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Hercules Capital, Inc. (HTGC)

Q3 2012 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 2, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Hercules Technology Growth Capital’s Q3 2012 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-session, which instructions will be given at that time. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. And now I’d like to introduce your host for today, Linda Wells, Investor Relations for Hercules.

Linda Wells

Management

Thank you, operator and good afternoon everyone. On the call today are Manuel Henriquez, Hercules Co-founder, Chairman and CEO; and Jessica Baron, Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer. Hercules third quarter 2012 financial results were released just after today’s market close. They can be accessed from the Company’s website at www.herculestech.com. We’ve arranged for a replay of the call at Hercules’ web page or by using the telephone number and pass code provided in today’s earnings release. I’d also like to call your attention to the Safe Harbor disclosure in our earnings release regarding forward-looking information. Actual financial results filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission may differ from those contained herein due to timing delays between the date of this release and in the confirmation and final audit results. In addition, the statements contained in this release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements including, without limitation, the risks, and uncertainties, including the uncertainties surrounding the current market turbulence, and other factors we identified from time-to-time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although we believe that the assumptions on which these forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, any of those assumptions can prove to be inaccurate and as a result, the forward-looking statements based on those assumptions also can be incorrect. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are made as of the date hereof, and Hercules assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements or subsequent events. To obtain copies of related SEC filings, please visit sec.gov or visit the website www.herculestech.com. I’d now like to turn the call over to Manuel Henriquez, Hercules Co-founder, Chairman and CEO.

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Thank you, Linda and good afternoon everybody. Before I start today, I want to say that I hope to god that everyone in this call on the East coast has not suffered damages and are doing okay after the horrific storms that we experienced. Recently, so our hopes and prayers are with you on the East coast for a speedy recovery. And I think its important that we all recognize and help as much we can on that, in that effort for East coast. Thank you, Linda and thank you everybody for joining us on the call today. We’ve changed a little bit of our format in our call to make the call little more efficient as well as in our press release I will call attention to slight change in format in our press releases as we try to get more expedited in our disclosures and better disclosures for our shareholders, investors out there. With that said, let me turn to the agenda. I plan to having four ballpoints that I usually talk about, which is a summary of the operations, observations of the current environment both the direct investment environment and the venture capital landscape, our remaining outlook for 2012 and some perspective on the early part of 2013 and then of course to turn the call over to our CFO Jessica Baron to go through the financial presentation and then of course to wrap it up with our standard Q&A session with our investors – and analysts, excuse me. So, now turning to the third quarter. Once again, we delivered a very strong quarter, very proud of what we did and what this Company has accomplished and continues to achieve as an organization. We delivered a 28% increase year-over-year, in total investment income for $23.9 million. We…

Jessica T. Baron

Management

Thank you, Manuel and thank you everyone for listening today. As you know we filed a 10-Q, I lost the earnings press release after the market close today. And we’ve made some changes to the format of the press release to make it [much in size] and we appreciate any feedback you may on those changes. Here is brief recap of our financial results for the third quarter of 2012. We delivered a quarterly record $23.9 million in total investment income of revenues, an increase of 27.8% when compared to the third quarter of 2011. This increase was due to a higher average balance and just earning investments outstanding. We ended the quarter with interest earning debt investments of $694 million, an increase of over 35% year-over-year. The GAAP effective yield on our debt investments was 14.4% for the third quarter, excluding the income acceleration impact from early payouts and one-time event, the effective yield for the quarter was 13.9%, up 60 basis points sequentially. Excluding early payoff, the normal run rate of our portfolio historically has been between 12.5% to 15.5%. I’d also like to note that our peak income has historically has been the case is immaterial to our financial statements. Once again, take which is non-cash revenue, which must be paid out to our shareholders in the form of dividends, continue to represent a small component of less than 1.3% of our total investment income for the third quarter. Our cost of debt increased to $6.1 million for the third quarter of ’12 compared to $4.3 million in the third quarter of ’11. This increase is primarily attributed to interest and fee expense related to approximately $85 million of senior unsecured notes which were offered in two tranches in April and the beginning of July. Also we…

