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spk01: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q4 2022 Crescent Capital BDC, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, February 23, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dan McMahon. Please go ahead.
spk04: Good morning, and welcome to Crescent Capital BDC, Inc.' 's fourth quarter and year-ended December 31, 2022 earnings conference call. Please note that Crescent Capital BDC, Inc. may be referred to as CCAP, Crescent BDC, or the company throughout the call. Before we begin, I'll start with some important reminders. Comments made over the course of this conference call and webcast may contain forward-looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results could differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements for any reason, including those listed in its SEC filings. The company 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, we may discuss certain non-GAAP measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. such as adjusted net investment income, or NII, per share. The company believes that adjusted NII per share provides useful information to investors regarding financial performance because it's one method the company uses to measure its financial condition and results of operations. A reconciliation of adjusted net investment income per share to net investment income per share, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, can be found in the accompanying slide presentation for this call. In addition, a reconciliation of this measure may also be found in our earnings release. Yesterday after the market closed, the company issued its earnings press release for the fourth quarter and year-ended December 31, 2022, and posted a presentation to the IR section of its website at www.crescentbdc.com. The presentation should be reviewed in conjunction with the company's Form 10-K filed yesterday with the SEC. As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. Speaking on today's call will be CCAP's President and Chief Executive Officer, Jason Breaux, Chief Financial Officer, Gerhard Lombard, and Managing Director, Henry Chung. With that, I'd now like to turn it over to Jason.
spk06: Thank you, Dan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings call. We appreciate your continued interest in CCAP. I'll provide some fourth quarter and full year highlights, touch on our current portfolio and positioning, and then turn it over to Henry to review our recent activity in more detail. Gerhard will then review our financial performance during the fourth quarter. So let's begin. Please turn to slide six, where you'll see a summary of our results. Adjusted debt investment income increased 17% to 49 cents per share from 42 cents per share for the quarter ended September 30, 2022. This increase was driven primarily by rising base rates and higher spreads. Total investment income again reached its highest level since inception, and recurring yield-related investment income continues to grow in both absolute dollars and at the percentage of our total revenue, which Gerhard will provide more color on. On a gap basis, fourth quarter net investment income per share was 52 cents. The difference relates to a non-cash reversal of our capital gains-based incentive fees on net realized and unrealized capital appreciation. As of year end, this gap expense accrual has been fully reversed. Our net asset value per share ended the year at $19.83, down 1.6% as compared to the prior quarter. The decline relates primarily to unrealized losses we took to reflect wider credit spreads in the market, as volatility within the leveraged finance and equity markets continued during the fourth quarter. Importantly, we generated net realized gains for the full year 2022, delivering positive realized gains in excess of our losses. Realized gains and losses, we believe, is a more important metric in grading our performance than unrealized gains and losses, which has meaningfully less impact on our longer term results. In our view, Our long-term track record of strong credit performance and NAV stability since inception demonstrates the merits of our proven investment process as we work to deliver attractive results to our shareholders. Please turn to slides 13 and 14 of the presentation, which highlight certain characteristics of our diversified portfolio. We ended the year with nearly $1.3 billion of investments at fair value across 129 portfolio companies, with an average investment size of less than 1% of the total portfolio. Our investment portfolio continues to consist primarily of senior secured first lien and Unitron first lien loans, collectively representing 90% of the portfolio at fair value, up from 89% in the prior quarter. And we remain well diversified across 18 industries and continue to lend almost exclusively to private equity-backed companies. with 98% of our debt portfolio in sponsor-backed companies as of year end. We generally believe that our private equity partners provide operational financial support to strengthen their portfolio companies for long-term value creation, which is particularly valuable during periods of heightened volatility, like the one we are investing in today. For the fourth quarter, over 99% of our total debt investments at fair value made full scheduled principal and interest payments. Two more credit trends to highlight. Continued strong performance ratings and low non-accrual levels. Our weighted average portfolio grade of 2.1 was unchanged as compared to the past few quarters, and the percentage of risk-rated one and two investments, the highest ratings our portfolio companies can receive, accounted for 87% of the portfolio at fair value, down modestly from last quarter. As of year end, consistent with the prior quarter, we had investments in four portfolio companies on non-equal status, representing 2.0 and 1.2% of our total debt investments at cost and fair value, respectively. A few more updates before I turn it over to Henry. First, we are targeting the closing of our announced merger with First Eagle BDC this quarter. A couple of reminders as it relates to the transaction. One, The boards of directors of Crescent BDC and First Eagle BDC have each unanimously approved the transaction. And on March 7th, First Eagle is conducting a special meeting of its stockholders, whereby they will be asked to adopt the agreement and plan a merger. And two, the exchange ratio for the stock component of the merger consideration and the amount of cash from Crescent BDC will be determined by the respective net asset values of Crescent BDC and First Eagle BDC, and customary merger adjustments two days prior to closing. We will not be outlining additional details of the transaction on this call today, and we direct any interested investors to the proxy statement that was filed in January. We remain very excited about the acquisition, as we believe the combination provides many strategic and financial benefits to the combined company. CBDC Senior Loan Fund, our joint venture, was formally dissolved during the fourth quarter after being largely wound down in recent quarters. We redeployed the majority of the proceeds from this monetization activity, primarily into directly originated higher spread Crescent private credit opportunities. Finally, for the first quarter of 2023, our board declared a 41 cent per share quarterly cash dividend. which will be paid on April 17th, 2023 to stockholders of record as of March 31, 2023. I'd now like to turn it over to Henry to discuss our Q4 investment activity. Henry.
