Art Penn
Analyst · Compass Point Research. Your line is open
Thanks, Aviv. I'm going to provide an update on the business starting with financial highlights, followed by a discussion of the overall market, the portfolio, investment activity, the financials and then open it up for Q&A. For the quarter ended September 30, 2017, we invested $129 million at an average yield of 9.5%. About 57% of our new investments were in first lien secured debt and 39% was in second lien secured debt, which is in line with our strategy of developing a lower-risk, more secured portfolio. Net investment income was $0.18 per share, which included $0.02 per share of a fee waiver. NAV remained relatively stable at $9.10 per share. The small reduction in NAV was due primarily to mark-to-market on our credit facilities and bonds. After quarter end, and consistent with their periodic review, the board approved an amended investment advisory agreement lowering the base management fee to 1.5% per annum and the incentive fee to $0.175 -- 17.5%. The incentive fee floor will remain at 7%. This new agreement will take effect on January 1, 2018. The existing 16% overall waiver of fees will remain in place until then. As of September 30th, we had taxable spillover of $0.26 per share. With the new fee agreement, a stable underlying portfolio and substantial spillover, we believe that PNNT stock should be able to provide investors with an attractive dividend stream along with potential upside as the energy market stabilizes and our equity investments mature. Our primary business of financing middle-market sponsors has remained robust. We manage relationships with about 400 financial sponsors across the country from our offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and London. We have done business with about 180 sponsors. Due to the wide funnel of deal flow that we receive relative to the size of our vehicles, we can be extremely selective with our investments. In this environment, we have not only been extremely selective, but we have generally moved up capital structures to more secure investments. A reminder about our long-term track record. PNNT was in business in 2007, primarily as a subordinated and mezzanine investor, then as now focused on financing middle-market financial sponsors. Our performance through the global financial crisis and recession was excellent. Average EBITDA of the underlying portfolio was down about 7% to the bottom of the recession. The average high yield company EBITDA was down about 40% during that same timeframe. As a result, we had few defaults and attractive recoveries on that primarily subordinated and mezzanine portfolio. In this environment, due to our deep and broad investment team, we are seeing more deals than ever. We are using our tried and true underwriting discipline in middle-market sponsored deals. We generally are high in the capital stack and have substantial junior capital beneath us to provide cushion. As a result, we believe that we can continue to provide attractive risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders even in this environment. We remain focused on long-term value and making investments that will perform well over an extended period of time and can withstand different business cycles. Our focus continues to be on companies and structures that are more defensive, have low leverage, strong covenants and high returns. As credit investors, one of our primary goals is preservation of capital. If we preserve capital, usually the upside takes care of itself. As a business, one of our primary goals is building long-term trust. Our focus is on building long-term trust with our portfolio companies, management teams, financial sponsors, intermediaries, our credit providers and, of course, our shareholders. We are first call for middle-market financial sponsors, management teams and intermediaries who want consistent credible capital. As an independent provider free of conflicts or affiliations, we've become a trusted financing partner for our clients. Our portfolio is constructed to withstand market and economic volatility. In general, our overall portfolio is performing well. We have cash interest coverage ratio of 2.7x and a debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 5.2x at cost on our cash flow loans. With asset yields coming down over the last several years, we are looking to create attractive risk-adjusted returns in our portfolio. We have a three point plan to do so. Number one, we are focused on lower risk, primarily secured investments, thereby reducing the volatility of our earnings stream. Investments secured by either a first or second lien are about 75% of the portfolio. We -- number two, we are also focused on reducing risk from the standpoint of diversification. As our portfolio rotates we intend to have a more granular portfolio with modest bite sizes relative to our overall capital. Number three, we look forward to continuing to monetize the equity portion of our portfolio. Over time, we are targeting equity being between 5% and 10% of our overall portfolio. As of September 30, it was 15% of the portfolio. With regard to our capital structure we remain comfortable with our target regulatory debt-to-equity ratio of 0.6x to 0.8x. We are currently at 0.5x regulatory debt-to-equity. On an overall basis, we are targeting overall GAAP leverage of 0.8x. As of today, we are currently at 0.8x overall GAAP leverage and our net leverage debt minus cash is 0.75x. With regard to our energy portfolio, there are four names in our energy portfolio. The two that are related to oil field services, American Gilsonite and U.S. Well, have started performing better as drilling activity has picked up. Increased values on those two names helped our NAV over the past two quarters. With regard to our two E&P names, Ram and ETX, they have been aided by the modestly-higher oil and gas prices. It will take time for us to maximize our recovery. Even if the two E&P investments were marked to zero, our NAV would have been $7.80 as of September 30. This indicates the potential upside value to our stock as we monetize those and other investments, over time. During the quarter, we recast the capital structure of Ram Energy. The new capital structure consists only of a $35 million tranche of first lien debt and the rest of the capital structure is common equity. This simplified structure provides multiple benefits for Ram and PNNT. First, the reduced debt profile positions Ram to execute its strategy. Second, for PNNT, the reduced debt load comes with the requirement that Ram pay at least half its interest in cash. With the new capital structure, Ram paid all of its interest in cash for the quarter ended September 30. We are encouraged that the energy markets are potentially rebounding but more importantly somewhat stable. This enhances the M&A environment in the sector and our ability to evaluate strategic options for Ram and our other energy-related companies. PennantPark Investment Corporation has had only 12 companies go on nonaccrual out of 191 investments since inception over ten years ago. Further, we are proud that even though we had those nonaccruals, we've been able to preserve capital for our shareholders. Through hard work, patience and judicious additional investments in capital and personnel in those companies, we've been able to find ways to add value. Based on values as of September 30, today we have recovered about 82% of capital invested in those 12 companies that have been on nonaccrual since inception of the firm. We currently have no investments on nonaccrual. It might be helpful to highlight our long-term track record over 10 years, including the global financial crisis and recession. Since inception, PNNT has made 191 investments totaling about $4.5 billion at an average yield of about 13%. Including both realized and unrealized losses, PNNT lost only about 35 basis points annually. We're proud of this track record, which includes both our energy investments as well as our primarily subordinated debt investments made prior to the financial crisis. In terms of new investments, our focus is on senior-oriented cash-paying secured assets. On virtually all of these investments, we've known these particular companies for a while, have studied the industries or have a strong relationship with a sponsor. Let's walk through some of the highlights. We invested $20 million in the first lien term loan and $2 million in the revolver for Allied America, which is an operator of destination management services, primarily for corporate and business events. CI Capital is the sponsor. SFP Holding is a fire and life safety company, including fire sprinkler and suppression services. We lent $17 million of first lien term loan and invested $1 million of common equity. CI Capital is the sponsor. We invested $36 million in the second lien term loan and $3 million of common equity in DecoPac, which is a supplier and marketer of cake decorating solutions for bakeries and cake decorating enthusiasts. Snow Phipps is the sponsor. eCommission is an online finance platform that specializes in providing real estate agents with advance payment of commissions. We invested $20 million in the first lien term loan and $1 million in the equity. Lightyear Capital is the sponsor. Turning to the outlook. We believe that the remainder of 2017 will be active due to growth in M&A-driven financings. Due to our strong sourcing network and client relationships, we're seeing active deal flow. Let me now turn the call over to Aviv, our CFO, to take us through the financial results.