The Carlyle Group Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the TCG BDC Inc. Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Alison Ruderi. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to TCG BDC's third quarter 2021 earnings call. Last night, we issued an earnings press release and detailed earnings presentation with our quarterly results, a copy of which is available on TCG BDC's investor relations website. Following our remarks today, we will hold a question and answer session for analysts and institutional investors. This call is being webcast and a replay will be available on our website. Any forward-looking statements made today do not guarantee future performance, and undue reliance should not be placed on them. These statements are based on current management expectations, and they involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including those identified in the risk factor section of our annual report on Form 10-K. They could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated. TCG BDC assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements at any time. And with that, I'll turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Linda Pace.

Thank you, Alison. And good morning, everyone. And thank you all for joining us on our call this morning to discuss our third quarter 2021 results. Joining me on today's call is our Chief Investment Officer, Taylor Boswell, and our Chief Financial Officer, Tom Hennigan. I'd like to focus my remarks today on three areas. First, I'll provide an overview of this quarter's strong financial results. Second, I'll touch on the portfolio and credit highlights. And finally, I want to conclude with some thoughts on our current positioning. Let me begin with an overview of this quarter's strong financial results. We ended the quarter with net asset value per share of $16.65, up 51 cents or 3.2% from the $16.14 we reported last quarter. Notably, our NAV now sits above what we reported in the fourth quarter of 2019, the final quarter before the onset of the global health crisis. We took aggressive action to manage our portfolio throughout the pandemic. We are very pleased to see our team's hard work reflected in our results. We again generated strong earnings this quarter with net investment income of 39 cents per common share. We've declared a total dividend of 39 cents, which represents a trailing 12-month dividend yield of 10.6% on our common stock and 9% on our net asset value. In line with our dividend policy, investors can expect us to distribute substantially all of the excess income earned over our base 32-cent dividend. This quarter, we repurchased $6.8 million of our common stock, resulting in two cents of accretion to net asset value. Recently, our board of directors reapproved our stock repurchase authorization for $150 million, and at our stock's current valuation, we will continue to be purchasers of our common shares. I'll turn now to this quarter's investment activity in the portfolio. As you might imagine, given the continued strength in our markets, we posted another quarter of robust originations. We funded $270 million of new investments across an array of new and existing borrowers. Currently, the portfolio stands at just under $2 billion, and leverage remains in line with our target. As we look forward, our pipeline is healthy We are confident in our ability to source attractive investments in this market. Credit fundamentals in the portfolio remain solid, and those investments most impacted by COVID continue to demonstrate cyclical recovery. Our internal risk ratings again improved as did the performance of our watch list credits. We expect continued positive fundamental performance going forward and see opportunity in 2022 for improvements in our non-accrual investments. Finally, allow me to reflect back on the last few years at CGBD. When Taylor, Tom, and I took the helm in the second quarter of 2019, reestablishing strong investment performance was our top priority. On this front, I'm extremely pleased with the results our team has demonstrated. We've passed through a difficult cycle, and our NAV has grown across that period, while our earnings remain comfortably in excess of our base dividend. Our investment objective is the delivery of sustainable income. We have been consistently delivering against that goal. Going forward, we're fortunate to operate in attractive markets with both secular growth and strong relative investment value. But the cycle is advancing and there is ample competition. As you've heard and will continue to hear from us, our strategy to address this is to fully leverage our primary competitive advantage, the Carlyle platform. We focus our efforts on how best to use our platform to drive edge at each step of our investment process, from origination to credit to portfolio management. As we drive and deepen these initiatives, we're confident we can maintain a high degree of investment selectivity and regularly identify conviction investments, all while bringing a safe and defensive approach to portfolio construction. We will continue to focus on the long-term performance of the business, with the goal of delivering attractive dividends and NAV stability to our shareholders. I'd like to hand the call now over to our Chief Investment Officer, Taylor Boswell.