Gladstone Investment Corporation

Greetings. Welcome to Gladstone Investment's first quarter earnings call. This time, all participants will be in listen-only mode. In question and answer session, we'll follow the formal presentation. If anyone today should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to David Gladstone, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Gladstone, please go ahead.

All right. Thank you, Rob. Nice introduction. This is David Gladstone, chairman of the Gladstone Investment. This is the first quarter for fiscal year 2023. It ended June 30, 2022. Earnings and conference calls for shareholders and analysts. And Gladstone Investment is listed on NASDAQ under the trading symbol GAIN. And that's for the common stock. And we have two preferred stocks. One is GAINN. and the other is GAINS. Thank you all for calling in. We're always happy to provide updates to our shareholders and to the analysts that follow our stock. This would give you some idea of the current business environment that we're in, as well as what we've done for the past quarter. So now I'm going to turn it over to our general counsel, Michael Lacalce, and he'll give you the things that he has to talk about

Thanks, David. Good morning, everybody. Today's call may include forward-looking statements under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including those regarding our future performance. Now, these forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties and other factors, even though they're based on our current plans, which we believe to be reasonable. And many factors may cause our actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements, including all the risk factors listed on Forms 10Q, 10K, and other documents that we filed with the SEC. You can find these on the Investors page of our website, gladstoneinvestment.com. You can go to the SEC's website, that's sec.gov. And we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Please also note that past performance or market information is not a guarantee of any future results. We ask everybody to visit our website, once again, gladstoneinvestment.com, sign up for our email notification service. You can also find us on Twitter, at Gladstone Comps, and on Facebook, keyword there is the Gladstone Companies. Today's call is an overview of our results through 6-30-2022, so we ask that you review our press release, and Form 10-Q, both issued yesterday, for more detailed information. Let's turn it over to David Dullem, President of Gladstone Investment. Dave?

David Dullem Hey, Mike. Thanks very much. And good morning again for everyone on the call. And we are really feeling good and pleased to report that GAIN did produce very good results for this first quarter of the fiscal year 23. And that's following on from the previous pretty solid fourth quarter that we had, fourth quarter of fiscal year 22. These results, I really believe, reflect on the stability and the strength of our portfolio companies, given that we certainly have, as a lot of other folks, these continuing challenges such as inflationary costs and supply chain disruptions affecting a number of our portfolio companies. We actually ended this first quarter on 6-30-22 with adjusted NII of $0.25 per share. Total assets of about $743 million, which is up slightly from about $740 million at the 3-31-22 quarter. The good news, too, the quarter was quite busy, certainly from a deal activity standpoint. We ended up making one new buyout investment of $21 million, which was right at the quarter end, literally on June 30th. And then subsequently, though, like the next day, let's say the first week of July, we made a further investment to that, so this was all planned, further investment of about $39.1 million in the equity to acquire a company called DEMA Plumbing, and we therefore created what is now a new portfolio company called DEMA My. So even though some of that activity ended up literally at the right end of the quarter, the balance of it was at the immediate beginning of the following quarter. During the quarter, though, we also made an investment of about $6.4 million for an add-on acquisition to another one of our existing portfolio companies, and that was planned because that's one of those sort of platform investments that we have, and we'll keep growing that platform. And then we also successfully exited one of our portfolio companies, meaning generating both capital gains and incomes. We did maintain our monthly distribution to shareholders at 7.5 cents per share or 90 cents per share on an annual basis, and we also paid a supplemental distribution of 12 cents per share, and that was in June of 2022. We certainly anticipate being able to continue funding these future supplemental distributions as we do recognize realized capital gains on the equity portion of our portfolio as we make future exits. We are pleased that our buyout focus strategy continues successfully generating both income for these monthly distributions to shareholders, as well as certainly the capital gains on the equity, which allows us to make these supplemental distributions. We do continue to experience improving valuations at most of our portfolio companies, and it really is important, I've said before, to note that the impact of the changes in equity values, certainly relative to the debt security values of our portfolio, is important because there is a high correlation to the overall portfolio value given that approximately 27.1% of our assets at cost are equity securities generally at most quarter ends. And that, again, is part of our strategy. Our balance sheet continues to be strong with very low leverage, a very positive liquidity position with significant availability on our credit facility with our syndicate of banks. And as of 6.30, we had no outstanding balance on that credit facility. This allows us to continue providing support to our portfolio companies for add-on acquisitions and any interim financing if the need does arise, while obviously actively seeking new buyout opportunities and thereby growing our assets. Looking forward, there does seem to be some moderation of buyout values. The market, though, is still very competitive. Deal flow and buyout opportunities are strong. And as a result, we have to remain patient and selective in our due diligence and our review process, while, of course, obviously aggressively seeking new acquisitions. That's the day-in and day-out slog for our team. Subsequent to and very shortly after 6-30-22, we also invested $30 million and recapitalized our investment in one of our portfolio companies, which is called Horizon Facility Services. So we did not exit this company. It's a very good business. We actually did this recapitalization. This will have a positive impact on our current quarter and it did result in recognizing dividend and success fee income of $4.8 million, a realized gain of $2.2 million, a return of some preferred equity investment of $10.1 million, and thereby, once the dust has settled, increased our investment in horizon to $57.7 million. So again, even though this occurred shortly after 6.30 p.m., The impact of what I just mentioned will be on the current quarter that we're in, does not impact the quarter just ended. So in summing up the quarter and looking forward, we believe the state of our portfolio is very good. We have a strong and liquid balance sheet, an active level of buyout activity, and continued prospect, we believe, of good earnings and distributions over the next year. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to our CFO, Rachel Easton, and she can give you a bit more detail. Rachel?