Operator

Operator

Okay. (Operator Instructions) So we’ll take our first question coming from Troy Ward from Stifel, Nicolaus. Troy, please go ahead. Troy Ward - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Just Manuel, real quickly. I think from the industry data towards the end of your prepared comments, you highlighted several changes that are happening in the industry based on fund raising and details. But I think earlier in the call, you said you were moving out of certain stages and into certain areas from a sector standpoint, I didn’t catch what you are referring to there. Are you making some changes in your focus?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

We were advocating this now for a while. As we said, the answer to 2012 we remain very concerned about the political leanings towards certain industries have that under one administration maybe adverse versus another administration. And because of political outlook the selection is now so tight, it’s almost difficult to say who’s going to win and what's going to happen. So two industries in particular we’re kind of taking a little more of a watch and wait attitude before increasing our investment activity especially in lieu of we’re now less than a week away from having a better perspective. Those two categories that we’re concerned about remain to be life sciences as well as Cleantech. Both have risk in both reimbursement of Obamacare, they may be impacted depending on which party wins, were a adverse impact in those areas which is why we’re kind of being a bit slower in new investment activities in that area as well as harvesting certain investments in our portfolio today. Troy Ward - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay, great. Thanks for that clarification. And then in the press release there’s a couple of things, you stated there was $12 million depreciation largely attributable to investments and I know that 10Q got filed right as the call started. But can you provide what those names were and give us some color behind those investments?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

You know I will -- I generally don’t, but it’s in the queue, so I am happy to talk about them. Let me first calculate by saying that the reason why the impairments are there are lesser because we have an M&A credit risk and but mostly because that we are forced under the fair value accounting rules to take into that account. So both these companies are life sciences companies. One of which is called Chroma and the other one which is called OfficeScan. Both of those companies are in the midst of doing capital raise. Both of those companies are in the midst of either going through some form of clinical trials, and because of that we felt that it was prudent to take an impairment for the short-term, but we expect given what we're seeing coming together here that in the fourth quarter both of those investments should be probably reversed once they close the new round of capital. Troy Ward - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. And then one more thing from the press release, you talk about Nexway being purchased by Pfizer. Was that expected in your 930 valuations or should we expect a material change in the valuation of the warrants from the $370,000 at quarter end?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Well, a little bit of both.

Jessica T. Baron

Management

Yeah. So fair value requires that you do your mark as of the measurement date. So at that point in time we had some knowledge of positive events occurring for that company in the fourth quarter, but we definitely set the mark-to-market perspective, so there probably is now that the transaction has closed incremental additional appreciation for that investment, but you can look at the valuation and see the magnitude there.

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

And I’ll go further, as you’ll see in their own press release the company issued and Pfizer issued, there’s an earn-out function of it, and earn-outs are very hard to accrue for. So the company, let me make sure I don’t speak out of school, the company was bought for in the mid $200 million level.

Jessica T. Baron

Management

In the $225 million.

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Okay, thank you. (Indiscernible) was public or not public. It was bought for a mid $200 million level and the earn-out is rough $700 million. So there could be another two to three X appreciation in value attributed to the performance of the company closed acquisition. So more upside may actually exist there, but because it’s an earn-out, so we have some indication of traction, a target crew for that. Troy Ward - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: All right. That’s good color. I’ll hop back in the queue to ask my follow-ups. Thanks.

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

All right.

Operator

Operator

Okay, thank you. And we’ll take our next question from John Hecht from Stephens. John Hecht, please go ahead with your question.

John Hecht - Stephens Inc., Research Division.

Analyst

Good afternoon guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a little bit more on credit. Number one is, did you provide the cost of the new non-accrual?

Jessica T. Baron

Management

The cost basis of that investment is approximately $350,000.

John Hecht - Stephens Inc., Research Division.