spk05: Thanks, Jason. Please turn to slide 15 where we highlight our recent activity. Gross deployment in the fourth quarter was $46 million. As you can see on the left-hand side of the page, over 99% was in existing senior secured first lien and unit tranche investments. In total, We closed on five add-on and several revolver and delayed draw fundings with no new portfolio company investments in the quarter. This was by design, as we believe it is prudent to prioritize deleveraging in advance of the first Eagle acquisition. That being said, the broader Crescent private credit platform remained active with over $800 million of capital committed to new portfolio investments during the fourth quarter and over $5.5 billion for the full year. The $46 million in gross deployment compares to approximately $71 million in aggregate exits, sales, and repayments in the quarter, inclusive of a final $8 million liquidating return of capital from our joint venture, which, as Jason noted, is now fully dissolved. Moving to the right-hand side of the page, you'll see that our Unitron's first lead investments have continued to become a more prominent percentage of our total portfolio, accounting for 66% of total portfolio fair value at year end. compared to 59% the year prior. Our focus on unit tranche opportunities allows us to offer even greater certainty of execution to our private equity sponsors and enables us to enhance our yield opportunity while remaining at the top of the capital stack. This has proven to be a competitive advantage, particularly in the current lending environment. Turning to slide 16, you can see that the weighted average yield over income producing securities at cost increased meaningfully quarter over quarter from 9.5% to 10.8% on the heels of the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes and is up 330 basis points year over year. As of December 31st, 99% of our debt investments at fair value were floating rate with a weighted average floor of 80 basis points, which compares to our 72% floating rate liability structure based on debt drawn with no floors. This situates us well to benefit from increases in base rates above our average floors, as is the case this quarter, with continued growth in our interest income line item. While the higher rate environment is certainly beneficial from an earnings perspective, we are also cognizant of the fact that it is generally correlated with a slower U.S. economy, which together can create more stress in the portfolio. Consistent with Crescent's track record of investing through cycles over the past 30 plus years, we believe we have constructed a portfolio that consists of companies that are adequately capitalized to address the current macroeconomic environment and have taken a proactive approach to bolstering liquidity in select situations where it may be warranted. Our credit culture focused on preservation of capital has led to a highly diversified portfolio invested largely in resilient industries. Jason reviewed several metrics related to our portfolio. A couple more worth highlighting. Using market interest rates at year-end, weighted average interest coverage for the total portfolio was 1.9 times. Additionally, the strength of our portfolio continues to benefit from the substantial amount of equity invested in our companies. The weighted average loan-to-value in the portfolio at times of underwriting was approximately 40%, which provides us a margin of safety from both an enterprise value perspective as well as capital at risk beneath our tranche that is available to support our investments. The health of the portfolio is also demonstrated by the stable weighted average portfolio grade and loan non-accrual rate. Crescent's track record of successfully managing through multiple economic and market cycles provides us with significant and relevant experience navigating what could be a challenging environment in 2023 and beyond. With that, I will now turn it over to Gerard.
