This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.
spk06: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Logan Ridge fourth quarter 2021 financial results. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask the question during this session, you will need to press star then one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star then zero. I will now like to turn the conference over to your speaker for today, Serena Ligi. You may begin.
spk05: Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Logan Ridge Finance Corporation's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. An earnings press release was distributed on March 14th after market closed. A copy of the release, along with an earnings presentation, is available on the company's website at www.loganridge.com. in the investor relations section and should be reviewed in conjunction with the company's form 10-K filed on Monday 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 described in the company's filings with the FCC. 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.
spk03: Good morning. And welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. I am joined today by our Chief Financial Officer, Jason Ruse, and our Chief Investment Officer, Patrick Schaefer. This marks our second completed quarter and the first fiscal year as the new advisor to Logan Ridge Finance. And today, I'll start off by summarizing the progress that we've made and what lies ahead. Following that, Patrick will provide additional detail on our investment activity to date, and Jason will walk through the financials. Our immediate objectives as the new advisor are to first reposition the book by rotating out of non-income producing equity exposure and redeploying those proceeds into higher quality senior secured income generating investments originated by BC partners. And second, to deliver and optimize the company's debt capitalization. During 2021, we made substantial progress repositioning the investment portfolio having successfully monetized approximately $100 million of the legacy portfolio we inherited. Since assuming the role as the company's investment advisor on July 1, 2021, we've successfully exited equity investments in six portfolio companies, generating $13.4 million of proceeds through December 31, 2021, which can be redeployed into interest-earning investments originated by Mt. Logan Management, part of the BC Partners credit platform. During the fourth quarter, we exited three equity investments generating $2 million in proceeds that can be redeployed into interest-earning investments. Originations and repayments were very active during this period, and we will continue to redeploy the company's capital into new investment commitments originated by the BC Partners credit platform in 2022. During the quarter, we made approximately $46.2 million of investments and had approximately $42.1 million in repayments and sales and investments, resulting in net deployment of approximately $4.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2021. Since assuming the role of the company's investment advisor on July 1st, 2021, we have deployed $79.5 million in interest-earning investments originated by Mount Logan Management through December 31st, 2021, and it had sales and repayments of $106 million during the same period. As you can see on slide four, first lien debt as a percentage of the portfolio at fair value was 49.6 percent, second lien debt was 15.2 percent, subordinated debt was 2.5 percent, and collateralized loan obligations were 3.9 percent, and our equity portfolio decreased to 28.8 percent. During the year, we made significant progress in risk reduction. Following the full repayment of the $91 million in SBA debentures during the first and second quarter, we repaid the $25 million outstanding on the KeyBank credit facility and refinanced a portion of our long-term notes, and during the fourth quarter, using $50 million of 5.25% senior secured notes due 2026, which received an investment-grade rating of BBB-. Our total debt-to-equity ratio is 1.2 times as of the end of 2021, as compared to two times at the end of 2020. We will continue to work on optimizing the company's capital structure in 2022, aiming to further lower our overall costs of debt. Our longer-term goal is to leverage the BC Partners platform and entire AUM base to drive operating efficiencies. So far, we have reduced and stabilized operating expenses by approximately 23% to $20.3 million in 2021, as compared to $26.4 million in 2020. and we'll expect to continue this trend of spreading a stable level of expenses across a larger asset base as we seek to grow the investment portfolio. As we lay out on slide eight of the earnings presentation, we believe there's a near-term pathway to positive earnings and longer-term accretion from the rotation of non-income generating assets. In the near term, we expect significant cost savings from both one-time items in the fourth quarter, such as an extra 30 days of interest on the $50 million of notes that were refinanced, and from lower liability costs upon the full refinancing of the legacy Logan Ridge liability structure, in addition to incremental income through the investment of our cash on our balance sheet. In the longer term, our expected rotation out of non-income generating assets is expected to significantly increase returns on equity for our shareholders, but our ability to predict the exact timing of that rotation is difficult. I would also like to note that we are not including any benefit from high-grading the existing income-generating portfolio or any benefit from rising interest rates in this analysis. With that, I will turn the call over to Patrick Schaefer, our Chief Investment Officer.