Thanks, Dave, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with a summary of the fund's operating performance for the quarter ended June 30th, 2022. In the first quarter of the fiscal year 2023, we generated adjusted NII of 8.3 million or 25 cents per share. This was a decrease of 8.7 million from 8.7 million or 26 cents per share in the prior quarter. We continue to believe that adjusted net investment income, which is net investment income exclusive of any capital gains-based incentive fees, is a useful and representative indicator of ongoing operations. Total investment income increased quarter-over-quarter to $19.3 million from $19.2 million, primarily due to an increase in dividend and success fee income in the current quarter. For comparative purposes, in the prior quarter, we did collect some past due interest income from a portfolio company that was previously on non-accrual status. No such collection took place in the current quarter. Consistent with prior quarter at 6-30-2022, three of our portfolio companies were on non-accrual status. We are working closely with those companies and currently anticipate one company is on track to be off non-accrual in the near term. Net expenses decreased by 0.6 million this quarter compared to the prior quarter, which was primarily driven by a decrease in accrued capital gains-based incentive fees due to the net impact of realized and unrealized gains as required under U.S. GAAP, and this is partially offset by an increase in estimated excise taxes. We believe maintaining liquidity and flexibility to support and grow our portfolio are key elements to our success. We have long-term capital in place and at 630 have the full availability under our credit facility. Our leverage is low with an asset coverage ratio at 630, 2022 of 261.9%. Our NAV per share remained fairly consistent at $13.44 per share at 630. This is compared to 1343 per share at 331, 2022. The increase was primarily due to $12.5 million of unrealized depreciation of investments, $7.4 million of net investment income, and $4.5 million of realized gains on investments. These amounts were partially offset by $12.3 million related to the reversal of unrealized depreciation on exits and $11.5 million of distributions paid to common shareholders. Consistent with prior quarters, distributable book earnings to shareholders remain strong. Assuming the current monthly distribution run rate of $0.90 per share per year and 12 cents per share in supplemental distributions that have been paid to date, noting that this only represents the amount paid during the first quarter of this fiscal year and may not be indicative of what is ultimately declared for the year. Our fiscal year distributions would total $1.02 per common share or yield about 6.9% using yesterday's closing price of $14.87. This covers my part of today's call. I'll send it back to you, David.