spk03: Thanks, Henry, and good morning, everyone. Our adjusted net investment income per share of 49%. $0.43 per share for the fourth quarter of 2021. Total investment income of $34.6 million for the fourth quarter, the highest quarterly figure we've reported since inception, compares to $29 million for the prior quarter, representing an increase of approximately 19 percent. Importantly, what we consider recurring yield-related investment income comprised of interest income, peak income, amortization, and unused fees was up 21 percent quarter over quarter. driven by rising base rates. This recurring revenue ultimately accounted for 94 percent of this quarter's total investment income, up from 86 percent in Q4 of 2021. We've generated significant investment income in the form of fees, dividends, and accelerated amortization of OID from the El Centro portfolio over close to the last two years. having realized 136% of our cost basis with approximately $22 million of unrealized value remaining. That non-recurring income has now been replaced by recurring yield-related income from Crescent's originated assets. I'd also note that PIC income continues to represent a modest portion of our revenue at approximately 2% of total investment income. Because we're invested in a largely first lien and Unitranche-focused portfolio, having largely rotated out of legacy Alcentra names and our broadly syndicated bank loan joint venture. We expect to generate a high quality of top-line revenue, primarily consisting of recurring scheduled interest income. Turning back to this quarter's earnings, our gap earnings per share or net increase in net assets resulting from operations for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $0.08, which compares to negative $0.08 per share for the prior quarter. Our net investment income outpaced our regular dividend by 11 cents per share, which was offset by net unrealized depreciation on investments of 44 cents per share. Net realized losses were less than half a penny per share. At December 31, our stockholders' equity was $613 million, resulting in net asset value per share of $19.83 cents. as compared to $623 million, or $20.16 per share last quarter, and $652 million, or $21.12 per share at December 31, 2021. Neutralizations of $26 million in the fourth quarter coupled with unrealized mark-to-market losses on our investments ultimately led to our total investment portfolio holding roughly steady at approximate fair value of $1.3 billion as of December 31, 2022. down approximately $30 million quarter over quarter. To reiterate Henry's comments, we prioritized de-levering during Q4 in advance of the close of the first EGLE acquisition. We attributed the bulk of the quarter's NAV decline to widening credit spreads. This dynamic is evidenced by our internal portfolio ratings at the end of the fourth quarter, largely consistent with prior quarters with 87% of the portfolio rated one or two our highest rating categories. We believe this is an important distinction to highlight for shareholders in a volatile market environment. Now let's shift to capitalization and liquidity. I'm on slide 19. As of December 31, we managed our debt-to-equity ratios down to 1.08 times from 1.11 times at September 30th. The weighted average stated interest rate on our total borrowings was 6.23% as of year-end. As you can see on the right-hand side of the slide, we have a low level of debt maturities over the next few years, with 150 million maturity related to our 5.95% unsecured notes in July 2023. After that, there are no remaining term maturities until 2026. It's also worth highlighting that in January, we upsized our SMBC corporate revolving facility by $35 million to $385 million. From a liquidity perspective, as of year end, we had $225 million of undrawn capacity subject to leverage borrowing base and other restrictions, and $17 million in cash and cash equivalents. Finally, for the first quarter of 2023, our board declared a 41 cent per share quarterly cash dividend, which will be paid on April 17, 2023 to stockholders of record as of March 31, 2023. And with that, I'd like to turn it back to Jason for closing remarks.
spk06: Thanks, Gerhard. We continue to believe that CCAP remains well-positioned to navigate the economic and market uncertainty ahead. While we do anticipate further market volatility and the potential for spread widening as the cycle progresses, we feel good about our current portfolio, and we remain very excited about the First Eagle BDC transaction as we further enhance our scale and position. We'd like to thank all of you for your continued support and time today. We'd be happy to take your questions, and please understand that we may be limited in some answers due to the ongoing First Eagle transaction. And with that, operator, please open the line for questions.
spk01: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. The first question comes from Robert Dodd of Raymond James. Please go ahead.
spk02: Hi, guys. I'm going to ask you a question that sort of relates to FGRED. You talked about, obviously, you've lowered leverage ahead of that acquisition. Do you expect to be running, on a combined basis going forward, do you expect to be running lower leverage than was the case earlier? to present historically, or is that just a timing thing? Is your forward leverage range target changing as a result of the proposed acquisition?
spk06: Hey, Robert, it's Jason. Thanks for the question. Excuse me. We did intentionally delever a bit here in Q4 in anticipation of the merger, and a big driver of that is that the, if you look back at the historical FCRED balance sheet, uh, they've historically had a bit higher leverage than us. And so on a pro forma combined basis, I think we're going to end up sort of right in the middle of the, of our target leverage range, uh, that we publicly stated is kind of 1.1 to 1.4. Got it.
spk02: Thank you. Um, on, on another, on your, your deployments in the quarter, obviously it's all follow on, um, I think you said something to the effect of, you know, the portfolio companies have adequate liquidity, and in some cases, you know, it's been addressed or something like that. Were any of the follow-on, was any of the follow-on capital to the portfolio companies to pad out liquidity, or was it, you know, more normal course of business, you know, add-ons or growth or whatever? Can you give us any color around that?
spk06: Yeah, as far as the deployment in Q4, it was all normal course, getting drawn on unfunded and existing commitments that we had to our portfolio companies.
spk02: Got it. And then one more, if I can, the obvious. I mean, you gave the interest coverage based on year-end rates. I mean, how were the – how are the operating trends doing? I mean, 87% risk rating one or two, so it appears pretty stable, but can you give us any color on how the portfolio companies are actually performing on, you know, or anything like that? I mean, how are things actually trending right now?
spk06: Sure. I would say, broadly speaking, we continue to feel good about the health of the overall portfolio. The companies continue to grow on the top line and the bottom line. We have seen revenue growth outpace EBITDA or cash flow growth, which we would attribute largely to inflationary pressures and higher wages, labor market tightness, and the like. But I would say overall we are pleased with the underlying performance of the portfolio.
spk02: Thank you.
spk06: Thanks, Robert.
spk01: Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question, please press star 1 at this time. If there are no further questions at this time, I will turn the call back to Jason Rowe for closing remarks.
spk06: Okay, great. Thank you, operator. Thank you again, everyone, for your interest and support of CCAP. We look forward to speaking with you again soon.
spk01: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude our conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.
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