Carlyle Secured Lending, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Carlisle Secured Lending, Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference 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 this session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising you your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Nishil Mehta, Head of Shareholder Relations. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Carlyle Secured Lending Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. I'm joined by Alex Chi, CGBD's Chief Executive Officer, and Tom Hennigan, our President and Chief Financial Officer. Last night, we filed our Form 10-Q and issued a press release with a presentation of our results. which are available on the investor relations section of our 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. Today's earnings call may include forward-looking statements reflecting our views with respect to, among other things, our future operating results and financial performance. Any forward-looking statements made today do not guarantee future performance. An undue reliance should not be placed on them. These statements are based on current management expectations, estimates, and projections that involve inherent risk and uncertainties, including those identified in the risk factors and cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements sections of our 10-K and 10-Qs. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in our forward-looking statements. CGPD assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements at any time. During this call, the company may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G, such as adjusted net investment income or adjusted NAI. The company's management believes adjusted net investment income, adjusted net investment income per common share, adjusted net income, and adjusted net income per common share are useful to investors as additional tools to evaluate ongoing results and trends and to review our performance without giving effect to the amortization or accretion resulting from the new cost basis of the investments acquired and accounted for under the acquisition method of accounting in accordance with ASC 805 and the one-time purchase or non-recurring investment income and expense events, including the effects on incentive fees and are used by management to evaluate the economic earnings of the company. A reconciliation of GAAP net investment income per share, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure to adjusted NII per common share can be found in the accompanying slide presentation for this call that is available on our website. In addition, a reconciliation of these measures may also be found in our earnings press release filed last night with the SEC on Form 8K. With that, I'll turn the call over to Alex.

Thanks, Nishil, and good morning. On today's call, I'll give an overview of our second quarter results, including the quarter's investment activity and portfolio positioning and provide an update on our investment outlook. I'll then hand the call over to our president and CFO, Tom Hennigan. During the second quarter, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors led to a complicated market backdrop for new deal activity. However, we continue to be very pleased with the strength of Carlisle Direct Lending's origination platform and the consistent credit performance of CGPD. In total, we closed $1.5 billion of new and incremental commitments at the platform level and excluding joint venture activity funded $248 million of investments at CGVD, reflecting a strong quarter of originations. Our platform originations were up over 20% versus the first quarter, while platform selectivity continued to increase with a commitment rate on second quarter pipeline deals of less than 5%. On our new originations, Waded average spreads held steady in line with first quarter, while weighted average leverage on entry continued to decrease. Our enhanced origination team continued to drive several wins, and Carlisle played a lead role in nearly 90% of platform originations. Repayments decreased in the quarter with $68 million of activity. Combined with $123 million in sales to our MMCF joint venture and $50 million of equity fundings at SEP, Net investment activity drove total investments at CGVD to increase from $2.3 billion to $2.4 billion during the quarter. Moving to our investment funds, both of our JVs, MMCF and SEP, continue to scale and generate attractive returns to CGVD. Total investments at our MMCF joint venture increased to $1.2 billion, with the annualized dividend yield increasing by over 200 basis points to 17.6% in the quarter. At SEP, the portfolio grew to $1.7 billion and produced an annualized dividend yield of 18.7% to CGVD. During the quarter, we generated $0.35 per share of net investment income on both a GAAP and adjusted basis. In line with our revised dividend policy, our board of directors declared a third quarter dividend of $0.35 per share which is fully covered by net investment income in the quarter. Our net asset value as of June 30th was $15.61 per share compared to $15.89 per share as of March 31st. Although the market remains focused on the software sector, we continue to see strong fundamental performance from the software borrowers in our book. As I've mentioned in prior quarters, our underwriting approach to borrowers in the software space remains highly disciplined Our platform's software track record is exemplary, with zero defaults on $7 billion in commitments to software deals over the last six years. Turning to portfolio construction, we remain focused on portfolio diversification while managing target leverage. As of June 30, our portfolio grew to 177 companies across more than 25 industries. The average exposure to any single portfolio company was less than 60 basis points of total investments and 95% of our investments were in senior secured loans. The median EBITDA across our portfolio was $101 million. As always, discipline and consistency drove performance in the second quarter and we expect these tenants to drive performance in future quarters. Looking ahead, despite the complicated market backdrop mentioned earlier, We continue to expect strong activity in our market over the medium and long term, and we're well positioned with a revitalized origination platform to take advantage of increasing market activity and to continue taking share. Looking at our pipeline, a significant majority of deals continues to be in old economy sectors, including industrials, aerospace and defense, healthcare, and consumer products. As manager performance dispersion increases, We expect the breadth of the Crawlout platform and the consistency of our performance to differentiate us through our ability to leverage Crawlout's scale, scope of investment capabilities, and dedicated in-house investing, portfolio management, and restructuring resources. With that, I'll now hand the call over to our President and CFO, Tom Hennigan.