Leonard Tannenbaum
Analyst · debt capital
Thank you, Stacey. From an economic standpoint, we have moved from stable to increasing EBITDAs. These initial indicators of a rising economy are seen across several industry groups. During the economic decline, many of our companies experienced stress, and we reacted quickly by marking down the portfolio to reflect the changing values. We also prudently lowered the investment ratings to categories three, four and five as the situation continued to worsen. This past quarter reflects a significant change upward in our portfolio. Though we follow a policy of not marking up our debt investments significantly above par, we did experience a significant increase in our category one rated investments. While these securities are clearly improving, we do not see any near-term risk of refinancing in general due to substantial prepayment penalties and exit fees in many of them. Over time, however, this category should reflect investments with a higher likelihood of refinance risk which in the short term will accelerate our earnings growth. We're also witnessing the fast ramp in mergers and acquisitions activity that we've forecasted in the past few months. As both strategic investors and private equity firms increase their activities, we expect loan demand in the middle market to accelerate. We believe that this will continue to grow throughout the year and will peak in the fourth quarter. Our plan is to have ample capacity for the wave of deal flow that is coming. From a credit line perspective, we have successfully renegotiated our ING commitment, which Brian will discuss shortly. We also believe that our partners at Wells Fargo along with several additional credit partners will provide ample liquidity for Fifth Street to grow our portfolio through leverage in addition to our SBA facility. We hope to make several announcement in this regard in coming months. Despite recent IPOs in the BBC sector, there continues to be a limited amount of our competitors that can complete a transaction for private equity sponsors without any syndication risk and with whole sizes of $30 million to $50 million. This provides us with some additional pricing power and the ability to continue to be a major lender in the middle and lower-middle markets. We firmly believe that it's still the preference for private equity sponsors to partner with a trusted lender rather than rely on a syndicate group to complete transactions. Increased mergers and acquisitions activity coupled with the banks expanding the credit lending have allowed us to largely refinance out of CPAC. CPAC, one of our previously underperforming investments. The price received also continues to validate our valuations in the portfolio as CPAC was at one-time marked as low as $1 million with the most recent valuation at $4.5 million. We received $5 million in cash and a $1 million note for CPAC, exceeding our most recent valuation. It has been proactive portfolio management and the partnership approach with our private equity firms that have allowed us to successfully navigate a very challenging environment. The addition of several team members have a enhanced our ability to monitor and manage the existing portfolio. I am pleased to report that categories three, four and five rated securities account for only approximately 5% of the portfolio. Our second fiscal quarter ended as of March 31, 2010, was below trend from an origination standpoint. During the past quarter, we originated $33 million worth of funded deals, however, 100% of them were first lien loans. However, we have already closed I think in the first five weeks of this quarter, on $46.5 million of deals, of which $40.5 million were funded at close. We anticipate originations to continue to grow throughout the year, with an expected large fourth quarter, In February, our SBIC subsidiary received its SBA license which Bernie will talk more about later. We are also encouraged by the movement of a bill in Congress that if passed will hopefully expand the capacity of our SBIC subsidiary's SBA license by another $100 million. The SBA capital is very advantageous and should create earnings momentum into next year as the leverage is deployed. The investing environment is changing as I highlight in our recent monthly newsletters. We were fortunate that currently, 75% of our portfolio took advantage of a higher risk return environment as we were one of the few BDCs that have ample capital to invest during the credit dislocation. We expect our primary credit dislocation portfolio to generate strong returns as the economy recovers. We continue to be focused on the potential for inflation to spike at anytime, given the very pro-liquidity stance of the federal reserve. The increase in floating rate loans with floors should begin to serve as a hedge against the substantial increase in interest rates over the coming years. All of the deals so far closed since March 31 are floating rate with floors of at least 9%, bringing the current percentage of our debt portfolio with floating rates to approximately 24%. Our SBA leverage will also serve as a hedge against rising inflation interest rates as the interest rate on that piece of debt is fixed for 10 years when it is fixed. We expect our first tranche of debt to fix in the September timeframe, as SBA securitizations tend to occur about twice a year, in March and September. We will continue to use financing partners to provide diversification of the portfolio. Our pipeline of loans remain strong at approximately $1.4 billion. We continue to expect a high conversion of our pipeline to signed term sheets due to our ability to commit to the entire loan without syndication risk by utilizing both our credit lines and the SBA facility, as well as the desire for sellers to close by the end of the year due to the anticipated increase in the tax rates next year. We believe that these events coupled with our strong brand and relationships allowed us to capture premium pricing over the market. We believe that opportunities in the middle market are large and growing even as lenders begin to return to the middle market. We plan on continuing to take advantage of this environment to gain market share with top quartile private equity sponsors, as well as to capture strong risk adjusted returns. I am pleased to announce that we've exceeded our goal that we set last year of having 65% to the portfolio in first lien loans, with first lien loans currently at approximately 71% of the portfolio. Which includes the deals closed during the past five weeks. Over 90% of the pipeline contains first lien one-stop loans so this percentage may experience a future increase. This gives us one of the most secure portfolios of any BDC. With that said, our current target is for about 2/3 first lien and 1/3 second lien loans, and we are actively looking for selective opportunities in second lien. We do not plan on investing in unsecured PIK toggles or many of the vehicles which we believe generate a higher default rate and lower recovery in an economic decline. Our strong first lien position coupled with further diversification and expansion of assets should position Fifth Street favorably to reduce its cost of capital over time. Our Board of Directors declared a dividend in this quarter of $0.32, an increase of 6.7%. The $0.32 dividend is up from $0.30 in the previous quarter and $0.27 in the quarter before that. Due to the increased pace of originations along with the use of leverage, we anticipate the dividend should continue to increase during 2010. We've announced several key hires to our team, which has greatly broadened our platform and expertise. As a leading player in the middle market, we are able to attract talent that serves as a key source of enhancement to our underwriting, origination and portfolio management teams. I'll now hand the call over to our President, Bernie Berman.