Rand Capital Corporation

Hello, and welcome to the Rand Capital's second quarter fiscal year 2022 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Craig Mihalik. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate your interest in Rand Capital and for joining us today for our second quarter 2022 conference. financial results conference call. On the line with me are Dan Pemberthy, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Margaret Brechtel, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. A copy of the release and slides that accompany our conversation is available at RandCapitals.com. If you're following along in the slide deck, please turn to slide two, where I'd like to point out some important information. As you are likely aware, we may make some forward-looking statements during this presentation. These statements apply to future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors that could cause actual results to differ from where we are today. You can find a summary of these risks and uncertainties and other factors in the earnings release and other documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents can be found on our website or at sec.gov. During today's call, we'll also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures. We believe these will be useful in evaluating our performance. You should not consider the presentation of this additional information in isolation or as a substitute for results in accordance with GAAP. We have provided reconciliation of non-GAAP measures with comparable GAAP measures in the tables that accompany today's release. With that, please turn to slide three, and I'll hand the discussion over to Dan. Dan?

Thank you, Craig, and good afternoon, everyone. We delivered another strong quarter of total investment income growth of 67%, which reflected our focused investment strategy and significant debt portfolio expansion over the past year. We paid a cash dividend of 15 cents per share during the second quarter, and at the end of July, RAINN declared its quarterly cash dividend of 15 cents per share again, this being for the third quarter. Our strategy is focused on continued portfolio expansion into income-producing assets to drive investment income and future dividend growth. In support of that strategy, we added a new source of capital by securing a $25 million credit facility during the quarter. Of this facility, we have approximately 21 million available based on our quarter-end borrowing formulas. In addition to this increased liquidity, This facility provides greater flexibility and an increased funding commitment than our previous credit arrangement with the SBA, which, as a reminder, was repaid in full during the fourth quarter of 2021. In addition, during the quarter, we exited some of our publicly traded securities and also monetized some equity investments to fund our $2.2 million follow-on debt investments. I will talk to these specific portfolio changes in a moment. If you turn to slide four, you can see our improved portfolio mix between debt and equity and the changes during the second quarter. Of note, we crossed a milestone with more than half of our portfolio now being comprised of fixed rate debt investments as we ended the quarter at 55% up from 48% just a quarter ago. we have made significant progress in shifting our investment portfolio composition towards more debt. With these instruments, we expect that trend to continue as we execute our strategy. The rest of the portfolio comprised of 35% in equity investments in private companies and 10% in dividend-paying publicly traded BDCs and, of course, our ACV auction securities. The fair value of our investments totaled $59 million, which contracted 6%, primarily due to the changes in HCV auctions market value and stock sales, net of the noted follow-on investments. As of June 30, 2022, our portfolio consisted of investments in 29 companies, down four from the sequential first quarter, as we have exited two smaller equity positions, and two of our BDC investments. These transactions are highlighted on slide five. We utilize the cash from our exits and stock sales to fund our follow-on debt investment in Sieverts Billiard Corporation, making Sieverts the largest brand interest-yielding debt holding with an approximate $5.6 million cost basis. This note accrues at 14%, which includes a 12% current pay and a 2% tick accrual. Founded in 1998, Steberts carries a variety of premium billiard equipment and is the largest distributor of Predator billiard cues in the U.S. They have developed one of the leading e-commerce platforms for the billiard category and are known for their quality product and service. With the capital infusion and RANDs funding, Steberts acquired a pool cue manufacturer in the Midwest. During the quarter, we also exited our equity investment in Microcision, which did result in a realized gain of $190,000. We also took a very small loss of approximately $23,000 on New Monarch Machine Tool when the company commenced bankruptcy proceedings. We have sold publicly equity investments to generate cash during the quarter. This included the gain of $73,000 on the sale of the shares of Golub Capital BDC, and $98,000 gain on the sale of Owl Rock Capital Shares. We have also continued to trim our holdings in ACV by selling 86,000 shares during the quarter at an average price of $14.24 per share for a net realized gain of approximately $1.2 million. As a reminder, any proceeds above our approximate $87,000 cost will be a capital gain and treated as it relates such to any potential regulated investment company or RIC-based income and capital gain distribution calculations. At quarter end, we still hold 319,934 shares of ACV, and this represents approximately 4% of our total portfolio's fair value. The charts on slide six illustrate the diversity in our portfolio and the change in industry mix during the second quarter. With the impact of recent investments and exits and fair value changes, consumer products increased to a 17% mix, with BDC stocks contracting to 7% and software to 18%. The percentage mix of other industries did not significantly change. We continue to value this diversity of our portfolio as we do feel this mitigates market risk impact. Slide seven lists our top five portfolio companies at quarter end, representing almost half of our total portfolio. Since last quarter, the major changes were Sieverts moving into the top five ranking at now the number two spot based on our recent investment, and ACB moving out of the top five giving the stock sales and market value adjustments at the end of the quarter. The other four positions noted were fairly consistent with the prior period. With that, I'll turn it over to Margaret, who will review our financials in greater depth.