Crescent Capital BDC, Inc.

Good day everyone and welcome to the third quarter 2024 Crescent Capital BDC Inc earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later you'll have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing the star and 1 on your telephone keypad. Please note today's call will be recorded and we will be standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn today's conference over to Dan McMahon.

Good morning, and welcome to Crescent Capital BDC, Inc.' 's third quarter and its September 30, 2024 earnings conference call. Please note that Crescent Capital BDC 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. This morning before the market opened, The company issued its earnings press release for the third quarter, ended September 30th, 2024, 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-Q filed this morning with the SEC. As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. Speaking on today's call will be CCAP's Chief Executive Officer, Jason Breaux, President Henry Chung and Chief Financial Officer Gerhard Lombard. With that, I'd now like to turn it over to Jason.

Thank you, Dan. Hello, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. I'll start today's call by highlighting our third quarter results. Follow that with some thoughts on our investment approach and touch on our portfolio. This morning, we reported another quarter of solid earnings with continued strong credit performance across the portfolio. Net investment income, or NII, was $0.64 per share, which translates into an annualized NII return on equity of 12.6%. With our earnings again well in excess of the regular dividend, our board has declared a supplemental dividend for the second quarter of $0.07 per share. When coupled with our previously declared regular dividend of $0.42 per share, this equates to an approximately 10% annualized dividend yield on September 30, 2024 NAV. Our net asset value decreased 10 cents to 2020 per share in the quarter, driven primarily by net unrealized marks running through the portfolio. Earhard will touch on this in more detail. On a year-over-year basis, our NAV per share is up 2.5%. Let's shift gears and discuss the investment portfolio. Please turn to slides 13 and 14 of the presentation, which highlight certain characteristics of our portfolio. We ended the quarter with approximately $1.6 billion of investments at fair value across a highly diversified portfolio of 183 companies with an average investment size of approximately 0.5% of the total portfolio. We have deliberately maintained an investment portfolio that consists primarily of first lien loans, collectively representing 90% of the portfolio at fair value at quarter end, unchanged from the prior quarter. We continue to focus our investing efforts on non-cyclical industries and remain well diversified across 20 broad industry categorizations. Our investments are almost entirely supported by well-capitalized private equity sponsors, with 99% of our debt portfolio in sponsor-backed companies as a quarter end. We have been pleased with the fundamental performance of our portfolio, as indicated by our stable performance ratings and non-accrual levels. Our weighted average portfolio grade of 2.1 remains stable quarter over quarter, and on slide 17, you will see that the percentage of risk-rated one and two investments, the highest ratings our portfolio companies can receive, accounted for 90% of the portfolio at fair value, up modestly from 89% in the prior quarter. As we've seen credit dispersion begin to emerge, with certain peers experiencing growing levels of watch list and non-equal names, We continue to believe that our tenure in the direct lending space, robust investment process, and focus on the core and lower middle market will continue to drive strong credit performance for CCAP. We continue to lead the majority of our transactions, drive stringent documentation, and maintain our underwriting focus on strong cash flow generating companies. All of this has led to a portfolio today that has non-accruals well below the industry average. As a quarter end, we had investments in five portfolio companies on non-accrual status, representing 1.7 and 0.9% of our total debt investments at cost and fair value, respectively. I'd now like to turn the call over to Henry to discuss the market, our Q3 investment activity, and the portfolio. Henry.