Art Penn
Analyst · Confluence Investment Management
Alright. It's a really good question. I think, if we think about PNNT, we like to say, as a strategy of being across the capital structure. When first-lien – whenever we think that's best, we’ll be at the top and certain times. Secondly, the measure is really attractive. We'll go there, when that's really attractive. The biggest driver has been the elevated leverage of levels on second-lien in mezz and they’re obviously subordinated. So, in PNNT, we do second-lien in mezz. Periodically, the bar is really high now, because we want to see reasonable leverage, and it's 6.5 times leverage or whatever the market in general seems to be. In general, we're not – we don't really like going that deep in the capital structure at those elevated leverage levels. Occasionally, we see a company that just really clears the bar that we love that will do on that basis. But as a general proposition, once we get much above five times in any security, we start to get a little nose bleed. As a general proposition, sometimes we'll go a little bit above and we see a very strong growth or put deleveraging, but generally, once you get above five times, we start to become a little allergic. So, that's the primary thing. Now, fortuitously, roughly, at the same time, BDC rule has changed and BDCs can now leverage their assets more than 1 to 1. So, that puts us in a position and a lot of BDCs in a position to say, ‘Okay, you can move higher in the capital structure be safer and for more leveraging and when it all comes out in the wash, you have a very attractive ROE.’ So, that was – that has all happened roughly at the same time. And for now, we think this is appropriate for PNNT. There may be a time a year or two down the road when we say, geez, that second-lien deal is at 12% or 13% and 4.5 times or 5 times debt-to-EBITDA is really attractive. We're going to do more of those. So, that's kind of how we think about it