Silver Spike Investment Corp.

and welcome to the Silver Spike Investment Corp Fiscal Year-End 2022 Earnings 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. Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would like to turn the call over to Umesh Mahajan, CFO. You may begin.

Good morning. Hello, everyone. This is Umesh Mahajan, CFO of Silver Spike Investment Corp. With me here today is Scott Gordon, CEO of Silver Spike Investment Corp. Welcome everyone to the Silver Spike's earnings conference call and live webcast for the fiscal year 2022. Silver Spike's fourth quarter fiscal 2022 financial results were released yesterday and can be accessed from our website at ssic.silverspikecap.com. A replay of the call will also be available on our website. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements that are not based on historical facts made during this call, including any statements related to financial guidance, may be deemed forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. Because these forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, there are important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. We encourage you to refer to our most recent SEC filings for information on some of these risk factors. Silver Spike assumes no obligation or responsibility to update any forward-looking statements. Please note that the information reported on this call speaks only as of today, March 31, 2023. Therefore, we advise that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of any replay or transcript reading. So with that, good morning again, and thank you all for joining. We released our results yesterday and filed an 8K this morning with a presentation deck attached to it. Those of you who have joined us on this webcast should have the presentation live. Else, please find the link to the deck in the 8K that was filed. We may refer to the slides by numbers for your reference as we go through it. So turning to page three of the presentation, financial highlights for the quarter ended December 31, 2022. Gross investment income of $2 million versus $1.2 million the previous quarter. Expenses of approximately $0.6 million, same as last quarter. Net investment income of $1.4 million versus $0.6 million last quarter. Net investment income per share of $0.23 this quarter versus $0.09 last quarter. Net assets of $86.5 million versus $85.3, and net asset value per share of $13.91 versus $13.73 last quarter. The increase in the gross investment income that you see here reflects the steady ramp up in our investment portfolio. We made three investments this quarter, and the gross investment income reflects the interest we earned on those investments this quarter. We'll discuss the portfolio in more detail in subsequent slides, but note that one of the large investments this quarter happened at the end of October. And so the interest income is for the partial period that we held this investment for. Turning to page four, financial highlights for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022. Now our board of directors approved a change in our fiscal year from March 31 to December 31. So the financials on the slide and also in our 10K that you'll see today are for the period from April 1 to December 31. So for this period of nine months, Our gross investment income was $4 million, expenses of approximately $1.8 million, net investment income of $2.2 million, net investment income per share of $0.35, net assets of $86.5 million, and net asset value per share of $13.91. To expand more on the Silver Spike story and the market opportunity, I will turn it over to Scott Gordon, our CEO.

Thanks, Umesh. I'll briefly touch upon our story, our investment process and philosophy, and the outlook for our business. If you turn to page, slide six, you can see we are a business development corp registered under the 1940 Act. We are the first and the only BDC publicly traded that's focused on direct lending in the cannabis industry. We believe that our structure is ideally suited for the evolving landscape and the capital needs in the sector. Other lenders, such as REITs, are required to put up a substantial portion of their portfolio as real estate collateral, 75% in the case of REITs. On the other hand, we are cash flow lenders and can lend against every type of collateral that's available. We believe that offers a more flexible source of capital for operators in the industry and expands the opportunity set for us, which we believe will expand even further as the industry continues to grow and mature. We believe our team has the appropriate mix of background experience and track record, both within the cannabis industry and the capital markets and credit businesses to execute on this plan. Turning to slide seven, just briefly in terms of the market opportunity, I think everybody knows that the cannabis market for public equities has been under continued pressure for close to two years now. But we think it's important to revisit why lending to the cannabis sector presents what we believe is a truly unique opportunity. Cannabis is a secular growth story, rapid growth with a long tail. You can see the bar chart on the top right of that slide. And there's a clear need for capital for these businesses to invest and grow. And at the same time, the sources of capital, due to all of the complexities and regulatory limitations and constraints in the industry, are quite limited. Competition in the cannabis lending space is also limited. We believe we're among a handful of dedicated lenders to the space, REITs or otherwise, that has dry powder and capital, currently offering loan capital to operators in the space. We believe that this demand and supply imbalance of capital needed and capital available, reflected on the chart in the bottom right, It's interesting compared to traditional markets of leveraged loans, direct lending, or even high yield. We're getting substantially higher yields than comparable credit markets. The credit metrics for our portfolio companies are far better with senior secured debt, lower leverage metrics than what is typically shown in the markets that are reflected in the chart. We believe that this imbalance of supply and demand will continue for a while. We've not felt that regulatory changes, whether it's the SAFE Act or other things, are going to compel traditional sources of banks or other types of lenders to step into the space. And so, you know, we think we've got substantial runway to continue to execute on our plan. Not going to talk too much about slide eight, but you can see that I just wanted to highlight here. We have a very robust underwriting process and a very deliberate approach to our investments and a very elaborate process, both for sourcing, originating, structuring, and underwriting, as well as monitoring. On slide nine, we show some metrics here with respect to our sourcing and origination. I think it's important to note, before I hand this back over to Umesh, that our extensive industry network work has been built through our operating experience in the space. My partners and I have substantial connections and experience across the sector. We think that that ability is seen in our transactions where we think we're punching above our weight in terms of lending to some of the largest marquee names in the sector based on that network and those relationships across the industry. At this point, I'll hand it back to Amesh. Thanks, Scott.