Dwayne Hyzak
Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Please proceed with your question
Thanks, Vince. Good morning, everyone. We are pleased to report another quarter during which we grew both our total investment income and distributable net investment income and again generated distributable net investment income in excess of our monthly dividends. In addition, as a result of our unique focus on investments in both debt and equity in the lower middle market, during the first quarter, we were also able to generate over $27 million of additional net realized gains from our investment portfolio, primarily from the highly successful exit of our lower middle market investments in Daseke. We’re also pleased that our most recent results represent a GAAP return on equity of 13.4% for the trailing 12-month period and 10.1% on an annualized basis for the first quarter. Returns that significantly exceed the dividend yield paid to our shareholders and represent a significant value that we are generating for our shareholders in excess of our dividends paid. We believe that these results illustrate the significant benefits of our unique investment strategy, which combine with our efficient operating structure continue to provide a value proposition that differentiates Main Street from other yield-oriented investment options and generates a premium total returns realized by our shareholders as a result of the historical growth in our dividends per share, our net asset value per share and our stock price. 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 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 portfolio companies and not just the financing source. Without this primary focus on the lower middle market, it will be very difficult to produce these returns for our shareholders. Each quarter, we try to highlight key aspects of our differentiated investment strategy. This quarter, we’d like to revisit several reasons why we believe that our structure as a publicly traded BBC with the significant benefits of permanent capital is a perfect match with our focus on investing debt and equity in the lower middle market. First, we believe that our permanent capital structure, allows us to be an ideal partner for owners of privately held businesses that are seeking a liquidity event as we can represent a permanent substitute partner for retiring business partner or family member, eliminating the concerns typically associated with the limited holding periods required by traditional private equity fund structures. This flexibility allows us to compete for transactions based upon beneficial structure considerations as opposed to solely on price, generating what we believe are highly attractive investment opportunities. Second, our desired long-term holding period, as generated a diversified portfolio of mature companies with reasonable leverage providing these companies the ability to work through negative economic cycles and take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Our long-term holding period also provides for less frequent portfolio turnover, resulting in improved portfolio diversity in each quarter and providing opportunities for increased dividend income as the portfolio companies continue to mature. Our long-term approach is best demonstrated by the fact that we currently have eight companies that have been on our portfolio for greater than a decade and an additional 10 companies for greater than eight years. Consistent with prior quarters, the contributions from our lower middle market portfolio continue to be well-diversified with 45 of our 73 lower middle market companies with equity investments having a appreciation at quarter end and with 28 of these companies that are flow-through entities for tax purposes or approximately 60% of our investments in these types of entities, contributing to our dividend income over the last 12 months. In addition, we also have several equity investments in non-flow-through entities which have contributed 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 strategy, 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 investment performance remains strong. Our investment activity in the first quarter included total investments on our lower middle market portfolio of approximately $58 million including investments in two new portfolio companies, which after aggregate repayments on debt investments and return of invested equity capital, primarily from the exit of our investments in Daseke resulted in a net increase in our lower middle market portfolio of approximately $10 million. We had a net decrease in our middle market portfolio of approximately $60 million and a net increase in our private loan portfolio of approximately $46 million. As result, at March 31st, we had investments in 191 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 less than 4% of our total investment income for the last 12 months 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 will touch on a few highlights. Our lower middle market portfolio included investments in 73 companies, representing approximately $887 million of fair value, which is approximately 15% above our cost basis. At the lower middle market portfolio level, the portfolio’s median net senior debt to EBITDA ratio was a conservative 2.8 to 1 or 3.2 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 69 companies, representing approximately $569 million of fair value. And in our private loan portfolio, we had investments in 49 companies representing approximately $384 million in fair value. The total investment portfolio at fair value at March 31st was approximately 105% of the related cost basis and we had five investments on non-accrual status, which comprised approximately 0.2% of the total investment portfolio at fair value and 2.7% at cost. 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 will turn the call over to Brent to cover our financial results, capital structure and liquidity position.