Analyst

Okay, so it’s the minimal, okay. And then you did provide some of the details with the depreciation related to some life science businesses and Manuel, you talked about sort of your broad fear on that in some of the selection basis support. Can you give us just a conceptually maybe a figure or something about the total exposure to life sciences companies that are kind of in an eminent basis going through capital raising just so we have a sense for it?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Well okay, and I am happy you asked the question, but I got to be honest. Every one of our companies is at one point or another going through capital raise. As I said on these calls many times is the expectations of all of our companies or I should say substantially all of our companies that will require subsequent amounts of equity capital in frequencies of 9 to 14 months. So this is nothing normal. The only reason why on these particular deals we’ve taken some form of impairment is either because the process is taking a little longer than we would -- initially would have, have hoped for or we’re getting mix data from the FDA on either digging way too long to respond to these clinical trials and as a prudent thing to do we picture the impairments. But our life sciences portfolio, I don’t want anybody to extrapolate that for some reason life sciences in disproportion, not a risk, that’s not true whatsoever. I mean our life sciences portfolio to answer your question, it’s probably somewhere neighborhood around 40% to 42% of overall portfolio exposure and I am perfectly comfortable with that exposure.

John Hecht - Stephens Inc., Research Division.

Analyst

Okay. Thanks for the color. And then turning to the yields you had a 60 basis point increase. You sounded like some of that was mix shift where some of your later stage investments paid off, you’ve been focused more on middle-stage which I guess has higher yields. Within the middle-stage category or any particular category, what are you seeing with respect to competitive trends right now?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

I look at, as indicative in our pipeline our investment activities in Q3 and the very strong Q4 that we’re looking at. I think the competitive landscape is changing quite dramatically. We still have small little bites out there of competitors, but we’re not seeing a disproportionate ground slow of competitor out there, so they’re exchanging quite dramatically. Now the sub $2 million, $3 million deals which are traditional bank deals, those always remain very competitive and I think its silly pricing in that area, and we don’t really do well there and nor do we focus in that area. Later stage stuff, things have a little bit of market type flavor to them. We’re seeing very, very tight yields in that area. We're seeing higher leverage covenant light and we don’t think the yields are being priced there where it should be, which is why we’re very back to that middle-stage we like quite a bit which we think its out of favor and these are companies that are looking for exists from an IPO or M&A events that are three to four years out, and the larger deal sizes which means that banks at other places are not necessarily comfortable underwriting that risk and we are.

John Hecht - Stephens Inc., Research Division.

Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks. And then final question; the increase in headcount can you give me a sense for, maybe to annualize the increase in SG&A from that?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Sure. We’re expecting that the annualized increase in SG&A should be about $1.5 million to $1.75 million on a fully burdened basis on this new headcount. And we expect that this new headcount would take about six to nine months from a cost basis to converting to accretive earning basis for us in terms of new asset originations.

John Hecht - Stephens Inc., Research Division.

Analyst

Great. Thanks very much guys.

Operator

Operator

Okay, thank you. And we’ll take our next question from John Stilmar from JMP securities. John, please go ahead with your question.

John Stilmar - JMP securities

Analyst

Thank you, good evening. Really quickly, Manuel touching on John’s previous question, we talked about the competitive dynamic. But obviously from a demand side, what's really changed? Look, you painted a clear picture that venture capital deal activity has started to decline through 2012 and it seems like almost coincidently of QE3 we have even though I am not sure if that’s the real driver, we’ve had an acceleration in your business or at least since last earnings call. What is really the driver there, is this private equity starting to -- start to come into the venture capital world, so therefore there is a better visibility. What is kind of -- or is your -- with longer investment cycles are people now turning to debt a lot more veraciously. What it is about your value proposition on the demand side it’s created this sort of acceleration of your business?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

There’s a lot of variables that impact that. I think that you’ve touched a couple of them. One is in fact the demand for debt actually is increasing for multiple reasons. One, people want to have insurance on their balance sheet and so rather than taking insurance out in the form of equity capital raises they’d rather bolster their liquidity positions as a private company using debt to either position themselves or M&A or IPO activity. Number two, some of these underlying early stage investors are currently fund raising and they may not want to initially face the reality of going out and raising equity capital and from a new venture capital fund and see the valuations get materially clipped down or adjusted downward because of the venture capitals have more demand now -- have more buying power towards companies themselves. And three, our entrepreneurs who are in a midst of cross the chasm of a major milestone and they don’t want to initially go on fund raise right now, because within next 30 to 60 days on or about they could be achieving a major milestone which could be a huge valuation inflection point for themselves. So there’s a lot of activities going on, on uncertainty and posturing for milestones and ongoing momentum out there that people want to have debt. We’re also seeing the supply side that a lot of our competitors who are out there are unable to raise new capital or new funds, because remember the venture industry, the top tier guys are raising capital but the second and third tier, fourth tier venture capital firms are struggling to raise capital. Some of these venture debt providers were private and rely upon the LP community are going to struggle to raise money which means that all that supply, all that demand starts coming to us from deal flow and that’s exactly we’re seeing in the market place today. We’re seeing a very strong robust market out there.

