 million venture loan. Our on-boarding yield in the first quarter was 11.9% maintaining our strong on-boarding levels and importantly remain disciplined with our underwriting before entering into an investment. We experienced two loan portfolio exits during the quarter totaling $13.2 million. The prepayment and accelerated income from these events resulted in a loan portfolio yield for the quarter of 14.4%. In addition the joint venture funded portions of two portfolio investments totaling $4.2 million in Q1, which was fully funded by our New York Life debt facility. We continued to maintain a premium yielding debt portfolio as reflected by our leading yield position in the BEC industry, which generates a predictable income stream while we continue to add new investments with higher ATPs, prepayment opportunities and new warrants. We closed $72 million in new loan commitments and approvals and ended the first quarter with a committed backlog of $60 million compared to a backlog of $42 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018. Our committees approved an awarded backlog as of March 31 with $64.5 million to nine companies and a pipeline of new opportunities of over $450 million. Our robust committed backlog and pipeline sets us up well to execute on growing our portfolio and income stream while enhancing NII with prepayment and accelerated income. As of March 31, we held net equity positions in 76 portfolio companies with a fair value of $11.1 million. In Q1 our portfolio company Luxtera was acquired by Cisco and we received more in proceeds…

Thanks Gerry and good morning everyone. Let's turn to our financial results for the first quarter of 2019. Horizon earned total investment income of $8.3 million for the first quarter of 2019, a 16% increase compared to $7.2 million in the prior year period which was primarily due to higher interest income on investments given the larger average size of our loan portfolio. As of March 31, 2019 our debt investment portfolio had grown to $235 million, a 9% increase from December 31, 2018. For the first quarter of 2019, we achieved on-boarding yields of 11.9% compared to 12.1% in the fourth quarter of 2018. Our loan portfolio yield was 14.4% for the first quarter of 2019 compared to 16.7% in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 14.4% for last year's first quarter. Turning to our expenses, total net expenses for the first quarter were $5.1 million compared to $4 million in the first quarter of 2018. Our interest expense was up $560,000 compared to the prior year period due to additional average borrowings and the increase in the one month LIBOR. Our net incentive fee increased $260,000 due to higher pre-incentive fee net investment income and a lower deferred incentive fee amount. While our base management fee rose a $180,000 driven by an increase in the average size of our portfolio. Net investment income for the first quarter was $0.28 per share compared to $0.34 per share in the fourth quarter of 2018 and $0.28 per share for first quarter of 2018. The companies un-distributed spillover income as of March 31, 2019 was $0.10 compared with $0.11 at the end of 2018. Based upon our outlook for NII, our Board declared monthly distributions of $0.10 per share for July, August and September 2019. We have now declared quarterly distributions…

I'm not showing any questions at this time. So I'll now like to turn the call back over to Rob Pomeroy, Chairman and CEO for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us this morning. We appreciate your continued interest and support in Horizon and we look forward to speaking with you again soon. This will conclude our call.

Ladies and gentlemen this will conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.