Portman Ridge Finance Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Port Manor Ridge First Quarter 2022 Financial Results 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 keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. And without further ado, I would now like to hand the conference over to one of your speakers today. Ms. Serena Ligi, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Portman Ridge Finance Corporation's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. An earnings press release was distributed yesterday, May 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 10Q filed yesterday 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 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.

Good morning, and thanks, everyone, for joining our first quarter 2022 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 the quarter. Patrick will provide commentary on our investment portfolio and our markets, and Jason will discuss our operating results and financial condition in greater detail. Yesterday, Portman Ridge announced its first quarter 2022 results, and we were pleased to report another solid quarter of financial performance. Our first quarter earnings were in line with the internal expectations taken into consideration pervasive market volatility and other macroeconomic and political factors that ultimately led to a relatively quiet quarter on the new investment front. We are happy to report that our NAV for the first quarter of 2022 remained relatively flat at $278 million, or $28.76 per share, as compared to $280 million or $28.88 per share in the fourth quarter of 2021. Excluding a one-time tax impact, NAV per share would have been $28.81 or a decline of less than 0.3% as compared to December 31st, 2021. For the first quarter of 2022, our net investment income was $7.9 million or $0.82 per share and our core net investment income was $6.1 million, or $0.63 per share. Our board of directors declared a $0.63 per share quarterly distribution, which reflects the stable performance of the company's operations and investment activities, as well as the general economic outlook and related factors. Furthermore, during the quarter, we repurchased 22,990 shares under a renewed stock repurchase program, and an aggregate cost of approximately $545,000. And we continue to be active under this program in the second quarter. Portman Ridge has refinanced our revolving credit facility agreement with JPMorgan Chase since the end of the first quarter, a milestone achievement for the business. This amended agreement shifts from LIBOR to a three-month SOFR benchmark interest rate, reduces the applicable margin to 2.80% per annum from $2.85 2.85% per annum, and extended the reinvestment period and scheduled termination date to April 29, 2025 and April 29, 2026, respectively. This combination of a lower spread and the shift to SOFR is expected to reduce borrowing costs going forward. Additionally, we are very pleased to announce that we've added two new seasoned members to our Board of Directors, Jennifer Kwon Chau and Tricia Hazelwood. Overall, we believe that we are well positioned to further improve our portfolio performance and investment income in 2022. With that, I will turn the call over to Patrick Schaefer, our Chief Investment Officer, for a review of our investment activity.