John Stilmar - JMP securities

Analyst

Okay, great. And then, really quickly just to maybe beat a dead horse here, on the two write down in the life sciences, is the message that we’re hearing from you is that really the longer lead time at least in terms of the FDA and alternative rounds of financing taking a little bit longer and so you’re taking a prudent approach in conservative fair value just by virtue of fact that you would expect a certain kind of exit or activity to de-risk the investment and because that hasn’t happened you started to put a risk premium on it?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Absolutely. I mean our job is this. We invest in companies that are highly disruptive. We invest in companies that have a high cash burn rate. We invest in companies that in the life sciences category are embarking on or engage in FDA clinical trial processes that are blind to us, blind to the company and company management that only the FDA knows how they’re going. And until those trials are un-blinded and the results are made aware it’s very difficult for some of these companies to raise capital with the expectation that things may be good or may be bad and because in some cases we don’t know either. We think it’s prudent that until such time as either strong acclamation with an equity investment is consummated in these companies or you have clear indication on how the FDA trials came out that we think it is the absolute prudent thing to do to impair that asset until such time as that information is made available to us.

John Stilmar - JMP securities

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much for your time.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we’ll take our next question from Robert Bordett from Raymond James. Robert, please go ahead with your question.

Robert Bordett - Raymond James Financial Services, Inc.

Analyst

Hi everybody. Jessica, just two quick ones. I think you’ve covered a lot of the details there. On the expense side obviously you mentioned your $425,000 in the interest expense or was it kind of related fees, was there any expenses in other areas like you mentioned accounting, legal et cetera was higher in the quarter and so higher G&A. Does any of that, for lack of a better term non-recurring or abnormal maybe tied to some of the capital raising that you did during the quarter or is that a new normal run rate going forward?

Jessica T. Baron

Management

Yeah, I don’t foresee that as being a normal run rate. I mean the main driver of that was more of seasonality where we’re continuously cleaning up some of the hangover expenses related to the annual filings for 2011. But that’s certainly not on the accounting and legal side a normal run rate.

Robert Bordett - Raymond James Financial Services, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, got it. Thank you. You just go back to kind of the big question of the wild card of the election and your expectations for Q4, I mean you’ve said net up $50 million to $70 million in the fourth quarter. I mean, is that a range that encompasses the full range of potential and kind of binary outlook for how the election turns out, or is that a range that’s contingent on one particular candidate you’re coming at ahead at this point?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

No its actually the mean, a standard deviation would be -- it could be a standard deviation on the positive side could be up to $80 million to $90 million and a standard deviation on negative side could be $40 million to $50 million. But that’s what we think is the mean, the $50 million to $70 million is what we think is agnostic into what candidate wins, but a certain candidate you could have spring effect on increasing activities, that is correct. But that you should forecast the $50 million to $70 million is kind of the mean case.

