Bruce Spohler
Analyst · JPMorgan. Please proceed
Thank you, Rich. The credit quality of Solar’s portfolio remained very strong. Overall, our issuers are experiencing stable to modest EBITDA growth and the fundamentals are healthy. We continue to have no direct exposure to the oil and gas sector. Our predominantly senior secured floating rate portfolio should provide protection if the economic environment declines and/or interest rates rise. At June 30, the weighted average yield on our income producing investment portfolio when measured at fair value was 9.9%. The weighted average investment risk rating of our portfolio remained at approximately 2, when measured at fair market value based on our 1 to 4 risk rating scale with one representing the least amount of risk. Our one investment on non-accrual, direct buy accounts for less than one half of 1% of the portfolio fair value, with the other 99.8% in the portfolio performing at or above our expectations. Again, the credit fundamentals are strong across the portfolio. At the end of Q2, our portfolio consisted of 50 different companies operating across 30 industries. When measured at fair value and including Crystal Financials’ full portfolio, over 91% of our investments were in senior secured loans, including 57% in direct senior secured loans and 34% in Crystal’s directly originated portfolio. The remaining 9% of the portfolio was comprised of 6% of sub-debt, 1.5% for equity and just under 2% in common equity and warrants. At June 30, approximately 90% of our income producing investment portfolio was floating rate when including Crystal’s full portfolio at fair value. At June 30, Crystal Financial had a diversified portfolio consisting of approximately $455 million of funded senior secured loans across 24 issuers with an average issue exposure of approximately $19 million. During the quarter, Crystal funded new loans totaling approximately $68 million and experienced repayments totaling approximately $104 million. All of Crystal Financial’s investments are floating rate senior secured loans. At the end of Q2, Crystal had a net debt to invested equity ratio of 0.7 times. Crystal paid Solar Capital a cash dividend of $7.9 million, which is equivalent to 11.5% annual cash on cash yield, consistent with the prior quarter. During Q2, Solar originated approximately $203 million of senior secured floating rate loans. Investments prepaid during the quarter ended June 30 totaled approximately $79 million, resulting in net originations of $124 million. I will now highlight some of our second quarter investments which were sourced via our strategic channels. Specifically, our sponsor focus direct origination business with its unitranche capabilities and our life science lending platform. We sourced and invested in the unitranche loan for LegalZoom, which is majority owned by Premier Partners. LegalZoom is a leading provider of online legal services for small businesses and consumers in the U.S. Solar funded $50 million of $156 million unitranche, which was jointly underwritten by a small club of investors. The loan has an attractive covenant package as well as call protection. The investment carries an all-in yield of 8.7% and total leverage approximates 4.2 times. During the quarter, we also led the underwriting of the second lien tranche for IHS, Interactive Health Services in conjunction with FFL’s acquisition of the company. IHS is the nation’s largest independent provider of corporate wellness and health management services. With regards to this transaction, Solar leveraged our historical relationship with the company and knowledge of the credit. As a reminder, we have previously underwritten a unitranche loan for IHS back in 2011, when it was owned by CI Capital Partners. Solar is currently holding $25 million of the $60 million second lien loan. And investment carries it all-in yield of just under 10%. Additionally, we reinvested in a second lien loan to EMC, Emerging Market Communications which is a global provider of satellite communication services to remote locations in conjunction with an add-on acquisition the company which is owned by ABRY refinanced its capital structure. We repaid at a premium to par on our original $27 million second lien investment, which resulted in IRR of just under 13%. Due to our close relationship with both ABRY and the company’s management we played an active role in determining EMC’s new capital structure. The company’s EBITDA has grown from $26 million at the time of our initial funding to $67 million today pro forma for this acquisition. EMC is one of many examples where Solar works actively with top tier financial sponsors to be a value added solutions partner, providing both capital, as well as advice on new opportunities and refinancing existing portfolio companies. Our $26.5 million investment in this new second lien loan carries an all-in yield of 11%. Moving to life sciences, the life science team underwrote three new transactions during the quarter, which totaled approximately $26 million of new investments, the largest of which was a $16 million first lien term loan to Rapid Micro Biosystems. Rapid Micro is a life science company focused on products for detecting the bacterial contamination during the manufacturing process of consumer goods. The company is backed by a syndicate of venture capital firms, including TPG, Longitude Venture and Quaker Ventures. The loan has a full covenant package, call protection, as well as success fee. When excluding the success fee, our all-in yield on the investment is 10.5%. At the end of Q2, our life science portfolio has grown to approximately $90 million of first lien senior secured loans across nine different borrowers with an average position size of $10 million and an average all-in yield, including our warrant values, but excluding any success fees of just over 11.5%. The team is running hard since arriving late Q1. And given their strong current pipeline, we expect further growth in this portfolio in Q3. Now, let me touch on our realizations. We are repaid at a premium to par on Blue Coat Systems in conjunction with Thoma Bravo’s sale of the company. The IRR in this investment is just under 12%. We were also repaid at a premium to par on our $19 million second lien investment in Ikaria in conjunction with Madison Dearborn’s sale of the business. Our IRR for this investment was just under 11%. Thus far in the third quarter, we had visibility on approximately $25 million in total redemptions and are currently not expecting any additional material repayments in Q3. As Michael mentioned, we expect continued portfolio growth in the second half of the year. Now, I will turn the call back to Michael.