Carlyle Credit Income Fund

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Carlisle Credit Income Fund 4th Quarter 2025 Financial Results and 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 will 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 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Joseph Castilla. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Carlyle Credit Income Fund's fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. With me on the call today is Nishal Mehta, CCIF's principal executive officer and president. Lauren Bazmajan, CCIF's chair and Carlyle's global head of liquid credit, and Nelson Joseph, CCIF's principal financial officer. Last night, we issued our Q4 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 and CSR. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated. Carlisle Credit Income Fund assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements at any time. During the conference call, we may discuss 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 the 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 Nischel.

Thanks, Joe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining CCIF's quarterly earnings call. I'd like to start by reviewing the fund's activities over the last quarter. We maintained our monthly dividend at 10.5 cents per share for 24.1% annualized based on the share price as of November 12, 2025, which is now declared through February of 2026. The monthly dividend is supported by 51 cents of recurring cash flows for the quarter, providing 162% of dividend coverage. New seal investments for the quarter totaled $34.9 million, with the weighted average gap yield of 13.7%. The aggregate portfolio weighted average gap yield was 14.4% as of September 30th. We continued to optimize the portfolio and rotate out of 10 seal investments for total proceeds of $36.5 million. With NCCI's portfolio, we completed seven refinancings and resets in Q4 2025, reducing the cost of liabilities, extending the reinvestment periods, and bolstering equity cash flows across these CLOs. We expect refinancing and reset activity to continue, taking advantage of historically tight CLO liability spreads. We continue to leverage Carlisle's outstanding presence in the CLO market as one of the world's largest CLO managers, with a 15-year track record of investing in third-party CLOs to manage a diversified portfolio of CLO equity investments. While lower liability costs and extended reinvestment periods have continued to support sealer structures, tighter loan spreads continue to weigh on portfolio yields and valuations during the quarter. Repricing activity remains driven by the persistent supply, demand, and balance in the loan market, with limited net loan issuance over the past three years set against continued record levels of sealer formation. The weight average spread on the underlying loan portfolio was 3.12%. a decline of 10 basis points over the past three months, and 34 basis points over the past 12 months. As a result, quarterly payments declined, with CSIF producing an average cash yield of 21.8% for the quarter. Loan spreads have historically followed multi-year cycles, and current levels are similar to those observed in 2018 when loan spreads tightened to the lowest level post-financial crisis following a record amount of limited pricings in 2017 and the first half of 2018. This was followed by meaningful spread widening in the following two and a half years due to a better supply-demand balance and market volatility. We believe steel equity today is positioned to benefit from a similar dynamic. We expect loan activity will increase in 2026, supported by declining base rates, normalization of tariff and regulatory policy, and continued economic growth. We are starting to see the beginning of this trend as LBO issuance in the Raleigh Syndicate loan market in October 2025 was the highest in over three and a half years. And Carl's Capital Markets and private equity teams are also seeing an increase in deal activity. CLOs are locking in historically low funding costs, and any loan spread widening could significantly increase returns for CLO equity. I'd like to share some key stats on the portfolio as of September 30th. The portfolio generates a gap yield of 14.44% on a cost basis, supported by cash-on-cash yields of 21.8% on CLO investments quarterly payments received during the quarter. The weighted average years left in reinvestment period remain flat at 3.3 years. 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 periods. We believe the portfolio weighted average junior over-collaboration cushion of 4.59% is healthy and offsets potential defaults and losses in the underlying loan portfolios. The weighted average spread of the underlying loan portfolio was 3.12%. The average percentage of loans rated triple C by S&P was 4.3%, below the 7.5% triple C limit in CLIs. As a reminder, once a CLI has more than 7.5% of its portfolio rated triple C, The excess over 7.5% is marked at the lower fair market value or radiancy recovery rates and reduces the over-collaboration cushion. And the percentage of loans trading below 80 decreased from 3.1% to 2.6%. 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 CELO portfolios through a disciplined, bottom-up, 15-step investment process. With that, I will now hand the call over to Lauren to discuss the current market environment.