Edward J. Goldthorpe
Analyst · Evercore Partners
Thank you, Jim. Beginning with the market environment. Despite some economic uncertainty, the leveraged credit market strengthened throughout the December quarter as volatility remained low and credit spreads tightened. Mutual fund inflows into leveraged loan and high-yield were both positive, and CLO issuance rose as demand for high-yield assets remained strong. High-yield and leveraged loan issuance remain at elevated levels, and debt investors appeared to be increasingly tolerant of higher leverage and covenant-light structures. With this backdrop, we continue to find select opportunities in our pipeline that meet our strict underwriting standards and remain focused on covenants. Through the December quarter, we invested $630 million in and 21 new and 22 existing portfolio of companies. Since early 2012, we have been focused on investing in secured debt, which we believe continues to offer the most attractive risk-adjusted returns. Accordingly, 63% of investments made during the period were secured debt. And at the end of December, secured debt accounted for 51% of the portfolio, up from 32% when we started to reposition the portfolio. The December quarter was seasonally active, and some transactions from the December quarter have spilled into the March quarter. We have also received $293 million of proceeds from sales and $250 million from early repayments and revolver payouts. From a yield standpoint, our yields improved as we continue to both capture the illiquidity premium for our repositioning strategy and also sell lower-yielding assets. There is a positive spread between new and sold investments during the quarter, and the yield on new investments was up slightly quarter-over-quarter. Overall, the weighted average yield in our debt portfolio at cost increased to 11.4% at the end of December, up from 11.3% at the end of September. Next, I'll discuss our portfolio activity in greater detail. Nearly 90% of investments in the quarter were primary market originations, with continued contributions from our specialty verticals. Oil and gas accounted for 11%, and aircraft accounted for 5% of our gross investment activity. We made an investment in Crowley Holdings, a diversified marine solutions transportation and logistics company, to support their fleet expansion. And we've committed approximately $35 million to Reichhold Industries, which is a global manufacturer of resins for the composites and coatings market. Also during the quarter, our investments in both PlayPower and Garden Fresh were refinanced. Moving to sales. During the quarter, we used the strength in markets to monetize some of our higher-risk positions. Secondary sales accounted for over half of exits. Notable exits included the partial sale of our investments in First Data, Avanti, Magnetation and Avaya and the complete exit of our investment in Arysta LifeSciences. Investments that were repaid in whole or in part during the quarter included our investment in Amaya Gaming, Smart & Final stores and First Data. Moving to some general portfolio statistics for December 31. We continue to be diversified by issuer and industry, with 101 portfolio of companies invested in 34 different industries. The company's total investment portfolio had a fair market value of $3.18 billion, with 51% in secured debt, 32% in unsecured debt, 7% in structured products and 10% in preferred equity, common and warrants. Lastly, we believe the overall credit quality of our portfolio remain strong. The weighted average net leverage of the portfolio at the end of December was 5.2x, unchanged from the end of September. The weighted average interest coverage at the end of December was 2.3x compared to 2.4x at the end of September. No new investments were placed on nonaccrual status during the quarter, and in addition, the weighted average risk of our portfolio measured at cost and fair value was 2.2 and 2.1, respectively, unchanged from the prior quarter. With that, I will now turn the call over to Greg, who will discuss our financial performance for the quarter.