Grier Eliasek
Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead
Thank you, John. Our scale platform, with around $7 billion of assets and undrawn credit, continues to deliver solid performance in the current challenging environment. Our experienced team consists of around 100 professionals, representing one of the largest middle-market investment groups in the industry. With our scale, longevity, experience and deep bench, we continue to focus on a diversified investment strategy that spans third-party, private equity sponsor-related lending, direct non-sponsor lending, Prospect-sponsored operating and financial buyouts, structured credit and real estate yield investing. Consistent with past cycles, we expect during the next downturn to see an increase in secondary opportunities, coupled with wider spread primary opportunities with a pullback from other investment groups, particularly highly leveraged ones. This diversity allows us to source a broad range and high volume of opportunities, then select in a disciplined bottoms-up manner the opportunities we deem to be the most attractive on a risk-adjusted basis. Our team typically evaluates thousands of opportunities annually and invests in a disciplined manner in a low single-digit percentage of such opportunities. Our non-bank structure gives us the flexibility to invest in multiple levels of the corporate capital stack with a preference for secured lending and senior loans. As of June 2021, our portfolio at fair value comprised 50.9% secured first lien debt; 15.8% other senior secured debt; 12.2% subordinated structured notes with underlying secured first lien collateral; and 21.1% unsecured debt, other debt and equity investments combined, resulting in 78.9% of our investments being assets, with underlying secured debt benefiting from borrower-pledged collateral. Prospect’s approach is one that generates attractive risk-adjusted yields and our performing interest-bearing investments were generating an annualized yield of 11.7% as of June, down 0.1% from the prior quarter. We achieved an increase of 0.4% from June 2020 despite a headwind from the past year decline in LIBOR, though we expect reasonable stability now due to our LIBOR floors. We also hold equity positions in certain investments that can act as yield enhancers or capital gains contributors as such positions generate distributions. We have continued to prioritize senior and secured debt with our originations to protect against downside risk, while still achieving above-market yields through credit selection discipline and a differentiated origination approach. As of June, we held 124 portfolio companies, up 1 from the prior quarter, with a fair value of $6.2 billion, an increase of $318 million from the prior quarter. We also continue to invest in a diversified fashion across many different portfolio company industries with a preference for avoiding cyclicality and with no significant industry concentration. The largest is 17.7%. As of June, our asset concentration in the energy industry stood at 1.3%. Our concentration in the hotel, restaurant and leisure sector stood at 0.4%. And our concentration in the retail industry stood at 0%. Non-accruals as a percentage of total assets stood at approximately 0.6% in June, down 0.1% from the prior quarter and down 0.3% from June of 2020. Our weighted average middle-market portfolio net leverage stood at 5.01x EBITDA, substantially below our reporting peers. Our weighted average EBITDA per portfolio company stood at $89.1 million in June, an increase of $7.2 million from March as we continue to achieve solid profit growth with our portfolio of companies. Originations in the June quarter aggregated $307 million. We also experienced $156 million of repayments and exits as a validation of our capital preservation objective, resulting in net originations of $150 million. During the June quarter, our originations comprised 77.4% middle-market lending; 18.9% real estate; 1.8% subordinated structured notes; 1.7% middle-market lending and buyouts; and 0.2% other. To-date, we have deployed significant capital in the real estate arena through our private REIT strategy, largely focused on multifamily workforce, stabilized yield acquisitions with attractive 10 plus year financing. NPRC, our private REIT, has real estate properties that have benefited over the last several years from rising rents, strong occupancies, high collections, suburban work from home dynamics, high-returning value-added renovation programs and attractive financing recapitalizations, resulting in an increase in cash yields as a validation of this income growth business alongside our corporate credit businesses. NPRC as of June has exited completely 34 properties at an average IRR of 23.4%, with an objective to redeploy capital into new property acquisitions including with repeat property manager relationships. We currently have multiple other property exits in process that we expect to add to our growing track record of positive realization. Our structured credit business has delivered attractive cash yields, demonstrating the benefits of pursuing majority stakes, working with world-class management teams, providing strong collateral underwriting through primary issuance and focusing on attractive risk-adjusted opportunities. As of June, we held $756 million across 39 non-recourse subordinated structured notes investments. These underlying structured credit portfolios comprised around 1,700 loans and a total asset base of around $17 billion. As of June 2021, the structured credit portfolio experienced a trailing 12-month default rate of 100 basis points, down 71 basis points from the prior quarter and representing 25 basis points less than the broadly syndicated market default rate of 125 basis points. In the June quarter, this portfolio generated an annualized cash yield of 19.1% and GAAP yield of 14.2%. As of June, our subordinated structured credit portfolio has generated $1.33 billion in cumulative cash distributions to us, representing around 95% of our original investment. Through June, we’ve also exited nine investments totaling $263 million, with an average realized IRR of 16.7% and cash-on-cash multiple of 1.5x. Our subordinated structured credit portfolio consists entirely of majority-owned positions. Those positions can enjoy significant benefits compared to minority holdings in the same tranche. In many cases, we receive fee rebates because of our majority position. As a majority holder, we control the ability to call a transaction in our sole discretion in the future, and we believe such options add substantial value to our portfolio. We have the option of waiting years to call a transaction in an optimal fashion rather than when loan asset valuations might be temporarily low. We, as majority investor, can refinance liabilities on more advantageous terms, remove bond baskets in exchange for better terms from debt investors in the deal and extend or reset the investment period to enhance value. We completed 30 refinancings and resets since December 2017. So far in the current September 2021 quarter, we’ve booked $351 million in originations and experienced $165 million of repayments for $186 million of net originations. Our originations have consisted of 97.2% middle market lending and 2.8% real estate. Thank you. I’ll now turn the call over to Kristin.