Great Elm Capital Corp.

$0.07 per share each quarter, as we have done in the past two quarters. That said, given our current portfolio composition, our overall strategy, and the current rate environment, we believe we remain well-positioned to cover our quarterly distribution for the remainder of the year. With that, I'd like to hand the call over to Carrie Davis to discuss our second quarter 2023 performance. Thanks, Matt.

I'll go over our financial highlights now, but we invite all of you to review our press release, accompanying presentation, and SEC filing for greater detail. During the second quarter, GECC generated NII of $3.4 million, growing 19% from $2.8 million in the first quarter of 2023, as well as nearly tripling our NII year-over-year from $1.2 million in the prior year quarter. Our net assets as of June 30th, 2023 were $92.9 million compared to $90.3 million at March 31st and 97.6 million as of June 30th, 2022. Our NAV per share was 1221 as of June 30th, 2023 versus 1188 as of March 31st and 1284 as of June 30th, 2022. Detail for the quarter over quarter change in NAV can be found on slide nine of the investor presentation. NII per share was up 44 cents, exceeding our quarterly dividend and up from 37 cents in the prior quarter. As of June 30, 2023, GECC's asset coverage ratio was approximately 161.5% compared to 159.8% as of March 31, 2023. As of June 30, our total debt outstanding was approximately $151 million, including $5 million outstanding on our $25 million line of credit. As of June 30th, our cash and money market securities totaled approximately $11.8 million. Our Board of Directors has authorized a $0.35 per share cash distribution for the quarter ending September 30th, 2023. The third quarter cash distribution will be payable on September 29th to stockholders of record as of September 15th, 2023. Annualized, the distribution equates to an 11.5% annualized dividend yield on our June 30, 2023 MAP of $12.21 per share. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Matt.

Thanks, Carrie. In the second quarter, we continued to rotate into higher-yielding investments, taking advantage of the rally in rates to deploy approximately $23 million into new investments at average yields of approximately 15%. Meanwhile, we opportunistically monetized $16 million of assets in the quarter at average yields of approximately 10%. We continue to increase our exposure to floating rate investments. 63% of our debt investment portfolio at quarter end consisted of floating rate debt, up from 58% at the end of the prior quarter and almost double the 33% from a year ago. Most notably, along with our portfolio's enhanced yield profile, which stood at 13.5% at quarter end, up 40 basis points from the prior quarter, we increased the proportion of our portfolio that consists of first lien loans, thus also improving the overall credit quality of our portfolio. The increase in both yield and portfolio quality is further validation of the work we have accomplished over the past year. Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on investments that benefit from the elevated rate environment, while also closely monitoring the Fed to see when they determine to officially conclude the rate hike cycle. We also continued to scale our specialty finance platform during the quarter. We noted on our prior call that Graydelm Healthcare Finance was able to access up to $100 million of financing for healthcare-related secured lending, and in the quarter, it began deploying that capital into new loans while maintaining a robust pipeline of new potential investments. In addition, Sterling, the asset-based lending platform, also closed a couple of attractive deals and Prestige, the invoice financing business, had another strong quarter. In early July, we exited our equity and sub-debt investments in lender's funding. While we decided to part ways with the management team there, we believe lender finance is an attractive piece of the specialty finance platform, which Mike Keller will discuss shortly. We continue to believe the specialty finance platform is well positioned to provide material contributions to GECC in future quarters. Given the ongoing macro environment, we will remain disciplined with respect to deploying capital towards opportunities that have limited risk of permanent capital impairment and durable returns. By staying measured, we are well positioned to continue growing Great Elm Capital Corp. and generate further attractive risk-adjusted returns for shareholders. As I noted before, we are pleased with our ability to navigate through the choppy environment in the first half of this year, improving both our overall yield and the quality of our portfolio composition. We continue to believe there will be opportunities in the back half of the year to selectively make thoughtful investments while keeping a watchful eye on the rate environment. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Mike Keller to provide an update of our specialty finance initiatives.