Capital Southwest Corporation

Thank you for joining today's Capital Southwest Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2022 Earnings Call. Participating on the call today are Bowen Deal, CEO, Michael Sarner, CFO, and Chris Rehberger, VP Finance. I will now turn the call over to Chris Rehberger.

Thank you. I would like to remind everyone that in the course of this call, we will be making certain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current conditions, currently available information, and management's expectations, assumptions, and beliefs. They are not guarantees of future results and are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. For information concerning these risks and uncertainties, see Capital Southwest's publicly available filings with the SEC. The company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. whether as a result of new information, future events, changing circumstances, or any other reason after the date of this press release except as required by law. I will now hand the call off to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Bowen Deal.

Thanks, Chris, and thank you to everyone for joining us for our earnings call for the quarter ended December 31, 2021, which is the third quarter of our 2022 fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2022. We are pleased to be with you this morning and look forward to giving you an update on the performance of our company, our portfolio, and our progress on executing our investment strategy as stewards of your capital. Throughout our prepared remarks, we will refer to the various slides in our earnings presentation, which can be found on our website at www.capitalsouthwest.com. We'll begin on slide six of the earnings presentation, where we have summarized some of the key performance highlights for the quarter. During the quarter, we generated pre-tax net investment income of 51 cents per share, which more than earned our regular dividend paid for the quarter of 47 cents per share. Total dividends for the quarter were 97 cents per share, which consisted of a regular dividend of 47 cents and a supplemental dividend of 50 cents per share. We are also pleased to announce that our board has declared an increase in our regular dividend per share to 48 cents for the quarter ended January. March 31, 2022, an increase of 2.1% from the 47 cents per share paid in the December quarter. This increase in our recurring regular dividend reflects the increased earnings power of our portfolio, resulting from the growth and performance of our credit portfolio and the continued reductions in our cost of capital and improvements in our operating leverage. During the quarter, acquisition and financing activity in the lower middle market was very strong, resulting in record new originations for Capital Southwest. As expected, we also saw record prepayment activity across our portfolio. On a net basis, we were able to grow our investment portfolio by 7.2% to $877 million. Portfolio growth during the quarter was driven by $268 million in commitments to 14 new portfolio companies and 12 existing portfolio companies, of which $213 million was funded at close. This was offset by $158 million in proceeds from 11 debt prepayments and one equity exit during the quarter. Notably, the equity exit was a very successful outcome as it generated a realized gain of $5.6 million and an IRR of 99.2%. As we have previously stated, our intention over time is to distribute these realized gains periodically through special dividends to our shareholders. On the capitalization front, on November 2021, we completed an add-on of $50 million in aggregate principal to our three and three-eighths October 26 notes. Furthermore, in lockstep with our strong deal pipeline, we raised $16 million of equity through our ATM program at an average price of $25.97 per share, representing an average of 159% of the prevailing net asset value per share. On slides 7 and 8, we illustrate our continued track record of producing steady dividend growth, consistent dividend coverage, and value creation since the launch of our credit strategy. We believe the solid performance of our portfolio and our company's sustained access to the capital markets has demonstrated the strength of our investment and capitalization management strategies. Maintenance and growth of both NAV per share and shareholder dividends remain as core tenants of our long-term investment objective of creating long-term value for our shareholders. Turning to slide nine, as a refresher, our investment strategy has remained consistent since its launch in January of 2015. We continue to focus on our core lower middle market lending strategy while also maintaining the ability to opportunistically invest in the upper middle market when attractive risk-adjusted returns exist. In the lower middle market, we directly originate and lead opportunities consisting primarily of first lien senior secured loans with smaller equity co-investments made alongside many of our loans. We believe that this combination is powerful for BDC as it provides strong security for the vast majority of our invested capital while also providing NAB upside from equity investments in many of these growing businesses. Building out a well-performing and granular portfolio of equity co-investments is important to driving growth in NAV per share while aiding in the mitigation of any credit losses over time. As of the end of the quarter, our equity co-investment portfolio consisted of 39 investments with a total fair value of $74.5 million, which included $17.7 million in embedded unrealized appreciation for approximately $0.74 per share. Our equity portfolio, which represented approximately 9% of our total portfolio at fair value as of the end of the quarter, continues to provide our shareholders attractive upside from growing lower middle market businesses. The successful exit of one of our lower middle market equity co-investments this quarter, which produced a realized gain of $5.6 million, is an example of the benefits of this component of our strategy. As illustrated on slide 10, Our on-balance sheet credit portfolio as of the end of the quarter, excluding our I-45 senior loan fund, grew 8% to $745 million, as compared to $689 million as of the end of the prior quarter. For the quarter, 99% of our new portfolio company debt originations were first lien senior secured, and all of the debt originations for the quarter were senior secured. Finally, as of the end of the quarter, 91% of the credit portfolio was first lien senior secured. On slides 11 and 12, we lay out the $268 million of capital invested in and committed to portfolio companies during the quarter. Capital committed this quarter included $204 million in first lien senior secured debt committed to 14 new portfolio companies, including one in which we also invested $3.3 million in second lien alongside our first lien debt. Additionally, We invested $6.4 million in equity alongside eight of our new portfolio companies. Finally, during the quarter, we also committed $54.3 million in first lien senior secured debt to nine existing portfolio companies. Turning to slide 13, we continue our track record of successful exits, with 11 debt investment exits and one equity exit during the quarter. In total, these exits generated over $158 million in total proceeds, realizing gains of 7.4 million and generating a weighted average IRR of 16.2 percent. Since the launch of our credit strategy over seven years ago, we have generated a cumulative weighted average IRR of 14.6 percent on 56 portfolio exits, representing approximately 638 million in proceeds. As previously mentioned, the market for acquisition and refinancing capital was very robust during the quarter. resulting in heavy volume in both origination and refinancing activity. Our investment pipeline, as we have mentioned on previous earnings calls, has been robust throughout 2021 in both volume and quality of deals, and the December quarter was especially so. I'm very pleased with the strong market position that our team has established in the lower middle market as a premier debt and equity capital partner. I'm especially encouraged by the increasing number of deal sources, private equity firms and otherwise, that have been cultivated where we have closed multiple transactions together. We are finding these firms are willing to be references for us as we prospect for new relationships. Additionally, it is exciting to also see the number of new deals coming in from very relevant deal sources that are new to us. As we have always contended, this broadening of our sourcing network and deal funnel is a critical component of building and maintaining a quality investment portfolio in a competitive market. On slide 14, we illustrate some key stats from our on-balance sheet portfolio as of the end of the quarter, again excluding our I-45 Senior Loan Fund. As of the end of the quarter, the total on-balance sheet portfolio at fair value was weighted 82.9% to first lien investments, 6.5% to second lien investments, 1.5% to subordinated investments, and 9.1% to equity co-investments. Turning to slide 15, we have laid out the rating migration within the portfolio. During the quarter, we had two loans upgraded from a 2 to a 1 and two loans upgraded from a 3 to a 2. We had no loans downgraded this quarter. As a reminder, all loans upon origination are initially assigned an investment rating of 2 on a 4-point scale, with 1 being the highest rating and 4 being the lowest rating. As of the end of the quarter, we had 68 loans representing approximately 95.4% of our investment portfolio at fair value rated in one of the top two categories, a one or a two. We had five loans representing 4.6% of the portfolio rated a three, and one loan representing less than 1% of the portfolio rated a four. During the quarter, we had no new loans placed on non-accrual. and one loan at a fair value of $5.2 million come off of non-accrual. As we discussed last quarter, this company successfully completed a restructuring of its balance sheet in December, which allowed us to place a portion of the original loan back on accrual this quarter. As illustrated on slide 16, our total investment portfolio continues to be well diversified across industries with an asset mix that provides strong security for our shareholders' capital. Portfolio remains heavily weighted towards first lien senior secured debt with only 6% of the portfolio in second lien senior secured debt and only 1% of the portfolio in subordinated debt. Turning to slide 17, the I-45 Senior Loan Fund continues its solid performance. As of the end of the quarter, 95% of the I-45 portfolio was invested in first lien senior secured debt. Weighted average EBITDA and leverage across the companies in the I-45 portfolio. was $72.8 million and five times respectively. The portfolio continues to have diversity among industries and an average hold size of 2.4 percent of the portfolio. Leverage at the I-45 fund level is currently 1.52 times debt-to-equity. I will now hand the call over to Michael to review more specifics of our financial performance for the quarter.