spk01: Thanks, Ted. I'll briefly summarize investment activities for the fourth quarter, then provide some more details on activity subsequent to quarter end. During the fourth quarter, the company made $52.3 million of new investment commitments to 10 new portfolio companies. of which approximately $46.2 million was funded as of quarter end. The company had approximately $42.1 million in repayments and sales, resulting in net deployment of approximately 4.1% for the period. As of December 31, 2021, the company's investment portfolio consisted of 40 portfolio companies with a fair value of approximately $198.2 million. The debt investment portfolio, which represents represented 67.4% of the fair value of our total portfolio, had a yield of approximately 9.3%. As of year end, we had debt investments in two portfolio companies that remain on non-accrual status with an aggregate amortized cost of $12.7 million and an aggregate fair value of $7.6 million, which represented 6.7% and 3.8% of the investment portfolio, respectively. This compares to September 30th 2021 debt investments in the three portfolio companies on non-recrual status with an aggregate amortized cost of $21.3 million and an aggregate fair value of $9.2 million, which represented 11% and 4.7% of the company's investment portfolio. During the quarter-ended December 31, 2021, the company recognized $8.3 million of net realized losses on its investment portfolio. During the quarter ended September 30, 2021, the company recognized net realized gains of $7.4 million. The increase in realized losses was primarily driven by the exit of a non-accrual investment during the fourth quarter of 2021 that has been valid at zero since we became the company's investment advisor. For the full year of 2021, the company recognized $8 million of net realized loss on its investment portfolio. This compares to $24 million of net realized loss on our investment portfolio in 2020. The change in realized losses was primarily due to the changes in market conditions of our investments and the values at which they were realized, caused by fluctuations in the market and in the economy. As we have previously discussed at length, our immediate objective remains the successful rotation of our portfolio out of non-income producing positions and redeployment of the proceeds into high-quality, senior secured interest earning debt investments originated by BC Partners. We believe that we have made good progress on this initiative in 2021 and since the beginning of 2022. To date, we have exited all or a substantial portion of 12 borrowers that were in the portfolio as of June 30, 2021. In aggregate, we have generated proceeds of $106.2 million and were offset by $95.1 million of new investment commitments to date made across 16 new borrowers. And I'll turn the call over to Jason.
spk00: Thanks, Patrick. Turning to our financial results for the quarter, total investment income was $3.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, which represents an increase of less than $0.1 million, or approximately 1.2%, compared to total investment income for the prior quarter ended September 30, 2021, of $3.4 million. Total investment income for the year ended was $14.8 million for December 31, 2021, which represents a decrease of $9.7 million, or 36.6%, compared to the prior year, mainly due to a smaller portfolio as a result of deleveraging the company. Total operating expenses for the year ended December 31, 2021, decreased to $20.3 million, compared to $26.4 million a year ago. Interest and financing expenses declined by $4.6 million to $10.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, primarily due to lower average debt outstanding. Base management fee declined 25% to $4.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, due to lower average assets under management. Additionally, our total operating expenses of $20.3 million includes non-recurring expenses of $370,000 during the third quarter of 2021, and $470,000 during the fourth quarter of 2021. Accordingly, net investment loss for the year was $3.6 million, or $1.32 per share, compared to income of $58,000, or a penny per share, in 2020. During the fourth quarter, we recognized $8.3 million of net realized losses on our portfolio investments. This compares to net realized gains of $7.4 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2021, The increase in net realized losses was primarily driven by the exit of a non-accrual investment during the fourth quarter of 2021 that was previously valued at zero as of September 30, 2021. During the year ended December 31, 2021, we recognized $8 million in net realized losses on portfolio investments as compared to $24 million a year ago. The change in realized losses was primarily due to changes in the market conditions of our investments and the values at which they were realized. caused by fluctuations in the market and in the overall economy. Net assets as of December 31, 2021, were $107 million, or $39.48 per share, compared to $110.3 million, or $40.67 per share, at September 30, 2021. The decrease in NAV per share was primarily due to unrealized losses on the portfolio, as well as the net investment loss during the fourth quarter of 2021. As of December 31, 2021, we had $39.1 million in cash and cash equivalents. On the liability side of the balance sheet, we fully repaid the $25 million outstanding on the KeyBank credit facility during 2021. On October 29, 2021, we issued $50 million of 5.25% senior unsecured notes due 2026 in a private placement, which was rated investment grade. The proceeds from this offering we used to redeem $50 million of the $72.8 million outstanding of the 6% notes due 2022, of which we have $22.8 million of the 6% notes due 2022 that will remain outstanding. Thus, at December 31st, 2021, we had approximately $125 million of debt outstanding, comprised of $22.8 million of 6% notes due 2022, $50 million of 5.25% senior unsecured notes due 2026, and $52.1 million of 5.75% convertible notes due 2022. The company's total debt-to-equity ratio was 1.2 times at year-end 2021 compared to 2 times at year-end 2020. With that, I will turn the call back over to Ted Goldthorpe.
