Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Silver Spike Investment Corp. Fiscal Year End 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation there'll be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Umesh Mahajan. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Thank you, Sharon [ph]. Good morning. This is Umesh Mahajan, Chief Financial Officer of Silver Spike Investment Corp. With me here today is Scott Gordon, CEO of Silver Spike Investment Corp. Welcome to Silver Spike’s earnings conference call and live webcast for the fiscal year end 2023. Silver Spike’s financial results for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023 were released yesterday, and can be accessed from our website at ssic.silverspikecap.com. A replay of this call will also be available on our website later. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements that are not based on historical facts made during this call, including any statements related to financial guidance may be deemed forward-looking statements under Federal Securities Laws. Because these forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that are important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. We encourage you to refer to our most recent SEC filings for information on some of these risk factors. Silver Spike assumes no obligation or responsibility to update any forward-looking statements. Please note that the information reported on this call speaks only as of today, March 28, 2024. Therefore, you're advised that time sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of any replay or transcript reading. With that said, good morning again, and thank you all for joining today. We released our earnings yesterday and there is a management presentation deck attached to the 8-K that was filed yesterday evening. Those who have joined us on this earnings call webcast should also see a link to the slides. We may refer to the slides by numbers for your reference as we walk through those pages. And I will cover the…

Thank you, Umesh. Good morning, everybody. Just wanted to take a few moments to discuss the proposed loan portfolio acquisition. SSIC announced on February 20 of this year that it entered into a definitive agreement to purchase from Chicago Atlantic Loan Portfolio, portfolio of loans in exchange for newly issued shares of SSIC's common stock. This acquisition is expected to provide various benefits to SSIC and it’s stockholders, including increased scale and liquidity, enhanced portfolio diversification, improved access to debt and equity capital markets, and accretion to net investment income. Pro forma information following the closing of the loan portfolio acquisition based on SSIC data as of December 31, 2023 and the capital loan portfolio data as of January 21 -- January 1, 2024 as the following pro forma net assets of approximately $213 million, including approximately $187 million of portfolio investments across 27 portfolio companies, and approximately $25 million of cash. Approximately 19.1% pro forma combined gross weighted yield to maturity of the loan portfolio. SSIC's present officers will continue to be part of the SSIC management team following the loan portfolio acquisition and anticipated closing is mid-2024, subjected to satisfaction of customary closing conditions. In February, we also announced that our Board of Directors unanimously approved an expansion of our investment strategy to permit investments in companies outside of the cannabis and health and wellness sectors that otherwise meet our investment criteria. The investment strategy change is expected to become effective on or about April 22 of this year. With that, I'll pass it back to Umesh.

Thank you, Scott. That's all we actually had in our prepared remarks. We are ready for the Q&A event.

[Operator Instructions] We will now go to our first question. One moment, please. And your first question comes from Michael LaBrie [ph] from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you. Just some of your comments in the release about some improving market conditions and at least some certain states; could you give a little bit more color on what you're seeing and how that looks?

So, let me start and then I'll pass it on to Scott. Yes, definitely. I think the -- we can talk about the stage but overall if we step back and look at the market as a whole, the first thing that we have observed here is that the industry is poised for growth. Overall, the inflation concerns are abating, the economy seems to be resilient, the consumers feeling good, the sentiment is improving, and the demand for cannabis as a product continues to remain strong; so that's the backdrop. And if you look at the development of various states, we have seen a lot of improvement or positive developments across multiple states. We saw several states launched their recreational use this year. Some of the states were a little disappointing in terms of the way they -- the market has grown compared to expectations; like Jersey and New York. But many other states have done fabulously well; Missouri is a great example of it, it has really exceeded expectations in every way. We have seen a lot of movement in terms of updates and expected adult use legislation getting passed. We're very excited about Pennsylvania, about Ohio, about something that we are hopefully waiting to hear on Florida today. So there are a lot of these developments across these various states. If you look at the key markets of California and Michigan, prices have stabilized. Yes, there is a lot of change happening within the California retail market but again, these are slow but improving trends in those markets, and there are new states that are coming up. And so overall, when we look at the landscape, the operators who have successfully executed their strategy are -- have definitely feeling better and are re-engaging with us on all their growth plans, and we are here to support them with all of their growth plans and the capital needs.

Okay, that's great. Thanks so much.

Thank you. We will now go to the next question. One moment, please. And your next question comes from the line of William Carter from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. I wanted to ask about this transaction. I mean, do you see any material risk to this not closing, not getting approval; potentially even taking longer than expected? And in that case, I mean, what options would you consider because I think with your acquisition announcement, I think you suggested the current scale is not tenable. So just kind of understand plan B if there is one; no matter how little probability there is.

Sure. I'll start with that and then pass it over to Umesh. Thanks, Andrew [ph]. So, the transaction is obviously subject to SEC review. We'll be filing an N-14 [ph] shortly for the SEC to review and pine upon covering all aspects of the transaction. Obviously, our hope and expectation is that we pass the review process with the SEC. Unclear sort of how long that will be, we've estimated and stated that we're anticipating to close the transaction sometime this summer. In terms of a plan B, obviously, we acknowledge that a BDC of our size is sub-optimal. But our hope and expectation, Andrew [ph], is that this transaction is sound, it makes a lot of sense for our shareholders and we’ll be able to pass through the SEC review process. So, I think premature at this point for us to really talk about a plan B; our focus is on Plan A for the moment.

Thanks. I'll pass it on.

Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back to you.

Thank you, Sharon [ph]. Thank you everyone for joining. If you have any questions, please reach out to us or our Investor Relations Department. We’d be happy to answer your questions. Thank you again for joining the call today. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thanks for participating. You may now disconnect.