Ares Capital Corporation

Good morning, and welcome to Aries Capital Corporation's second quarter-ended June 30, 2019 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Tuesday, July 30, 2019. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Carl Drake, Head of Public Company Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good afternoon. Let me start with some important reminders. Comments made during the course of this conference call and webcast contain forward-looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many of these forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as anticipates, believes, expects, intends, will, should, may, and similar expressions. Some of these actual results could differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements for any reason, including those listed in SEC filings. Aries Capital assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Please also note that past performance or market information is not a guarantee of future results. During this conference call, the company may discuss certain non-GAAP measures as defined by SEC Reg G, such as Core Earnings Per Share or Core EPS. We believe that Core EPS provides useful information to investors regarding financial performance because it is one method we use to measure our financial condition and results of operations. A reconciliation of core EPS to the net per share increase or decrease in stockholders' equity resulting from operations, which is the most direct comparable gap financial measure, can be found in the accompanying slide presentation for this call. Reconciliation of these measures may also be found in our earnings release. Certain information discussed in this presentation, including information related to portfolio companies, was derived from third-party sources and has not been independently verified and, accordingly, The company makes no representational warranty in respect to this information. The company's second quarter earnings presentation can be found on our website at www.ariescapitalcorp.com by clicking on the Q2 2019 earnings presentation link on the homepage of our investor resources section. Our earnings released in 10Q are also available on our website.

I will now turn the call over to Kip DeVere, Aries Capital's CEO.