All right. Thank you very much. Very nice report, Rachel, and a good one from Dave and Michael, this information to our shareholders. That presentation, combined with the 10-Q filed with the SEC yesterday, should bring everybody up to date. We're in a great position to move forward. The team has reported solid results for the quarter ending, including a new buyout investment and an exit. We believe the team is in great position to continue these successes through the remainder of our fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. As I say every time, we believe Gladstone investment is an attractive investment for investors seeking continuous monthly distributions and supplemental distributions from potential capital gains and other income. The team hopes to continue to show your strong returns on the investment of our fund Now let's have Rob come on, and we can get some questions from our analysts and shareholders.

Thank you, Mr. Gladstone. We'll now be conducting the question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. We have a question coming from the line of Mickey Schein with Leidenberg-Zellman. Please proceed with your question. I'm sorry about the technical issue there. Please go ahead, sir.

Dave, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Good morning, everyone. I just want to start out by congratulating you, Dave, and your team on a really good quarter in what's been a pretty dismal quarter for the BDC sector in general. Dave, I just have one high-level question I wanted to ask you, given your long experience in the buyout sector. We're experiencing this volatility in the economic environment that we haven't seen in a long time and I'm curious how you're seeing the pipeline develop and how buyers and potential sellers are behaving and whether that's going to be a tailwind for you or is it going to be more of a headwind?

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, it's interesting. I feel right now compared to, let's say, roll the clock back three, four months ago when we all obviously believed and felt like we're in somewhat of a either certainly recessionary type or certainly somewhat of a slowdown. We certainly see that through some of our portfolio companies and all the stuff we read and obviously the inflationary costs. Having said that, we saw kind of an activity level that was ramping up on the buyout side. It feels right now, based on our pipeline and what we're looking at, like it's slowing down a bit. But honestly, I will tell you that we have seen and we're working on three or four really good companies as add-on acquisitions. And frankly, we did not get there in the final analysis because of valuation. So that says that there are still folks out there, as I sort of alluded to, that are, you know, willing to pay up for companies at multiples that truthfully we feel are a little bit aggressive, given all, as you say, what I do think are clearly going to be headwinds for the, you know, for the results of most of the types of companies that we look at. And, you know, you don't have to have much of a headwind to knock off a million or two million of EBITDA off of a 10 to 15 million EBITDA company and obviously have an impact on valuation, you know, going forward and certainly returns. So I guess my way of saying it is I think that it's going to be a bit of a headwind. And I think I would expect that we might see some moderation in valuations going forward. And to the extent, though, that our model fit some of those kinds of deals. And because again, we bring our own capital, we have a bit more flexibility than a typical buyout fund that's going to go and raise the capital and the leverage from banks might get tighter, frankly, and obviously more expensive, that that might give us a bit of an advantage. Is there a huge advantage? I'm not sure because I still think there is aggressiveness in the buyout funds wanting to just get deals done, truthfully. So Long way of saying it, as of right now, I'd say it's more of a neutral to potentially a slight opportunity for us looking forward.

And, Dave, to follow up, just thinking in terms of the seller's mentality, I'm curious whether, you know, all the volatility we're seeing is causing some of them to say, you know, I'm at a certain age. I built this business. I'm tired of dealing with problems. You know, is this a catalyst? or time to sell? And secondly, are they being realistic in terms of their ask, or is the bid-ask spread just still really, really wide, and it's tough to discover the right price to get a deal done?

