Bruce Spohler
Analyst · KBW
Thank you, Rich. I’d like to begin by providing an update on the credit quality of our portfolio. Overall, the financial health of our portfolio companies remained sound with the trends of continued modest growth and deleveraging continuing during the second quarter. On average, the most recently reported organic LTM revenue and EBITDA for our portfolio companies in which we hold debt securities, were each up over 7.5% year over year. When measured at fair value, the weighted average interest coverage for our portfolio companies was 2.8 times at June 30, up slightly from Q1. And at the end of Q2, the fair value weighted average EBITDA for our portfolio companies was just under $95 million. Also, at June 30, the weighted average investment risk weighting of our portfolio was just under 2 when measured at fair market value based on our one to four risk rating scale with one representing the least amount of risk. Measured at fair value, 99.9% of our portfolio is performing. On a cost basis, our one legacy investment on non-accrual accounted for just under 60 bps of the entire portfolio. Excluding this one legacy asset, Direct Buy, our portfolio is performing well. On a current cost basis, the weighted average yield on our income producing portfolio was 10.5% at June 30, up from 10.1% for the prior quarter. Our average mark on our income producing debt investment as a percentage of par increased to 97% in Q2 due to a combination of mark-to-market appreciation, resulting from the rally in the liquid credit markets as well as fundamental improvement in a couple of specific credits. We continue to believe that there is additional NAV upside as our loans that are marked below par due to technical factors are repaid in full. Now I’d like to provide some color on the composition of our comprehensive investment portfolio, which includes Crystal Financial’s portfolio of asset based loans as well as our ownership of distressed senior loans held within SSLP. At the end of the second quarter, our $1.7 billion comprehensive investment portfolio included 100 distinct issuers across 37 industries, with neither energy nor commodities on that list. The average investment per issuer is $17 million or 1% of comprehensive portfolio. Our largest single investment is 3.2%. Measured at fair value, 93 plus percent of our portfolio consisted of senior secured loans. Remainder of the portfolio was comprised of 4.5% subordinated debt and 2.25% equity and equity like securities. At June 30, approximately 92% of our income producing portfolio was floating rate when measured at fair value. Before I turn to our investment activity, I’d like to provide a brief update on our strategic initiatives. During the second quarter, SSLP funded just over $41 million of new stretch senior loans, bringing our total portfolio to approximately $134 million. Additionally, as Michael mentioned, we closed an initial $200 million revolving credit facility for SSLP. The facility carries an interest rate of LIBOR plus 2.50% with no LIBOR floor, and a final maturity of five years. Since the end of the second quarter we have begun to draw on the facility and expect to fund new investments in SSLP through the use of this facility in order to generate an expected low to mid-teens return on Solar’s equity as we ramp this JV. Turning to life sciences. During the second quarter, our platform originated close to $97 million of investments and experienced repayments of $9.5 million. As we discussed on our last earnings call, early in the second quarter we completed the purchase of Capital One healthcare financial solutions portfolio which Capital One had acquired from GE back in 2015. Our life science team had originated these investments while employed by GE. The approximately $74 million par value portfolio that we purchased is comprised of senior secured first lien loans to 14 different borrowers with an average loan balance of just over $5 million. The portfolio is well diversified across drug discovery, healthcare, information technology, medical devices as well as diagnostics sub-sectors. We expect mid-teens IRR on the acquired portfolio. As a result of the acquisition of this portfolio, as well as additional direct investment by our life science team, the portfolio totaled just over $225 million fair value at the end of Q2. The average all-in yield, excluding potential exit and success fees as well as any potential future warrant gains is 11.7%. The blended IRR on our realized life science investments to date is just over 20%. Portfolio acquisition accelerates the ramp towards our initial $250 million targeted life science portfolio. In addition, it enhances Solar’s position as a leader in life science venture lending. Now let me turn to Crystal Financial, our stretch first lien asset based lending platform. Crystal’s loans have collateral coverage and tight covenant which provide a differentiated and extremely attractive risk return profile when compared to the cash flow lending business and has a low correlation to the traditional cash flow credit markets. The asset diversification, differentiated growth opportunities and countercyclical nature of Crystal's investment strategies are highly complementary to the rest of the Solar’s lending platforms. For example, during the second quarter, Solar and Crystal collectively committed approximately $60 million to an asset based DIP credit facility for Aeropostale. Crystal’s strong reputation as a lender to the retail industry coupled with its ability to bring together a like minded syndicate of lenders positioned us well to lead this financing. The investment carries an expected return of 10.6% yield to maturity. At June 30, Crystal had a diversified portfolio consisting of approximately $517 million of funded senior secured loans across 30 issuers with an average exposure of approximately $17 million. During the second quarter, Crystal funded new loans of approximately $64 million and experienced repayments totaling just under $50 million. All of Crystal’s investments are floating rate senior secured loans. For the second quarter, Crystal paid Solar Capital a cash dividend of just under $8 million, resulting in an 11.5% annualized cash-on-cash yield, consistent with the first quarter. At June 30, the company's net leverage was 0.9 times. Now I would like to turn to our second quarter portfolio activity at Solar. During the second quarter, including through our ownership of SSLP, Solar originated approximately $170 million of predominantly senior secured floating rate loans across 23 portfolio companies. Investments repaid during the quarter totaled approximately $37 million resulting in net portfolio growth of just over $135 million. During the quarter we originated a stretch senior first lien secured loan to support the merger of Pet Supermarket and Pet Valu which became the third largest pet retailer in the U.S. As a reminder, Solar is an incumbent lender to Pet Supermarket which is owned by Roark Capital. Solar's commitment totals $35 million. Solar’s sister fund Solar Senior also participated in this transaction as did our strategic partner Voya, resulting in a combined commitment of $65 million. Leverage through our investment is 4.9 times and the yield on the investment is just under 7%. The acquisition of Pet Valu created a significantly larger company with over $110 million of EBITDA, almost tripled the cash flow from our original investment while being priced just under our original 7% yield. We also originated a stretch senior secured term loan for CIBT, the largest provider in the highly fragmented travel document process servicing industries. Solar has been a junior capital provider in average original [ph] buyout of CIBT back in 2011 and were repaid in 2013. Solar’s current commitments total just over $21 million. Solar Senior also participated in this transaction, resulting in a total commitment across the Solar platform of just under $30 million. Leverage to our investment is 4.4 times and the loan carries a yield to maturity of 6.6%. Now let me touch on our one meaningful repayment during the quarter. In conjunction with the sale of the company, Solar was repaid on our remaining $11.3 million of our initial $21.5 million investment in The Robbins Company. In addition to receiving our full principal, we earned an exit fee which resulted in an IRR to realization of just over 20%. Looking forward we expect to be repaid at par on our $48 million investment in WireCo during the second half of this year. Our pipeline across our diverse origination businesses remains robust. We anticipate additional growth in our proprietary -- in our portfolio via these proprietary channels in the second half of 2016. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to Michael.