Thanks, Bowen. Specific to our performance for the December quarter, as summarized on slide 18, We earned pre-tax net investment income of $11.8 million, or 51 cents per share. We paid out 47 cents per share in regular dividends for the quarter, an increase from the 44-cent regular dividend per share paid out in the September quarter. As mentioned earlier, our board has increased the regular dividend, declaring a regular dividend of 48 cents per share for the March quarter. Maintaining a consistent track record of meaningfully covering our dividend with pre-tax NII is important to our investment strategy. We continue to maintain our strong track record of regular dividend coverage with 105 percent for the last 12 months ended December 31, 2021, and 107 percent cumulative since the launch of our credit strategy in January 2015. Our investment portfolio continues to perform well, generating $700,000 in net realized and unrealized gains this quarter, bringing the net realized and unrealized gains over the past four quarters to $12.2 million. As Bowen mentioned, going forward, we intend to periodically distribute special dividends to our shareholders as we monetize the unrealized appreciation in the portfolio. As of December 31, 2021, our estimated UTI balance was 32 cents per share. The end-of-year UTI balance excludes the $5.6 million gain on the sale of one of our equity investments this quarter, as this company was held at our taxable subsidiary. Post-Quarter N, we distributed taxable income from our taxable subsidiary to CSWC, and these proceeds are now available for distribution to our shareholders. Our investment portfolio produced $22.3 million of investment income this quarter, with a weighted average yield on all investments of 9.4%. Investment income was $2 million higher this quarter due primarily to an increase in average credit investments outstanding, as well as fees paid on debt prepayments. there were three loans on non-accrual with an aggregate fair value of $14 million, or 1.6 percent of the investment portfolio as at the end of the quarter. Our weighted average yield on our credit portfolio was 9.5 percent for the quarter. As seen on slide 19, we maintained LTM operating leverage at 2.3 percent as at the end of the quarter. We are targeting operating leverage to approach 2 percent or better in the coming quarters. Turning to slide 20, The company's NAV per share as of December 31, 2021 was $16.19 as compared to $16.36 at September 30, 2021. The driver of the NAV per share decrease was the $0.50 per share supplemental dividend that was distributed to shareholders this quarter from our UTI balance. As we have discussed on prior calls, we continue to originate assets within our SBIC subsidiary which you will see going forward denoted as SBIC 1. As a reminder, our initial equity commitment to the fund is $40 million, and we have received an initial commitment from the SBA for $40 million of fund leverage, which is also referred to as one tier of leverage. We have funded our initial $40 million of equity capital to the fund and have drawn $29 million of the initial $40 million commitment in debt capital at a weighted average interest rate of 1.43%. We have applied for our second $40 million tier of fund leverage, which we are hopeful will be approved in the coming days. Overall, we are pleased to report that our balance sheet liquidity continues to be strong, with approximately $171 million in cash and undrawn leverage commitments as of the end of the quarter. As of December 31, 2021, approximately 57% of our capital structure liabilities were unsecured, and our earliest debt maturity is in January 2026. Our regulatory leverage, as seen on slide 22, ended the quarter at a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.23 to 1. I will now hand the call back to Bowen for some final comments. Thanks, Michael.

And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Capital Southwest continues to perform well and consistent with our original vision and strategy we communicated to our shareholders when we began this journey. Our team has done an outstanding job building a robust asset base, deal origination capability, as well as a flexible capital structure that prepares us for all environments throughout the economic cycle. We believe that our performance continues to demonstrate the investment acumen of our team at Capital Southwest and the merits of our first-leaning senior secured debt strategy. We feel very good about the health of our company and portfolio, and we are excited to continue to execute our investment strategy going forward. Everyone here at Capital Southwest is totally dedicated to being good stewards of our shareholders' capital by continuing to deliver strong performance and creating long-term, sustainable value for all our stakeholders. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we are ready to open the lines up for Q&A.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Vicky Schlein with Lattenberg-Fellman. Your line is now open.