Robert Bordett - Raymond James Financial Services, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, got it. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you sir. And we’ll take our next question from Jason Arnold from RBC Capital Markets. Jason, please go ahead. Jason Arnold – RBC Capital Markets: Good afternoon. Just a follow-up on the pricing side. I was just curious if you could comment on what rates you’re seeing on new investments, is it up, down, sideways versus the prior quarter?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Well it’s certainly not sideways, because the yield is going up by 60 basis points. It’s up -- it’s up quite a bit. And I would think that on a conservative it’s up by 75 to 125 basis points. And I think that that activity will temper out a little bit. I think that in Q4 you may see it go up by another 10 to 15 basis points, but not dramatic. I think that you could see increases going on in Q1 of next year but right now for Q4 I think up another 10 or 15 basis points is probably the right number, because we’re holding back on certain asset mixes where you can see a disproportion of higher yield, but it’s a silly trade to go in for higher yields when the industry may be distressed if the wrong person or the wrong candidate makes it to office or not. So we want to be, for one week away we’d rather be on the conservative side and hold on to some liquidity and we’re personally happy with the 60 basis point yield increase. Jason Arnold – RBC Capital Markets: Okay, and so just to be clear and that the 10 to 15 basis points additional that would be on the average portfolio versus just new investments?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Yes. Jason Arnold – RBC Capital Markets: Okay, very good. Okay, thank you for that. And then I guess just one another quick follow-up, I was just curious if you’d comment on kind of where you’re out of the various sub-segments of venture tech that you participate in, where you expect to see the most lending growth really coming over the next two to three quarters (indiscernible)?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Well again it depends on the election. I mean, I got to tell you that life science is just still a very attractive ready to invest, but the venture capitalist and ourselves are still waiting to get some indication which way things are to go. Cleantech, I think is probably suffered the most of all the categories because its destiny or its future is totally unknown at this point. So that outlook is solidified you’re going to see a drag there a little bit. But I think technology is extremely attractive where we invest again. Networking and communications are extremely attractive to invest again; a contrarian view is semiconductor. There’s a lot of interesting semi’s and as geometries gets smaller with new smartphones there’s a whole wave of technological revolution that has to happen there. So, we like that area quite a bit, networking and com, semiconductors, software analytics remains a very interesting area that we’re focusing on. So, we like a lot of areas of technology quite strongly. Jason Arnold – RBC Capital Markets: Okay. Thanks for the color.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we’ll take our next question from Aaron Deer from Sandler O'Neill. Please go ahead Aaron. Aaron James Deer – Sandler O'Neill & Partners L.P.: Hi good afternoon everyone.

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Hi, Aaron. Aaron James Deer – Sandler O'Neill & Partners L.P.: Looking at your leverage, I guess adjusted for the SBIC that your leverage ratio was right above the 50% mark, and then I guess with the recent (indiscernible) brings it down some, but I am just -- I am wondering if you can talk a little bit about the what are your thoughts on what are the appropriate adjusted leverage ratio should be or where you look for it to be going forward?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

I think already we said on various calls, our Board of Directors along with myself feel that on a GAAP basis that leverage should hover around probably 0.7% to 0.75% and really its (indiscernible) upon the capital markets activities that are out there. If the capital markets are robust and sustained you may let it creep up to 0.85% but really the sweet spot is 0.07 to 0.75 which equates to approximately on a – that it just be – speak that on a GAAP versus non. On a regulatory leverage basis it’s that 0.75% on a GAAP basis it’s about the 1.2 level. So the difference is for the callers on the phone, if you excluded $225 million of SBA capital, that’s what gives you the higher increase. So, on a regulatory basis which exclude SBA its 0.7 to 0.75. On a pure GAAP basis including SBA it’s about the 1.2 range and I probably just confused the heck out of everybody. I apologize. Aaron James Deer – Sandler O'Neill & Partners L.P.: All right. And then going back to the question’s right on your staffing levels. It’s great to see you guys continuing to do some new hires on the business development front. Just curious what the -- when you look at your entire business development staff in terms of the number of personal, where does that stand today relative to where it was at December 31?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Well, December 31, which fiscal year? Aaron James Deer – Sandler O'Neill & Partners L.P.: This past year, 2011.

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

You may recall that we consciously made a decision to vacate a little bit of market initiative. We felt that the yield spreads were not what we are accustomed to or what we like plus the cost of capital. We didn’t think was -- we weren’t getting the right spread that we believe on a cost of capital. So we actually divested ourselves from a most of our lower middle market team we kept three lower middle market folks that are most special situation folks on our staff. So, on a headcount apples-to-apples if you will, ignoring industry allocations we’re probably at parity, even. Aaron James Deer – Sandler O'Neill & Partners L.P.: Okay. And then, I guess I think all my other questions were answered. Thank you.

Jessica T. Baron

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Okay, thank you. And we’ll take our next question coming from Jonathan Bock from Wells Fargo. Jonathan, please go ahead.