Yeah, I know. I think for family-type businesses and where you might have a couple of people that do own it, I think there is some of what you're saying. I think they look forward and see that, you know, they've come off, obviously, and some companies really got a big boost from COVID, which is probably one of the biggest things issues, right? You look at some of these companies and you look at their history, you roll it back to 18, 2018, 2019, which we obviously do because end of 19, 2020, and even some of 21 is just not realistic, right? So where you find, I think, your point that the contrast in bid-ask spreads to some degree, comes from the negotiation over, well, you've got this big COVID boost, and it's not going to be true in going forward in 2022. And by the way, some of the games that these sellers are playing, and obviously, I don't mean this in a bad way, the investment banks who are working for them obviously urge them They do these adjustments to EBITDA and pro forma, and what they're trying to do is say, look, you know what? We had these expenses to do with increased container costs, as an example, or shipping costs, and they try to build that back in to the EBITDA and say, you know, you normalize that. It's not as bad as it looks, right? So therein lies, yes, some effort on the seller side to get out currently, and then at the same time, you know, the pushback from the buy side on those unrealistic kinds of numbers. So yeah, it's a bit of both of those, and that's why I say I think going forward, the really good companies, the better companies that have gone through this period, we'll still hold it pretty well. We'll probably still get pretty good valuations. We have some of those ourselves, frankly. And we're kind of getting a sense of what it looks like from the buy side where we're on the sell side. And, you know, if the companies are solid, managements are good, they're still going to get a pretty decent relative valuation because there is a demand out there for good companies to acquire.

Yeah, I understand. Dave, my last question. I mean, the Fed to tackle inflation is just going to have to you know, meaningfully impact the consumer given how much, you know, discretionary spending or consumer spending in general represents as a percentage of our GDP. How exposed is your portfolio to that end market? And, you know, do you have any concerns about weakness in the consumer for the rest of this year and next year?

Yeah, clearly we have a portion of our portfolio are, quote, consumer products. We call them specially consumer products. We have not seen a lot of effect right now. We are seeing a little bit of a slowdown for some of those companies that sell some product to people like Walmart, obviously, Bed Bath & Beyond, which has its own separate set of issues beyond just the consumer demand. Target, for instance, and so on. So, yeah, I think we're going to see some slowdown of portfolios in general and The ones of ours that do sell into that category, we'll definitely see some slowdown. But fundamentally, they're still pretty strong, reasonably well diversified. And each one is kind of a unique set itself. So, yeah, I think we'll definitely see slowdown. And, you know, I don't know. I hope the Fed doesn't keep raising rates too much higher because I don't think that's the problem. I think the issues are more... fundamental in supply chain and other costs that we should be trying to rein in, not just drive up interest costs, but that's a whole different topic.

Yeah. Okay. That's it for me this morning. Again, congrats on a solid quarter and appreciate your time this morning.

Thank you. Appreciate your time. Mickey, just one tag on to that. There are two groups of consumers out there. One, of course, at the lower end with less money, And the middle class, I'll say, has still got a really strong balance sheet. And they're using that to buy what they want. So there's two pieces in that. And you see that in housing. All the startup housings, the new houses, at the lower end, the demand has just evaporated there. In the middle side, there's still demand there for houses. So I'm not sure the numbers we're seeing out of one consumer. is going to settle this. So anyway, Rob, can you come on and let's have the next question.

As a reminder, you can press star one to ask a question at this time. Mr. Gladstone, we have a question from Mark Farrow, a private investor.

Please go ahead, sir. Good morning, guys. Fabulous quarter as always. I've got a question that goes back to your long-term stockholders. Has there been any progress on the IRS refunds of the deemed distributions of $1.52 a share? And I guess that was 2019. And then the second deemed distribution in 2020 for the qualified plans. Any insights into that? I know that I've been trying to work with Fidelity and I get zero response. Thank you.

Mark, this is Mike. As you know, we've spoken several times. I have not heard anybody other than those at TD Ameritrade from getting those refunds from the IRS in IRA type of accounts. We have folks who work here and own shares in several different brokerage firm accounts, and no one has gotten refunds other than those who have their accounts at TD Ameritrade. But I can give you another call offline to see if we can try to make some hay with Fidelity, but you're certainly not alone.

All right, brother. Thank you, and congratulations on a great quarter, guys. Keep up the good work for us little guys. Thank you.

Okay. There are no further questions.

There are no further questions, Mr. Ladson. Okay. Well, thank you all for calling in, and we appreciate the support you've given us. And keep the faith. We're going to continue to grow this thing, and Dave Dellum and Rachel have done a good job of keeping everybody informed. So thank you very much, and we'll see you next quarter. That's the end of this call. Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.