Yes, good morning, everyone. Bowen, this year, looking ahead, borrowers are probably going to see more inflation in their cost inputs like we saw last year, but they're also probably going to see the cost of their floating rate debt borrowings climb meaningfully once we get past through floors. So when you look at your portfolio and stress test it, How do you see their cash flows performing in 2022? And, you know, how concerned are you about their ability to service their debt?

Yeah, thanks for the question, Mickey. I would say, you know, it kind of starts with our original underwriting of these loans and how we stress test, you know, the fixed charge coverage across the portfolio from a lender's perspective. And there's pretty large cushions. I'm getting some feedback here. pretty large cushions from a servicing their debt perspective. And so we're not concerned about that across the portfolio. With respect to the increased – can you hear me, Mickey?

I hear you fine.

Okay. Okay, fine. As far as the companies themselves, I mean, yes, I would say that the two common themes across the portfolio we hear from companies' management teams is the rising cost of inputs, being labor, being, as most folks know from reading on the news, labor cost inflation is a big piece of it. Commodity inputs, cost increases are a big part of it. And then the other theme is just supply chain, you know, cadence and pace. And so, you know, as far as labor and cost inputs, you know, fortunately so far, you know, these businesses are growing nicely, and they are able to, you know, pass those cost inputs effectively. you know, vast majority of the costs on to their customers. But we think that trend is going to continue this year. You know, I think from a rising, again, from a rising interest cost on floating rate borrowings across the portfolio, just the level of leverage versus cash flow across our portfolio, we think there's, you know, it kind of started from how we originally underwrote the loans. There's a lot of cushion there to actually be, you know, what would have to happen before they can't service their debt, is how I'd say it.

I appreciate that, Bowen. That's good to hear. My follow-up question regards spreads. You know, there's an enormous amount of capital being injected into the upper middle market, you know, private debt market as these lenders continue to disintermediate the syndicated loan market. And obviously, they're striving down spreads in that market. How do you feel about that trend, you know, potentially trickling down into the middle market and even into the lower middle market over time and impacting the economics and the business.

Yes, I mean, that's definitely a dynamic that, you know, could continue to happen. It's happening a little bit. We don't see the big syndicated funds moving down into the middle market in droves, but we do see it some, and we certainly see a lot of capital being raised in the middle market. And so, you know, look, at the end of the day, we generate earnings off our net interest margin. And so that's obviously our asset yield and difference between our asset yield and our operating and financing costs. And so, you know, we also take advantage of the quantum of capital being wanting to invest in the middle market and lower middle market through our capital providers on the leverage side. And so, you know, as long as we can keep that net interest margin maintained, which we feel very good about that, that ultimately, you know, that's what really drives our earnings and our business model at the end of the day.

I understand. I appreciate that. Thank you for your time, Bo, and I will follow up if I have any more questions. Have a good morning.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin Fultz with JMP Securities. Your line is open.

Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. clearly Q3 was a very strong quarter for both origination activity and repayment activity, which led to solid portfolio growth. Can you give us a sense how originations are tracking so far this quarter relative to last quarter, as well as repayment activity?

Yeah, so a general comment, I mean, clearly, and you'll probably hear this across the industry as earnings come out, I mean, you know, the December quarter was very robust in just transaction activity, both from an M&A, primarily from an M&A perspective. which drove financing activity, and then obviously if we have a portfolio company that is doing a large debt-funded acquisition, then we have a chance to fund that, or if the leverage market provides a leverage package for that acquisition that's more leverage and lower yield than we're comfortable with, in many cases across our repayments, we have the opportunity to stay in the deals. and we chose to let it go and let it be refinanced just from a risk-adjusted return perspective. So that was a big flurry of activity in the December quarter. So I would tell you that activity in the March and June quarter, we would expect to be down from where it was in the December quarter. But our origination activity right now is still, from a long-term average deal flow perspective, is still strong. But it's down from a very flurried pay scale. in the December quarter last year?

