Michael Mauer
Analyst · Oppenheimer
Thank you, Rocco. Last quarter, we received several questions at the end of our conference call regarding our positions in Bird Electric and US Wells, both of which were held in Blockers. We use Blockers in both situations to shield our investors from potential rig issues and legal liability. We wanted to review and make sure we were perfectly clear on the last call. We did not and we will not take any additional fees based on weather an investment is held directly or through an SPV or through a Blocker entity. Use of these vehicles is to protect and benefit shareholders, not to enhance fees to the manager. Today, we do not hold any positions in Blockers. That said, if we do utilize a Blocker in the future, we fully expect to do the same analysis we did with Bird and US Wells and follow the same internal guidelines we used last quarter. Turning now to our current portfolio. In total, our marks this quarter were down approximately $2 million. The most significant of these were positive changes to Caelus and Montrose Environmental and negative changes to Montreign and Trident Health. Caelus remains a company we feel very positively about. The maturity is coming relatively soon, April of 2020. Given the short maturity, good performance and our belief capital markets will be open to the company, we increased the mark from 93 to 95. Our mark on Montrose Environmental increased from 98, which was our original cost to par. We expected repayment in full prior to September 30. That repayment slipped into the current quarter. Since quarter end, we were repaid at a call premium of 101. We marked a position without that premium at 9.30 since repayment was not absolutely guaranteed. We decreased our mark on Montreign, the operator of Resorts World Catskills Casino in upstate New York. The loan funded the construction of the property, which was executed well with a significant equity investment. However, early customer traffic has lagged expectations and the casino is not yet as profitable as we had hoped it would become. We believe the increased profitability is contingent on further planned development at the broader property over the next 18 months. We decreased our mark from 98 to 92. And finally, we decreased our mark on Trident Health. This is the last portfolio company where the investment was made before our IPO in February of 2014. The fair value decreases were on tranches A and tranche B second lien term loans, and on the Holdco loan. All three positions were created from the old second lien term loan in late 2017. We continue to think about that value conceptionally as a mark on the pre-restructured second lien. In that context, our mark decreased from 48 to 38. Our Tranche A is an interest only instrument, and we approach its value as a discounted stream of cash flows, because another party owns the principal risk in that tranche. Our Tranche B is a traditional second lien with principal and interest attributable to it. The Holdco Tranche A is a non-interest bearing loan, which will realize value if and when the enterprise value of Trident reaches through second lien Tranche B through various investors in Trident holding company. Weakness in Trident's fundamental result to challenging secular environment for health care service providers and a short-dated leverage debt profile and concerns about potential for additional future changes to the capital structure, all concern us. We continue to monitor the credit closely, receive monthly results and hope to work with all the stakeholders to find a stable long term path for the company's recovery and growth. Our investment activity in the quarter grew our portfolio by $39 million. But as I mentioned, this was part - in part issue of timing of the investments and expected repayments. Montrose Environmental's repayment, which was originally slated for September slipped into October and was responsible for over half of the net growth from investment activity. We entered the quarter slightly under-levered at 0.68x, which is below our target of plus or minus 0.75x. As of September 30, we were comfortable at 0.86x levered. But we're also aware that the leverage would decline after quarter end. Using our 09/30 marks, we are currently leveraged at approximately 0.8x today. We had a slight shortfall in NII coverage from September quarter as discussed on our last - as expected and discussed on our last. Due to the expenses of the new baby bond and we partially earned our incentive fee in this September quarter. But we expect to fully cover the dividend and earn our incentive fee in the December quarter. We have continued to deliberately decrease our average position size to diversify our portfolio through an increased number of investments in a broader array of sectors. We remain extremely selective in our new investments and vigilant in monitoring existing portfolio. The team underwrites conservatively, focuses on quality management teams, sustainable capital structures, security packages, and financial covenants for the protection and preservation of value over the long term. We focus on preserving capital and maintaining a stable NAV across our current portfolio. Over the past 18 months, we have demonstrated stability with our quarterly NAV staying in a range of $12.32 to $12.57. We are sensitive to the ebbs and flows of capital related to repayments and reinvestments, and we remain disciplined in finding appropriate returns and protections for our capital. Our Board of Directors declared a distribution for the quarter ended December 31, 2018 of $0.25 per share, which will be payable on January 3, 2019 to shareholders of record as of December 14, 2018. We believe our dividend level is consistent with our ability to generate NII without reducing our investment quality or changing our focus from secured lending opportunities, and further believe our quarterly dividend is both sustainable and attractive to our shareholders. We modestly under-earned our dividend in the September quarter due to the offering expenses [Technical Difficulty] baby bond, but over-earned our dividend in the March and June quarters, and expect to fully cover $1 annual dividend this year. Our run rate portfolio yield and current portfolio size give us confidence as we finish calendar 2018. Earlier this year, our Board authorized a share buyback program. In the quarter ended September 30, we repurchased approximately 11,000 shares of stock at an average price of $8.97, representing a 27.7% average discount to our NAV. Since inception, the program through today, we have repurchased almost 74,000 shares, increasing our NAV by about $0.02. As a reminder, our total capacity for repurchases under this program is $5 million, of which we have used $660,000. We expect to continue to execute on repurchases going forward. Operator, please open the line for Q&A. One last item before we go to Q&A. Just want to make sure that everyone saw on the earnings release issued last night, there was an immaterial misstatement on the liabilities section of the balance sheet. To clarify, we have corrected that mistake and issued a new earnings release this morning. There were no issues or misstatements with the balance sheet as displayed in the 10-Q. With that, I'll pass it back to the operator.