Logan Ridge Finance Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to our second quarter 2021 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star, then zero on your touch-tone telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ms. Jihei Linford. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Logan Rich Finance Corporation's second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. An earnings press release was distributed this morning, August 16th, before market open. A copy of the press release, along with an earnings presentation, is available on the company's website at www.loganrichfinance.com in the investor relations section and should be reviewed in conjunction with the company's form 10Q filed today with the SEC. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. Please note that today's conference call may contain forward-looking statements which are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those detailed in the company's filings with the SEC. Logan Ridge Finance Corporation assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements unless required by law. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Ted Goldthorpe, Chief Executive Officer of Logan Ridge Finance Corporation. Please go ahead, Ted.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on our earnings call. I'm joined today by our Chief Financial Officer, Jason Bruce, and our Chief Investment Officer, Patrick Schaefer. As you know, on July 1st, we announced the closing of the transition to a new investment advisor for Logan Ridge Finance Corporation. Logan Ridge's new advisor is Mount Logan Management, LLC, an affiliate of BC Partners Advisor LP for U.S. regulatory purposes and part of the BC Partners Credit Platform as a wholly owned subsidiary of Mount Logan Capital, Inc., a Canadian public company. BC Partners Credit is a leading provider of capital to middle market companies and and is part of the broader BC Partners organization, a leading global alternative asset manager with more than $40 billion in asset center management and over 30 years of operating history in the US and Europe. We're very excited about the advisor transition at Logan Ridge and as previously discussed, we have two immediate objectives as the new advisor. First, We are focused on actively rotating and replacing non-income producing investments with debt investments in the form of high quality senior secured positions originated by BC partners. Secondly, we'll look to improve and optimize the company's capital structure by reducing leverage and reducing the cost of debt while providing additional flexibility. In just six weeks since closing this transaction or transition, we've made significant headway on both of these objectives. Patrick will provide more commentary in his remarks, but we were pleased to report that subsequent to quarter end, the company has exited five portfolio companies, including three equity investments, valued at $58.7 million as of June 30th, 2021. We also have two additional portfolio companies that are in various stages of sales processes. Secondly, at the end of the second quarter, the company repaid in full the $71 million in SBA debentures outstanding and surrendered its corresponding SBIC license. Additionally, the KeyBank credit facility was repaid subsequent to quarter end. Our priority in the coming months as it relates to the right side of the balance sheet will be to address the near-term maturities with the objective of reducing cost of debt and increasing funding flexibility. Ultimately, our goal is to execute on these initiatives such that we are in a position to reinstate a sustainable dividend as soon as possible. Over the longer term, we believe there's an opportunity to reduce our administrative and operational expenses by leveraging the scale of BC Partners' credit platform and potential synergies across our total AUM base. Additionally, we plan to grow the platform, including through pursuing inorganic opportunities to further drive scale to the benefit of shareholders, including reducing the stock trading discount to NAV. We have a solid track record of executing strategic transactions in the public BDC sector, and we plan to leverage our expertise and abilities as opportunities arise in order to execute on our growth initiatives for Logan Ridge. With that, I will turn the call over to Patrick Schaefer, our Chief Investment Officer.