Carlyle Credit Income Fund

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Carlisle Credit Income Fund Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Investor 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'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker today, Joseph Castillo. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to Carlyle Credit Income Fund's third quarter 2025 earnings call. With me on the call today is Nishal Mehta, CCIF's principal executive officer and president, Lauren Besmagin, CCIF's chair and Carlyle's global head of liquid credit, and Nelson Joseph, CCIF's principal financial officer. Last night, we issued our Q3 financial statements and a corresponding press release and earnings presentation discussing our results. which are available on the investor relations section of our website. Following our remarks today, we will hold a question and answer session for analysts and institutional investors. This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on our website. Any forward-looking statements made today do not guarantee future performance, and any undue reliance should not be placed on them. These statements are based on current management expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including those identified in the risk factors section of our annual report on the form NCSR. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated. Carlyle Credit Income Fund assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements at any time. During the conference call, we may adjust adjusted net investment income per common share and core net investment income per common share, which are calculated and presented on a basis other than in accordance with GAAP. We use these non-GAAP financial measures internally to analyze and evaluate financial results and performance, and we believe these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors gauging the quality of the fund's financial performance, identifying trends in its results, and providing meaningful period-to-period comparisons. The presentation of this non-GAAP measure is not intended to be a substitute for financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP and should not be considered in isolation. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mitchell.

Thanks, Joe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining CCAF's quarterly earnings call. I would like to start by reviewing the fund's activities over the last quarter. We maintain our monthly dividend at 10.5 cents per share, or 22.1% annualized, based on the share price as of August 15, 2025, which is now declared through November of 2025. The monthly dividend is supported by $0.55 of recurring cash flows for the quarter, providing 174% of dividend coverage. New seal investments around the quarter totaled $28.1 million, with a weighted average gap yield of 14.6%. The aggregate portfolio weighted average gap yield was 15.1% as of June 30th. We rotated out of seven CLO investments for total proceeds of $16.2 million. With NCCI's portfolio, we completed two refinancings and resets in the third quarter, reducing the cost of liabilities and extending the reinvestment periods across these CLOs and bolstering equity cash flows. We expect refinancing and reset activity to pick up as CLO liability spreads continue to tighten. We sold $1.4 million of our common shares above net asset value in connection with the ATM offering program for a total net proceeds of $9.2 million. We continue to leverage Carl's longstanding presence in the CELO market as one of the world's largest CELO managers and a 15-year track record investing in third-party CELOs to manage a diversified portfolio of CELO equity investments. While CEO equity valuations remain sensitive to macro volatility and continued loan repricings in the underlying leveraged loan market, we remain encouraged by the credit fundamentals across our holdings. We believe the portfolio is positioned defensively to focus on higher quality managers and structures that maintain ample reinvestment period and robust over-collarization cushions. This is reflected in the portfolio's weighted average junior over-collarization cushion of 4.5%. The average remaining reinvestment period increased over the quarter, following resets of two positions in the third quarter. The aforementioned loan repricings caused a forward basis point decline in the weight average spread of the portfolio's underlying loans. Despite this pressure, the portfolio delivered strong cash yields, with April distributions producing an average cash-on-cash yield of 23.1%, supporting CCAS monthly dividends. I'd like to note that volatility earlier in the quarter pressured loan prices and CELA equity valuations. These periods often present opportunities amidst volatility. In April, CELA managers were able to capitalize on a temporary dislocation by purchasing loans at discounted prices, helping to build PAR and support future value creation through the end of the quarter. I'd like to share some key stats on the portfolio as of June 30th. The portfolio generates a gap yield of 15.11%. on a cost basis supported by cash and cash yields of 23.11% on CLO investment quarterly payments received during the quarter. The weighted average years left in the reinvestment period increased from approximately 3.1 years to 3.3 years, as there were two accretive resets in the underlying portfolio during the quarter. This provides CLO managers the opportunity to capitalize on periods of volatility through active management. There are also zero CLOs in the portfolio that are post-reinvestment. We believe the portfolio weighted average overqualification cushion of 4.5% is healthy and offsets potential defaults and losses in the underlying loan portfolios. The weighted average spread of the underlying loan portfolio was 3.25%. The average percentage of loans rated CCC by S&P was 4.4%, below the 7.5% CCC limit in CLOs. As a reminder, once a CLO has more than 7.5% of its portfolio rated CCC, The excess over 7.5% is marked at the lower fair market value or rating entity recovery rates and reduces the over-collaboration cushion. The percentage of loans trading below 80 decreased from 3.3% to 3.1%. We continue to leverage the depth of the Carlisle Liquid Credit platform and our collaborative One Carlisle platform to source and invest in high-quality sealer portfolios through a disciplined, bottom-up, 14-step investment process. With that, I will now hand the call over to Lauren to discuss the current market environment.