Yeah, I think from a run rate perspective, I think Bo's point is right. I think we assume we're going to originate somewhere in the $60 to $75 million per quarter of new investments. We also have seen an uptick in our DDTLs or delayed draw term loans so that we see maybe $5 to $10 million being funded off of those DDTLs each quarter. and our repayment activity is somewhere in the 20 to 30 million each quarter. So, net, we look to see, you know, somewhere in the 30 to 50 million of net growth per quarter as a general run rate.

Yeah, so our repayment activity is down as well. So, you know, and so I think Michael's comments are right.

Okay, that's really helpful. And then a question relating to interest rate sensitivity. Could you provide the weighted average LIBOR floor for floating rate investments and also what percent of floating rate investments contain interest rate floors?

Yeah, so the floor is about 1.1 on the weighted basis. And I would say it's close to 100% have a floor in them. The range would be between 75 basis points and 2%. But, again, almost all of them is weighted towards one at this point. So 1.1 is really the bogey.

Got it. And thank you for taking my questions, and congrats on a strong quarter. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bryce Rowe of Hovde Group. Your line is now open.

Great. Thanks. Maybe Bowen just wanted to follow up on some of the comments you just made about, you know, having the ability to possibly participate in deals or in refinancing and choosing not to do that. Can you speak to kind of maybe what's driving the decision to not participate in some of the opportunities?

Yeah, let's just – I'll just throw out a hypothetical example, right? So we do our original – we lend to a company, you know, let's say three times EBITDA. And a year later, a year and a half later, you know, company's grown, it's performed well, they're going to do a large acquisition. And we lend at like 700 basis points over LIBOR, LIBOR plus 700. That's my – that's an example. A year later, they do a large acquisition, and because it's more diverse and, you know, a bunch of reasons, the market – is willing to lend them five times even, duh, at LIBOR plus 600. That's a different, so at that point we can decide whether five times leverage on admittedly a better business at LIBOR 600 is a risk-adjusted return that we're willing to invest in. And sometimes, you know, not that the company's a bad company, but it's got risks in it that we've lived and seen kind of play out that, you know, three times leverage, that's fine. At five times leverage and level 600, we just opt to not participate. So that would be an example of, and again, most of the time that's happening in doing an acquisition where they're going out to the market with a larger credit facility, higher leverage, on admittedly a better company, but the leverage is higher and the pricing is lower than we would think is appropriate for the risk of that situation. So that would be a situation where we would just say, you know what, candidly, in most of these situations, we have equity in investment too, so we're like, go for it. On the equity, we love it, but we think the credit risk, we could find risk for adjusted returns in the lower middle market on our credit book somewhere else. And so that's a decision we have to make.

from time to time. We're also looking down the road, Bryce. We talked about net interest margin, I think Bowen mentioned earlier. We really monitor to make certain that we're tracking towards an NII ROE of 11.5%. So when we're looking at individual investments, we're also looking to see what it is in terms of portfolio turnover. This quarter, 12-31, we saw 20% of our portfolio turn over. And so some of those were higher-yielding assets, and we originated some slightly lower yield. Our portfolio leverage went from 4.1 down to 3.9. So to some extent, these are safer credits. But when we're looking to see, making certain that we're able to produce a growing dividend over time, we're monitoring that yield on an asset-by-asset basis to make certain it fits into our strategy going forward. And so some of these credits, to Bowen's point, will fall beneath the threshold, and if the risk-reward doesn't make sense, we'll move on from it. Understood.

And then a follow-up to that topic. any kind of rush to exit the standalone equity investments now, or is it just going to be kind of opportunistic in terms of how that business and that sponsor relationship kind of plays out?

Yeah, so, I mean, keep in mind, I mean, the vast majority of those equity co-investments are alongside an institutional private equity firm that's managing their own liquidity. And so they buy a company, they grow it, and they sell the company. And so, you know, so we ride side saddle with that dynamic. And so obviously those PE firms don't get their carry payments until they sell the companies. And so they need to grow on it and they need to exit them. So we feel pretty good about that portfolio over the next, you know, small number of years, you know, monetizing alongside that liquidity curve, if you will, of those private equity firms.

Okay. And then, Michael, kind of a question for you on the comp line. Any help you can give us? Obviously, it went up. I assume that's a function of a performance accrual getting baked in here for the December quarter, but any kind of thoughts around that would be helpful.