Jonathan Bock - Wells Fargo

Analyst

Good afternoon and thank you for taking my questions. A lot of them have been answered already, but maybe looking at a philosophical point. So with the recent debt issuance that you have had obviously that’s been a trend across the entirety that BDC space. I mean well could you give us maybe your thoughts on the need to push out your liabilities obviously a positive versus the need to deliver maybe steady or even stronger kind of earnings in consistent dividend growth because obviously that’s offset by really high coupons that you put on and not drawing on your revolver. So maybe to talk about the cost benefit there and more importantly like kind of how you look at earnings longer term relative to the solidity of your balance sheet?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Yeah you can do the math as well as I can. This is not going to be rocket science; we can do this math real quick. If you look at where we finished the quarter we finished about $700 million of interest earnings assets, the number was $695 million. If you look at our projections that we’re indicating here, $50 million to $70 million net up you’ll quickly see the absorption of all that entire interest expense from the baby bond offerings in essence into earnings assets and as I said a small spill over going to Q1. So suddenly you’re looking at our portfolio that you convert all that earnings assets in essence if you will close to almost $800 million of earning assets, a couple rate at 12.5% -- sorry 12.5% to 13.5% if you will to be conservative you can extrapolate what that does to earnings. So you’ll start seeing a significant earnings increase going into 2013 and then to your point what we’re planning on doing is which is perfectly done is that in Q4, in early parts of Q1 2013 we will be reducing our credit line which and the current yield spread that we’re seeing we’re going to give you probably 700 basis point net spread over cost of capital at that point, so its highly accretive and that’s our debt.

Jonathan Bock - Wells Fargo

Analyst

Okay, great, thanks. And maybe one comment, just as it relates to warrant coverage, I know you mentioned last quarter obviously you were looking a high quality transactions willing to lower warrant coverage or give up on warrant coverage rather in order to receive some higher cash coupons and also stay in some high quality credit. What's the view of warrant coverage today where you’re investing? Is that an item that in working with VC they’re more than willing to bard it on or maybe less willing given the kind of environment?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

No, I think that it’s a bit of that yield, to the specific of your question, some of these 60 basis point yield increases during the quarter is in fact directly attributed to trading off some of the lower warrant coverage’s for higher cash yields. We have less appetite to take on higher warrant coverage’s at potentially overvalue companies and I’d rather trade off lower warrant coverage to better coupon rates or fixed cash back in than taking warrants itself if I think they’re overvalued. So that’s exactly some of the things that we’ve done right now, but that’s the condition that hasn’t flows quite dramatically from quarter-to-quarter, so we did engage with that in Q3, we expect to continue to engage in that in Q4 which sells us into strong message to the competitive environment out there that our flexibility on structuring deals was certainly -- certainly they can't do as well as we can and will do that.

Jonathan Bock - Wells Fargo

Analyst

Okay, great. And then maybe one last competitive comment as it relates to the commercial banks or the venture banks rather, I know in smaller deals you mentioned they have been extremely competitive. Can you talk about maybe their willingness to perhaps move into your market and get aggressive given the need to deploy capital and earn a decent return in the phase of declining then?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Yeah, I think your question is incredibly insightful. We're seeing banks beginning to do silly things, and its only a matter of time where the venture into waters they probably should be in and start experiencing loses. I'll not get into specific which deals I am referring to, but we’re seeing recently where some institutions have ventured into spaces where they’re now experiencing very difficult credit situations and in some cases credit loses where they’re reaching for asset growth and yields to help compress the NIM compression that is going through and now they’re getting to trouble. And we’re kind of just, in essence when a deal gets over you can competitive, we’ll just sit back and say take it. We will not compromise underwriting just for yields and some of these institutions are still yield hungry that we think are doing silly deals I think it’s going to be interesting to watch what venture 2012 does some incredible performance in some of these companies. But the starvation for asset growth and the need for them to stop the NIM compression that they’re experiencing will trigger them to do riskier deals out there.

