Crescent Capital BDC, Inc.

please press star one again. I will now turn the call over to Dan, Head of the Ministry of Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Crescent Capital BDC Inc's fourth quarter and year-ended December 31st, 2024 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. Yesterday, after the market closed, the company issued its earnings press release for the fourth quarter and year-ended December 31st, 2024, and posted a presentation to the IR section of its website at www.crescentbdc.com. 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 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. I'll start today's call by highlighting our fourth quarter results. Follow that with some thoughts on our investment approach and touch on our portfolio. terms of fourth quarter earnings we reported nii of 55 cents per share which translates into an annualized nii return on equity of 11 percent the 55 cents compares to 64 cents in the prior quarter and 61 cents in the fourth quarter of 2023 this quarter's nii decline was driven by the impact of a lower investment portfolio yield as base rates at the end of 2024 were roughly 100 basis points lower than where they were at the end of 2023. Additionally, lower levels of non-recurring income in the fourth quarter impacted this quarter's results, as Gerhard will touch on. We have prioritized base dividend coverage since CCAP's inception, and we note that our NII is well in excess of our base dividend at 131% coverage in the fourth quarter. Our net asset value decreased 22 cents to $19.98 per share in the quarter, driven primarily by changes in unrealized marks. On a year-over-year basis, our NAV per share was down 0.3%. 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 year with approximately $1.6 billion of investments at fair value across a highly diversified portfolio of 185 companies with an average investment size of approximately 0.5% of the total portfolio. Our top 10 largest borrowers represented 15% of the portfolio as we are believers in modulating credit risk through position size, which we believe has served Crescent well in previous credit cycles. We have deliberately maintained an investment portfolio that consists primarily of first lien loans, collectively representing 90% of the portfolio at fair value at year end, unchanged from the prior quarter. We continue to focus our investing efforts on noncyclical 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 of year end. Please turn to slide 17, which shows the trends in internal performance ratings. Overall, we have been pleased with the fundamental performance of our portfolio. Our weighted average portfolio grade of 2.1 remains stable quarter over quarter. On the right-hand side of the slide, you'll see that one and two rated investments, Representing names that are performing at or above our underwriting expectations continue to represent the lion's share or 87% of our portfolio at fair value. The yellow segment of the chart, which represents our four and five rated investments, remains a de minimis portion of our portfolio at less than 1% of fair value. Where we did see an increase quarter over quarter was our three rated investments. I would stress that our philosophy is to be proactive with our portfolio companies. We don't want to be slow in anticipating challenges or potential obstacles that warrant heightened focus. We do not, for example, wait until there is a covenant breach before moving an investment that may be experiencing headwinds down the risk rating scale. In Q4, we added seven names to the watch list, collectively marked at 97% of their combined cost basis. We 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 below the industry average. As of year end, non-accruals represented 0.9% of total debt investments at fair value and 2.2% of cost, respectively. Moving on to our dividend. We declared a first quarter 2025 regular dividend at $0.42 per share. CCAP has been paying stable or increasing regular quarterly base dividends since its inception in 2015. This dividend is payable on April 15, 2025, to stockholders of record as of March 31. We also announced a series of special dividends. Given the measurement test that we applied to our supplemental dividend, we have not declared a supplemental distribution of our excess NII this quarter. Gerhard will provide additional details on both in the latter part of our prepared remarks. I'd now like to turn it over to Henry to discuss the market, our Q4 investment activity, and the portfolio. Henry.