Sure, sure. So for this quarter, I would tell you, looking at it holistically, we had about $2 million in revenue this quarter. That was essentially one time in nature. And our bonus accrual for the quarter was about $1.4 million above our normal run rate. So essentially, it was about $600,000 of one-time income or net income or $0.03. So I think that, you know, when we look at our performance to date for the year and where we're tracking for the full fiscal year 2022, you know, we did accrue a bonus above the target commensurate with the performance so far of our staff. Okay.

Okay. Appreciate the answers. Thanks, Bryce.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sarkis Serbetchen with B Raleigh Securities. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, and thank you for taking my question here. Just wanted to start off with a question regarding, you know, the opportunities or the field of opportunities. You know, if it's changed so far in the first month of January, given the potential acceleration and the shift in the interest rate regime, if you can comment on that, please.

I don't know that, you know, yeah, by your question, can you hear me?

Saqib? I can hear you. Can you guys hear me?

Yes, we can. So as far as the opportunity set, the deals we're looking at, I don't know that I would say they've changed as it relates to the interest rate scheme, which I think is your question. You know, I think that, I mean, honestly, the drivers of the business sales and investment opportunities that we're seeing in the markets are really kind of very similar themes as they were in the December quarter. Just the quantum of activity is lower than the December quarter. But the themes are the same. And so hopefully that answers your question. We haven't seen the interest rate regime change narrative from the Fed affecting our deal activity.

Got it. That's helpful. And I guess if we can kind of touch on the SBIC side of the business, you know, obviously a very attractive cost of capital proposition for you. Any ideas or any help on the glide path to filling that capacity that you have on the SBA side?

Yeah, sure. I would tell you, you know, looking ahead, we would expect to see probably – Maybe two-thirds of the deals get funded through the SBIC and the other third through ING and equity, ING being a revolving credit facility. So today we have, as of 12-31, I think we had drawn $29 million of debt. We're going to receive our leverage application for the following 40, likely this week. And we would probably expect to have drawn somewhere in the $75 to $100 million in the next you know, 12 to 15 months is probably where I'd place it.

Great. Thanks for that. And just one final one for me. You know, clearly the earnings power of the business is starting to march higher and you're, you know, raising the dividend to, it seems like, reflect that. I think as we kind of look at the earnings power kind of going forward and, you know, based on the commentary you provided for net originations continuing, is it reasonable to think that you'd continue to kind of walk the dividend higher at the same pace you've demonstrated?

So, the answer to the question is we will. We do anticipate increasing the dividend. I would say as LIBOR slash SOFR increases with the Fed, you know, announcing, you know, three to four price hikes or rate hikes in the next year, you know, that'll be some level of compression. Still, NII and the dividend should grow. I think once we get beyond those, you know, the next 75 basis points of hikes, then you'll see, you know, significant expansion. So maybe, you know, from here, maybe as much as two dividend increases potentially for the year, though we're not setting that in stone, but that would be the hope.

Yeah, I would say the rate increases are a headwind, but the tailwinds have to do with improved operating leverage, as well as cost of capital effect of layering in the SBIC. So you have some gives and takes. So it's not all negative. We've got some tailwinds as well. So we're kind of managing the balance between those two dynamics. Right.

And currently we have 60% of our liabilities are fixed, and we think that will grow as the SBIC gets drawn. And so absolutely, Bowen's comment is correct.

Fantastic. That's all for me. Thank you. Thanks, sir.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Robert Dodd with Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Hi, guys, and congratulations on the quarter, both earnings and net capital deployed. First, a question on credit. Your credit's in really good shape, but last quarter, non-accords were $24 million. This quarter, they're $14 million. It's the same number. You said, you know, $5 million came off because of restructuring. I think another $2 million was your Category 4 asset. We know which one that is. That leaves, you know, with the other $3 million in write-downs on non-accruals, can I assume that came from the affiliate investment, which is the only other non-accrual, the affiliate investment in healthcare? Or was there anything else going on with that? less than a handful of molecules you've got left.

Yeah, it was reduction in one of the companies that are non-accrual. So two of the companies on non-accrual had significant depreciation, and the other had been, as you mentioned, Envacor coming off of non-accrual.

