Great Elm Capital Corp.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Great Elm Capital Corp. First Quarter 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 the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Adam Yates. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Teresa, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Great Elm Capital Corp.'s first quarter earnings conference call. As a reminder, this webcast is being recorded on Monday, May 11, 2020. If you'd like to be added to our distribution list, you can email investorrelations at greatelmcap.com or you can sign up for alerts directly on our website, www.greatelmcc.com. The slide presentation accompanying this morning's conference call and webcast can be found on our website under Financial Information, Quarterly Results. On the website, you can also find a copy of our earnings release, Form 10-Q, and a link to the webcast. I'd like to call your attention to the customary safe harbor statement regarding forward-looking information. Also, please note that nothing in today's call constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of office to purchase our securities. Today's conference call includes forward-looking statements and projections. and we ask that you refer to Great Elm Capital Corp.'s filings for the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projections. Great Elm Capital Corp. does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements unless required by law. To obtain copies of the SEC filings, please visit Great Elm Capital Corp.'s website under Financial Information, SEC Filings or visit the SEC's website. Hosting the call this morning is Peter Reed, Great Elm Capital Corp.'s President and Chief Executive Officer. I will now turn the call over to Peter.

Thank you, Adam. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. I'm joined this morning by our COO, Adam Kleinman, Portfolio Manager, Adam Yates, and our CFO, Keri Davis. Where relevant in our prepared remarks, we will point you to the corresponding slide number in the deck that Adam referenced, which is available on our website, as well as through the webcast. Please turn to slide three for a note to shareholders regarding our current operating environment. The first half of 2020 has been characterized by remarkable volatility in the leveraged credit markets driven by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and violent swings in commodity prices. We believe we must take every opportunity to bolster liquidity in order to successfully navigate current market volatility and to be in a position to capitalize on attractive investment opportunities when they materialize. To best position ourselves, we will strengthen our balance sheet by paying a substantial portion of our base distributions in stock and therefore maintaining the flexibility to utilize cash and other assets to create shareholder value. Since we do not currently have a secured credit facility, we don't have limits on our flexibility to use cash that frequently come along with a facility of that type. Importantly, we are confident in the quality of our portfolio investments, our robust liquidity profile, and our ability to capitalize on new potential investment opportunities. Please turn to slide four for an overview of GECC. GECC is an externally managed, total return focused BDC with a strong balance sheet. GECC seeks to generate both current income and capital appreciation from its portfolio of investments. comprised primarily of secured loans, secured bonds, and specialty finance investments. As of March 31, 2020, GECC had total assets of approximately $274 million, a portfolio fair value of $166 million, and a net asset value of $51 million, equating to $5.05 per share. The weighted average current yield on our debt holdings was approximately 10%. Importantly, approximately 23% of GECC shares are held by employees and affiliates of Great Elm Capital Management, Inc., GECC's investment manager, creating a very clear alignment of interest between management and our shareholders. Let's turn to slide five to go over a few highlights and recent achievements. The majority of our third quarter 2020 distributions will be paid in shares of our common stock. As I noted, in order to best capitalize on potential opportunities, we believe it is prudent to preserve as much capital as possible and strengthen our balance sheet.