Dwayne Hyzak
Analyst · Raymond James. Please proceed with your question
Thanks, Vince, and good morning everyone. We are pleased to report another quarter during which we generated distributable net investment income in excess of our recurring monthly dividends and continued favorable performance in our lower middle market portfolio. We believe that our unique investment strategy focused primarily on the underserved lower middle market combined with our efficient operating structure provide a unique value proposition that differentiates Main Street from most yield oriented investment options and generates the premium total returns realized by our shareholders. As we’ve discussed in prior quarters, we believe that the primary driver of our long-term success has been and continues to be, our focus on the underserved lower middle market, and specifically our investment strategy of investing in both the debt and equity in the lower middle market and acting as a sponsor and a partner to the management teams of our lower middle market companies and not just a financing source. Over the last few quarters, we provided some highlights on different aspects of our focus on the lower middle market to demonstrate the significant benefits of our unique investment strategy. In addition, for the last few quarters, we noted that we had elevated levels of exit activities in our lower middle market portfolio. Those exit activities in two portfolio companies have been completed over the last four months, so this quarter we would like to highlight several points related to the recent exits of our investments in Southern RV and SambaSafety. The first point I want to highlight is the comparison of the actual realized value from our equity reinvestments in each of these completed transactions to the valuations of these investments at September 30, 2015 and December 31, 2014. In the cases of Southern RV, which we exited in January, our actual realized value from the exit of our equity investments was 36% or $4.4 million greater than our fair value estimates at September 30, 2015 and 207% or $11.2 million greater than our fair value estimate at December 31, 2014. In the case of SambaSafety, which we exited in April, our actual realized value from the exit of our equity investment was 49% or $10.1 million greater than the fair value estimate at September 30, 2015 and 405% or $24.4 million greater than our fair value estimate at December 31, 2014. The second point we would like to highlight is a favorable investments returns that our lower middle market investments can generate for our shareholders. In the cases of Southern RV, the exit generated a cumulative 45.9% internal rate of return and a 2.3 times money invested return on a cumulative debt and equity investments in Southern RV, with our debt investments representing greater than 87% of our total invested capital. In the case of SambaSafety, the exit generated a cumulative 34.7% internal rate of return and 2.3 times money invested return on a cumulative debt and equity investments on SambaSafety with a debt investment representing greater than 93% of our total invested capital in Samba. We believe that both of these exits provide evidence of the conservative nature of the valuations of our lower middle market equity investments and the opportunity for significant upside and the ultimate value realized when these equity investments are marketed for sale in a competitive process or in a sale to a strategic investor. In addition, both cases provide evidence of the significant value in investment return opportunities provided by the equity investments on our lower middle market companies and a significant benefits of being both a debt and equity investor in these companies as opposed to just being a lender. With that, our unique investment focus on a combination of senior secured debt with meaningful direct equity investments in our lower middle market companies, it will be very difficult to deliver these types of returns and benefits to our shareholders. Consistent with prior quarters, we also want to highlight that the contributions from our lower middle market portfolio continue to be well diversified with 46 of our 69 lower middle market equity investments having net appreciation at March 31, and with 28 companies in our lower middle market portfolio or approximately 67% of our investments in flow through entities for tax purposes contributing to our dividend income over the last 12 months. We believe that the diversity of our lower middle market portfolio is very important when analyzing the benefits from our lower middle market investments, and we believe that this diversity provides visibility to the recurring nature of these benefits in the future. Now turning specifically to our investment portfolio at quarter-end and our investment activity in the first quarter; we are pleased to report that our overall portfolio performance remained strong. Our investment activity in the first quarter, included total investments on our lower middle market portfolio of approximately $37 million, primarily as a result of our investments in two new portfolio companies, which after aggregate repayments on debt investments and return of invested equity capital resulted in a net increase in our lower middle market portfolio of approximately $7 million. We had a net decrease in our middle market portfolio of approximately $2 million, and a net increase in our private loan portfolio of approximately $26 million. As a result, at March 31, we had investments in 198 portfolio companies that are more than 50 different industries across the lower middle market, middle market and private loan components of our investment portfolio. The largest portfolio company represents approximately 3.5% of our total investment income and approximately 3% of our total portfolio fair value with the majority of our portfolio investments representing less than 1% of our income and our assets. Additional details on our investment portfolio at quarter-end are included in the press release that we issued yesterday, but I’ll touch on a few highlights. Our lower middle market portfolio included investments in 72 companies, representing approximately $860 million of fair value, which is approximately 24% above our cost basis. At the lower middle market portfolio level, the portfolio's median net senior debt to EBITDA ratio was a conservative 2.7 to 1 or 2.9 to 1, including portfolio company debt, which is junior in priority to our debt position. As a complement to our lower middle market portfolio and our middle market portfolio, we had investments in 84 companies, representing approximately $580 million of fair value and in our private loan portfolio, we had investments in 42 companies, representing approximately $270 million in fair value. The total investment portfolio at fair value at March 31 was approximately 106% of the related cost basis, and we had six investments on non-accrual status, which comprised approximately 0.5% of the total investment portfolio at fair value and 3.8% at cost. So in summary, Main Street’s investment portfolio continues to perform at a high level and continues to deliver on our long-term goals. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brent to cover our financial results and liquidity position.