Yeah, got it. Going back to kind of the pricing power question in this environment, rates up, commodities up, labor costs up, I mean, But some of your industry segments, I think, clearly have a lot of pricing power. I mean, transportation and logistics are 4% of your portfolio. It's probably got a lot of pricing power in this environment, given the constraints and things like that. Are there any sectors within the portfolio, and you don't have a lot of concentration, but are there any sectors in the portfolio where you're incrementally more worried about... whether they can exercise the pricing power versus others like, I guess, transportation and logistics, where I'd be less worried, but maybe I'm wrong.

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think there's a range of pricing power across the different industries. I would say, you know, good news, I guess the slight good news is, you know, Misery deserves company in the sense that, you know, when these inputs are happening to all of your competitors, you know, in a certain sector, it's easier to pass those costs on to your customers if all of your competitors also have to do the same thing. So I think that's been a major, I guess, benefit, or certainly a benefit in defending these portfolio companies against margin deterioration at the end of the day. But certainly transportation logistics would be one. Healthcare might have a different dynamic You know, consumer products, retail have another dynamic, right? And so, you know, varying levels. But I think, again, when it's across, take any of the industry sectors, when that inflation is across the entire sector, you know, then it's obviously easier to pass those costs on to your customer, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, understood. And one more, if I can, I think, Michael, you mentioned that – delayed draw term loans are being accessed at a greater rate. Obviously, companies have got to borrow, they've got to hit milestones, et cetera, or whatever before they can do that. But can you identify or qualitatively maybe tell us how much of that the DDTL draws are for add-on acquisitions, can you tell versus are they using them for growth or to support working capital? Can you give us any color on kind of what's driving that if you have the data?

Yeah, Robert, the strong majority of DDTLs are for acquisition strategies, you know, with you know, a minority, but a significant minority of them being for, like, earn-out payments, you know, where a company's bought and the founder, you know, the sponsor's negotiated a maybe slightly lower purchase price, but the founder's willing to take risk on the upside and get paid for increased performance. And so, obviously, you know, we want them to hit those earn-outs, right, because that means, by definition, the business is doing well. If the economy falters or whatever, those earn-outs – you know, the vast majority of the cases won't fund, right? So we want those to fund. We do have very specific restrictions on leverage levels, et cetera, on how that earn out is going to be paid. You know, a $10 million earn out might be paid $5 million for the delayed draw and $5 million equity contribution from the equity owner. So we have those restrictions on a company-by-company basis. But the vast, I mean, the strong majority of the time it's acquisition strategy.

We monitor, just I guess also from the capital side, like we monitor, we have I think 158 million in DDTLs and revolvers. And, you know, we've done, we follow closely the utilization of these facilities. You know, what we've seen, you know, our revolvers, the 60 million revolvers, historically revolvers are net draws of zero. The only time that we've seen An uptick was during the first wave of COVID, which would have been March and April of 2020, where we saw about a third of our portfolio draw their revolvers and then pay it back down. And then on the DDTL side, from that balance, those are all expiration dates in 2022 and 2023. And we've seen historical maybe, you know, 50% of these get drawn. And so we monitor that and make certain that we're planning for our capital planning to assume for this level of draws in our portfolios.

So just to clarify in the last one, you're assuming currently in the capital planning, et cetera, and you've got plenty of capital, so I'm not worried about that, the historic average amount of DCTLs will be drawn over their life or given the fact that so many assets seem to be doing quite well, which we're seeing with equity appreciation, et cetera, which can trigger more you know, more earnouts, for example? Are you assuming that a greater than average proportion of DDTLs are going to get drawn?

We're assuming that half of these DDTLs get drawn and less for earnouts, as Bowen noted, more for acquisition and growth.

Yeah.

Yeah. Got it. Understood.

Thank you.

Thank you. Understood. This concludes the Q&A portion. I'd like to hand the conference back over to Bowen Deal for closing comments.

Thanks, Operator. Thanks, everybody, for joining the call. Appreciate the good questions, as always. And we look forward to continuing to give you updates quarterly as we move forward. And have a great rest of the week.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes the conference call. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a wonderful day.