Jonathan Bock - Wells Fargo

Analyst

And then I guess that kind of begs a question, so if there is a potential for venture banks or others to perhaps deploy capital and get a little aggressive in the credit spectrum, we’re also trying to counterbalance that with the fact that you’ve got substantial growth coming out of your portfolio, so what at point will we have to be asking you the same question?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

I think you should ask that question when its reflected in our credit performance. I think that after eight years of running this organization I think the credit discipline as I said more than once and I apologize if investors don’t like this, I'll not grow earnings just to grow earnings at the cost of giving up credit. I just don’t believe in that and I think that if earnings growth is not there because of credit quality, I'll be happy to miss earnings because I know how difficult it is to deal with bad credits. And our credit history speaks for itself. I think that you will see us be very opportunistic on the right opportunities and very conservative when it merits that issue. I think that an area that is extremely [frosty] and extremely aggressive is early stage investing is the finest transactions less than $3 million it is ridiculously competitive in terms of pricing in yield.

Jonathan Bock - Wells Fargo

Analyst

We would agree with your credit performance, it does speak for itself so again thanks for the clarity and the color guys. I appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Okay, thank you. And we’ll take our next question from J.T. Rogers from Janney Capital Markets. Please go ahead J.T. J.T. Rogers – Janney Capital Markets: Good afternoon everybody. Quick question, just as we shift to more middle stage companies, how that affects your realization of accelerated fees which have been sort of an important contributor to NII over the past couple of quarter, I mean will assets sit in your portfolio longer or will they be refinanced out by some other sources, capital?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

You hit a spot on J.T. What happens is that, you’re trading off the velocity of generating prepaying penalties or acceleration of fees for longer (indiscernible) plus which is more than offset by that interest income or yield that we have. So, it’s actually – it’s a wiser quality asset gain versus short-term earnings gain. J.T. Rogers – Janney Capital Markets: Okay, great. And then just sort of where we're right now, and looking at your pipeline, what is sort of the minimum liquidity you all would feel comfortable with before you start looking for other sources of debt or equity capital. Obviously you have a lot of liquidity right now.

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Well you know J.T. if I answer that question am signaling capital raises. The answer is that, I think our history we’ll kind of give you indication of that. It’s a combination, if you -- most people will notice that this is probably the lowest unfunded commitment pipeline we’ve had that’s purposely being done on driving that number down a little bit, purposely so. I think that we still have under our regulatory ability we have the ability to tap in, another $200 million plus of leverage on our balance sheet, that is to optimize it. We will not go to the full extent. So there’s no question as I said more than few earnings calls that our preference still is to continue to leverage the balance sheet. I feel that Jonathan Bock was correct in his perspective that we will be looking to use our bank lines in the coming quarters and continue to rely on leverage and just do equity capital raises to supplement equity and that’s just to do a whole big equity raise. J.T. Rogers – Janney Capital Markets: That makes sense, but I guess to ask the question in a different way, what about sort of looking at your line of credit as being capital that you have in reserve so that you can go a little bit deeper in leverage and maybe pretend a little bit more on term debt and obviously you’ve been increasing your use of that, but I just wondered what your thoughts are?

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

I think you’re right, I mean, I view – I do view the bank lines as (indiscernible) emergency back stops. But I do view and that’s kind of flexible financing vehicles and if you go back to the genesis of BDCs back in 2004, 2005, 2006, historically the use of bank lines was that you borrowed the bank lines and then you turn around and term it out in some formal conduit or securitization. I’m encouraged by what I’m seeing in the securitization markets. I said that we’re looking at; I expect that may be in 2013 that we will use some formal securitization, which allows us to use the bank lines, use them up and then put amount in a securitized vehicle. So I think that’s exactly that you’re looking at the right way and your question is spot on. J.T. Rogers – Janney Capital Markets: Great, Manuel. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Thank you. It appears that we have run out of time for questions. So I’d like to turn the conference back to Manuel for any closing remarks.

Manuel A. Henriquez

Management

Thank you, operator. Thank you everybody and thank you for being at our conference call today. Again, our hopes and prayers are with everybody in East coast. Please continue to work diligently. I know you’ve suffered a tremendous amount. And again we’re grateful and I’m glad everyone come out safe as much as you possible can be after that tragedy. We will be arranging as we generally do, investor calls and meetings with our shareholders in the coming weeks and quarters. We did have some drift plans in New York, but I have to be honest, we are kind of waiting and see until to figure out what in the world we can and cannot do with hotels and logistics. But we will be attending a few conferences on the East coast in the coming weeks and months here. So let us now [join] to meet with us and again thank you every part of the Hercules and thank you operator.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude your conference. You may now disconnect and have a great day.