spk03: Thank you, Jason. In closing, we made significant headway since assuming management of the company by improving capitalization, quickly deleveraging, and most recently, refinancing a significant portion of our long-term debt capital with a lower cost. We look forward to providing more updates in coming quarters as we continue to make progress. Thank you for your support. This concludes our prepared remarks, and I will now turn it over to the call to the operator for any questions.
spk06: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask the question, you will need to press star then one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Again, that's star one to ask the question. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Christopher Nolan with Lattenburg-Salmon. Your line is open.
spk02: Hey, guys. In the 10K, you have the JMP CLOs, which have roughly a 17% yield. Is that the cash yield on that, or what's going on there?
spk00: Yeah, I guess that would be the calculated yield on the, as you know, like CLO equity positions are subject to, you know, beneficial interest accounting methodology. And as a result of kind of like the future cash flows anticipated on the underlying equity investments, that yield is essentially the IRR calculated for the period.
spk02: Okay. And the maturity on that is like 2027, 2029. Should we expect those investments to stay on the books for that long?
spk01: No, I think the reality is, you know, assuming we do absolutely nothing, that it probably more likely runs off over a 18- to 24-month period, something like that. I would not think of that state of maturity as kind of the expected life. Great.
spk02: And then given the current market conditions, do you really think you can lower your debt costs? I know you've got two debt issuances maturing in May.
spk01: I mean, yeah, I think we do. I mean, importantly, if you just kind of think about the existing structure, it's entirely unsecured. There's obviously a very small key bank facility that's undrawn that would be secured. So, you know, we think at a minimum swapping, you know, unsecured for secured borrowing should reduce our cost of capital, you know, without doing too much effort. So, yeah, we absolutely do think we can reduce the cost of capital. Okay. So you'd probably be financing this with your revolver? I think we've mentioned before we would look to put in place a longer-term, you know, larger, more substantial revolver than the existing key bank facility.
spk03: Yeah, so like we always try to balance, you know, cost of capital with flexibility. So I think you'll see the mix between secured and unsecured debt, as Patrick said, change. and it lowers your cost of financing, but obviously you have to give up some security on your bank line. Okay. I'll get back into the queue. Thank you.
spk06: Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, that's star one to ask the question. Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Martin with Slater. Your line is open.
spk04: Hi, guys. Hi, Steve. How are you? Good, good. A couple questions. Can you talk about, well, I guess a simple question is, if your cap structure were exactly what it is today and nothing changed, what would you expect today? interest expense to look like in Q1. It's hard. There were a lot of moving pieces in Q4.
spk01: Yeah. So I would say, again, if we did absolutely nothing simplistically, I think Jason mentioned we had an extra We had an extra 30 days of interest expense in Q4 that would go away, and it's approximately $250,000. $250,000, yep. And then we reduced our cost by probably something like at least 50 basis points on that extra $50 million, or that $50 million that was refinanced. So you could kind of do the math there, but that's, again, assuming absolutely no other changes. Okay. Gotcha.
spk04: Can you talk about Q1 and what's gone on so far in terms of repayments, reinvestments? You've talked about Eastport before and what you see with the Heritage Logan Ridge portfolio and potential paydowns.
spk01: Yeah, look, I'd say consistent with our experience at Portman and consistent with the market last year being 2021 was an extremely active period of time. And generally speaking, I'd say a lot of activity was either pulled back from 2020 or kind of pulled up through in the first quarter of 2022 here. So I'd say as a general comment, we've been a little bit lighter on the repayment and deployment activity in Q1 relative to the two quarters of 2021 where we had taken over management. But, you know, it's still active. It's just, you know, at a slightly lower rate.
spk04: Well, you had $36 million of cash on the books, and I understand, you know, having been on the port recall, you had some delayed fundings. Should we expect that Q1 you will net fund or net repay? Okay.
spk01: I know it sounds a little bit, given that we only have 15 more days in the quarter, but I think it's a little bit too early to say that because we also have a lot of commitments that we've made that, generally speaking, get drawn during a quarter. So it's a little bit tough, even sitting where we are today, to say how we're going to end up for the quarter.
spk03: I'd also say that we do have some maturities coming up in a couple months. and so the cash can be used to pay off debt as well as make new investments.
spk04: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks.
spk06: Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the call back over to Ted for closing remarks.
spk03: Great. Thank you all for all your support. Thank you all for dialing in today, and we look forward to reading speaking to you again at the end of our first quarter. Thank you.
spk06: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation.
Disclaimer