SuRo Capital Corp.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Suro Capital's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. During the presentation, the conference will be open for questions. As a reminder, this call is being recorded today, Tuesday, November 9, 2022. I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Evan Schlossman of Suro Capital. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you for joining us on today's call. I am joined today by the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Suro Capital, Mark Klein, and Chief Financial Officer, Alison Green. Please note that a slide presentation corresponding to today's prepared remarks by management is available on our website at www.surocap.com under Investor Relations, Events, and Presentations. Today's call is being recorded and broadcast live on our website, www.surocap.com. Replay information is included in our press release issued today. This call is the property of Suro Capital and the unauthorized reproduction of this call in any form is strictly prohibited. I would like to call your attention to our customary disclosures in today's earnings press release regarding forward-looking information. Statements made in today's conference call and webcast may constitute forward-looking statements which relate to future events or future performance or financial condition. These statements are not guarantees of our future performance or future financial condition or results and involve a number of risks, estimates, and uncertainties, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and any market volatility that may be detrimental to our business, our portfolio companies, our industry, and the global economy that could cause actual results to differ materially from the plans, intentions, and expectations reflected in or suggested by the forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors including, but not limited to, those described from time to time in the company's filings with the SEC. Management does not undertake to update such forward-looking statements unless required to do so by law. To obtain copies of Suro Capital's latest SEC filings, please visit our website at www.surocap.com or the SEC's website at sec.gov. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Mark Klein.

Thank you, Evan. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. We are pleased to share the results of Suro Capital's third quarter 2022. As Chrisley mentioned, the first nine months of 2022 were the worst for equity markets in the past two decades. As of the beginning of November, the S&P 500 index and the NASDAQ stock market composite were down more than 20% and over 30%, respectively, year-to-date. For comparison, according to Dealogic, roughly 87% of the companies that went public in the U.S. last year are trading below their offering prices. down almost 50% on average. At the same time, we have seen a continued dramatic slowdown in the IPO market, with S&P Global reporting under 40 IPOs in the U.S. this year and more than 60% of the IPOs year-to-date being withdrawn based on a recent PwC report. Over the first nine months of this year, S&P Global reports that there have been 126 U.S. IPOs totaling almost $18 billion, compared to 673 IPOs totaling in excess of $217 billion during the first three quarters of 2021. This represents an 81% decline in the number of IPOs, as well as a 92% decrease in capital raised. Additionally, the Federal Reserve has taken aggressive actions in the hopes of curbing elevated inflationary rates that have been hovering near 40-year highs. Each year to date, the Fed has by 375 basis points with an additional rate hike expected in the fourth quarter of this year and into 2023. As macroeconomic challenges persist, we expect continued acceleration in the repricing of private securities. We are beginning to see bid-ask spreads starting to narrow as increased discounts are reflected in the asking prices of private securities on the secondary markets. As a result, we believe continued pressure from declining macroeconomic conditions and the unfavorable IPO market will present compelling opportunities in the secondary market. While we are currently holding over 46% of our investable assets in cash and U.S. Treasuries, our portfolio investments continue to be impacted by broader market conditions, and we have experienced a challenging quarter. At the end of the third quarter, Searle Capital had a net asset value of $7.83 per share, or approximately $221.8 million, down from $9.24 per share, or $280 million at June 30, 2022. Despite what we believe are short-term declines in valuations, our considerable cash and U.S. Treasury positions of approximately $140 million continues to position us to be opportunistic in evaluating late stage high growth companies at increasingly compelling valuations. Soro Capital continues its commitment to shareholder value enhancing initiatives. Given the discount our stock has traded at compared to net asset value per share, our active share repurchase program coupled with our recent modified Dutch tender offer has been and continue to be efficient and accretive deployments of capital. Year to date, Cerro Capital has repurchased over 3 million shares representing approximately 10% of the previously outstanding shares. Alison will discuss the results of the tender offer in more detail later in the call. Please turn to slide four. Cerro Capital's top five positions as of September 30th were Course Hero, Blink Health, Orchard Technology, Architect Capital PayJoy, SP Stormwind. These positions accounted for approximately 62% of the investment portfolio at fair value. Additionally, as of September 30th, our top 10 positions accounted for approximately 80% of the investment portfolio. As previously stated, it is our objective to sell our public positions when lockup restrictions expire and there is relative stability in a given public position. positions trading. In line with this approach, we have continued to monetize several of our public unrestricted positions over the course of the quarter. During the third quarter, we fully exited our positions in both Enjoy and Palantir Lending Trust and continued to judiciously reduce our positions in New Lake Capital Partners, Rent the Runway, and Rover. In fact, subsequent to year end to quarter end, we closed out our remaining position in Rover. As always, it is our intent to be as transparent as possible with respect to our dividend distributions. As a BDC that is elected to be treated as a RIC, we are required to distribute our net realized long-term capital gains as dividends. At present, we anticipate a net realized long-term capital loss for 2022. Therefore, we do not anticipate distributing any additional this year. Given the continued volatility in both public and private markets, we believe being patient and staying true to our investment thesis gives us significant opportunities to leverage our significant cash positions to add new high growth companies to our portfolio and drive shareholder value. Thank you for your time. And with that, I will turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Alison Green.