BlackRock Capital Investment Corporation

Good morning, my name is Lauren and I will be your conference facilitator today for BlackRock Capital Investment Corporation second quarter 2021 earnings call. Hosting the call will be James Keenan, Chairman and Interim Chief Executive Officer. Nick Singhal, President of the company. Abby Miller, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Lawrence DeParatus, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the company. Marshall Merriman, head of portfolio management, and Jason Merring, managing director and member of the company's investment committee. Lines have been placed on mute. After the speakers complete their update, they will open the line for a question and answer session. In order to ask a question, you can press star 1 on your telephone. Thank you. Mr. Paredes, you may begin the conference call.

Good morning and welcome to the second quarter 2021 earnings conference call of BlackRock Capital Investment Corporation, or BCIC. Before we begin our remarks today, I would like to point out that certain comments made during this conference call and within corresponding documents contain forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties. Many of these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as anticipates, believes, expects, intends, will, should, may, and similar expressions. We call to your attention the fact that BCIC's actual results may differ from these statements. As you know, BCIC has filed with the SEC reports which list some of the factors which may cause BCIC's results to differ materially from these statements. BCIC assumes no duty to and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. Certain information discussed and presented may have been derived from third-party sources and has not been independently verified. Accordingly, BCIC makes no representation or warranty with respect to such information. Please note we have posted to our website an investor presentation that complements this call. Shortly, Jim will highlight some of the information contained in the presentation. The presentation can be accessed by going to our website at www.blackrockbkcc.com and clicking the August 2021 investor presentation link in the presentations section of the investors page. I would now like to turn the call over to Jim.

Thank you, Larry. Good morning and thanks to all of you for joining our second quarter earnings call. I'll provide a high level update of our second quarter performance, which reflected continued progress towards our strategic goals and priorities. Nixon Gall will then give you an update on our portfolio activity and status, and Abby Miller will follow with a discussion of our financial results in more detail. We will then open the call for questions. We produced strong momentum in the second quarter, generating solid investment portfolio growth, increased NII, and a higher NAV. The 7.5 percent increase in NAV per share from the prior quarter was largely driven by increased valuation of SBP singer equity, which was a legacy non-core position. A large portion of this investment was monetized subsequent to the second quarter at a level consistent with the Q2 mark. This resulted in cash proceeds of approximately $20 million. As we have highlighted before, a key strategic priority for BCIC has been to rotate out of non-core legacy and other junior capital investments. Following the monetization of the SVP singer equity, we are pleased to report that the non-core portfolio is now less than 5% of the total portfolio on a pro forma basis. Of this, less than 2% consists of non-income producing investments. With SVP and other recent exits, our goal of non-core portfolio divestiture is largely behind us. Our near-term priorities are focused on using our resources and expertise to continue to build the portfolio for stable long-term strength. We deployed nearly $90 million in the quarter. We continue to draw upon the power of BlackRock platform to identify compelling new opportunities with solid risk-adjusted returns. We remain committed to building a diversified portfolio of income-generating senior secured loans with an emphasis on first lien positions. Of the new investment dollars deployed during the quarter, more than 75% were in first lean term loans. We now have 74 portfolio companies, a total that represents steady and ongoing progress in our pursuit of greater diversity. This compares to 60 portfolio companies at the close of the first quarter and 47 at the end of 2019. As we continue to capitalize on BlackRock's robust origination and underwriting platform, we believe that we can selectively deploy capital and continue to increase both issuer diversity and the percentage of first lien loans in the portfolio over the coming quarters. Net deployments of $64 million during the quarter helped to increase the portfolio leverage to 0.56 times and enabled a one-cent increase in the NII per share quarter over quarter. We expect to methodically increase leverage by continuing to redeployment of capital in a disciplined manner. As the portfolio continues to grow in coming quarters, we expect such growth to be accretive to NII, leading to increased dividend coverage for our shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Nixon Gall to discuss our portfolio activities in further detail.