Portman Ridge Finance Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Portman Ridge fourth quarter 2021 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star then one on your telephone keypad. Please be advised today's conference may be recorded. If you require operator assistance during the call, please press star then zero. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Serena Ligi. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Portman Ridge Finance Corporation's full year 2021 earnings conference call. An earnings press release was distributed yesterday, March 10th, after market close. A copy of the release along with an earnings presentation is available on the company's website at www.portmanridge.com. in the investor relations section and should be reviewed in conjunction with the company's form 10-K filed yesterday with the FCC. 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 SEC. Portman Ridge Finance Corporation assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements unless required by law. With that, I would like to now turn the call over to Ted Goldthorpe, Chief Executive Officer of Portman Ridge. Please go ahead, Ted.

Thank you. Good morning, and thanks, everyone, for joining our full-year 2021 earnings call. I'm joined today by our Chief Financial Officer, Jason Ruse, and our Chief Investment Officer, Patrick Schaefer. I'll provide brief highlights on the company's performance and activities for 2021, and Patrick will provide commentary on our investment portfolio and our markets. Jason will then discuss our operating results and financial condition in greater detail. Yesterday afternoon, Portman Ridge announced its full year 2021 results. We are pleased to report a very strong year of earnings portfolio performance, and investment activity. For 2021, our net investment income increased to $42 million, or $4.92 per share. Our core net investment income increased to $25.4 million, or $2.97 per share. And NAV for the year increased to $280.1 million, or $28.88 per share. All of these improved metrics reflect broad-based improvements in our debt portfolio investments and joint ventures. On the corporate front, we took steps to leverage fixed costs, lower our cost of capital, and reduce expenses relative to our asset base. We generated interest savings driven by a lower weighted average cost of debt. Furthermore, we maintained other operating expenses at a relatively stable level and believe the impact of these savings will continue to materialize over time. as we continue to grow and reposition our portfolio to higher quality and higher yielding assets. Origination activity was robust during the year, and we continue to realize the strength of the BC Partners platform in generating attractive risk-adjusted opportunities. During the year, we continued participating in our stock repurchase program, and during the year, we repurchased shares in the open market transactions at an aggregate cost of approximately $1.8 million. As a result, our Board of Directors declared a 63-cent per share quarterly distribution, which represents a 1-cent increase from prior quarter levels and another 3-cent increase from preceding quarters. This marks the second quarter in a row of increased distributions. This increased quarterly distribution reflects the consistently improved performance of the company's operations and investment activities, as well as the general economic outlook and related factors. The refinancing of our long-term fixed-rate debt during 2021, especially now that the federal interest rates are rising, should result in significant interest savings and higher net investment income for Portman Ridge during the first half of 2022, all else being equal. We are well positioned and have the capacity to grow and increase the proportion of BC Partners' originated assets. While we will continue to be proactive in repositioning our portfolio and several targets already under consideration, we will also take an opportunistic approach. With that, I will turn the call over to Patrick Schaefer, our Chief Investment Officer, for a review of our investment activity.