5/11/2026

speaker
Conference Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to FSKKR Capital Corp's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Your lines will be in a listen-only mode through remarks by FSK's management. At the conclusion of the company's remarks, we'll begin the question and answer session, at which time I'll give you instructions on answering the queue. Please note that this conference is being recorded. At this time, Kaylin Welch from FSKKR Capital Corp Investor Relations will proceed with the introduction. Ms. Welch, you may begin.

speaker
Kaylin Welch
Investor Relations

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to FSKKR Capital Corp's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Please note that FSKKR Capital Corp may be referred to as FSK, the fund, or the company throughout the call. Today's conference call is being recorded and an audio replay of the call will be available for 30 days. Replay information is included in a press release that FSK issued this morning. In addition, FSK has posted on its website a presentation containing supplemental financial information with respect to its portfolio and financial performance for the quarter ended March 31st, 2026. The link to today's webcast and the presentation is available on the For Investors section of the company's website under Events and Presentations. Please note that this call is the property of FSK. Any unauthorized rebroadcast of this call in any form is strictly prohibited. Today's conference call includes forward-looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could affect FSK's future performance or financial condition, or the economy generally. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, some of which are beyond our control and difficult to predict. We ask that you refer to FSK's most recent filings with the SEC for important factors and risks that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from these statements. FSK does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements unless required to do so by law. In addition, this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. For such measures, reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in FSK's first quarter earnings release that was filed with the SEC on May 11, 2026. Non-GAAP information should be considered supplemental in nature and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the related financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP. In addition, these non-GAAP financial measures may not be the same as similarly named measures reported by other companies. To obtain copies of the company's latest SEC filings, please visit FSK's website. Speaking on today's call will be Michael Forman, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Dan Pietrzak, Chief Investment Officer and President, and Stephen Lilly, Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us on the call today are Co-Chief Operating Officers Drew O'Toole and Ryan Wilson. I will now turn the call over to Michael.

speaker
Michael Forman
Chief Executive Officer and Chairman

Thank you, Caitlin, and good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining FSK's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. As we start this morning's call, I would like to highlight two main points. First, it was a challenging quarter as our net asset value declined 9.9% per share, and our net investment income was 42 cents per share. Our NAV decline is attributed to portfolio company names we've discussed on these calls in the past, new non-accrual investments, and mark to market moves across certain sections of our portfolio. Second, As announced this morning, meaningful strategic actions are being taken to help improve the financial and trading profile of FSK. Dan is going to walk through the details of the four components here in a minute, but the goal of these actions is to provide the necessary support for FSK to navigate what will be a period of transition to achieve stability, which we expect will include a smaller-sized and better-positioned balance sheet over time. From a dividend perspective, our board has declared a second quarter distribution of 42 cents per share, which is consistent with our dividend policy of paying 100% of our GAAP net investment income on a per share basis. As we have indicated on prior earnings calls, we expect our quarterly distribution level will fluctuate as our net investment income fluctuates on a quarter to quarter basis. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Dan.

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

Thank you, Michael, and thank you everyone for joining our call. This is an important call for FSK and we have a lot to walk through, so I'm going to take a different approach with my comments this morning. I'm going to begin by walking through the strategic actions we are announcing today. Following that, I am going to address a handful of key questions and concerns that we think are on the minds of investors, including some additional information on the portfolio. Hopefully, at the end of the conclusion of my remarks, everyone will gain a better appreciation for why After a great deal of thought and consideration, we are announcing these various strategic actions. Before getting into specifics, I would like to say that we are disappointed by our recent performance. We will get into more in the portfolio section of my remarks, but during our ongoing monitoring of the portfolio and our regular quarterly review process, we invested time stress testing the portfolio against a number of future potential downside scenarios. including certain macroeconomic pressures and idiosyncratic name-specific events. As a result, we in KKR are announcing strategic actions that we think will benefit shareholders. This ongoing analysis helps support our view of a disconnect in the trading price of FSK versus its intrinsic value. First, KKR announced that it intends to commence a $150 million fixed price tender for FSK stock at a price per share of $11. The tender price represents a premium to Friday's closing price as KKR believes the stock is undervalued at that level. The purpose of the tender is to express that view through direct action by providing liquidity to shareholders. Second, KKR is making a $150 million investment into FSK through a cumulative convertible perpetual preferred security with an initial conversion price of $18.83. the March 31st, 2026 NAV per share. The convertible preferred stock has a starting dividend of 5% in cash or 7% PIC at FSK's option and is redeemable at FSK's option in cash or in certain circumstances in shares. It's redeemable at KKR's option after six years, which is outside the maturity date of all FSK's existing indebtedness. After six months at the option of the holder, It is convertible into FSK common stock at the conversion price then in effect. Additional details surrounding the convertible preferred stock can be found in our earnings release and also on our earnings supplement on our website. The third component is a share repurchase program. FSK is announcing a $300 million share repurchase authorization, which reflects our conviction that buybacks are an efficient use of capital with strong ROE characteristics. The program will be implemented following the tender offer period, and we expect the program will repurchase shares on a timeline commensurate with investment repayments the fund receives, while simultaneously being mindful of the fund's total leverage level. During the period when the fund is repurchasing shares, we will reduce the fund's new investment originations, while focusing primarily on portfolio construction, supporting existing portfolio companies, reducing leverage, and repurchasing stock. And finally, beginning with the second quarter of this year, to help support net investment income and in turn our quarterly distribution, KKRL will begin waiving its portion of the subordinate income incentive fee earned as joint owner of the advisor. To be clear, this waiver applies to 50% of the subordinated income incentive fee that otherwise would be paid. The income incentive fee waiver will continue for four quarters, after which time, The Board and the advisor will review the fund's overall fee agreement, consistent with their obligations under the Investment Company Act. KKR and the advisor are focused on taking immediate and impactful actions with regards to supporting FSK during this period of transition toward more diversified investments focused on first lien securities, asset-based finance, and other accretive investments, all sourced using the broad KKR origination footprint. During this period, FSK intends to utilize proceeds from the convertible preferred issuance for additional liquidity and to fund a portion of the $300 million stock buyback plan. FSK intends to continue to offer shareholders a competitive quarterly distribution aided by the income incentive fee waiver, and FSK will focus on operating within its target leverage ratio. These actions demonstrate our conviction in the long-term value of the platform and we believe they create strong alignment with shareholders as we execute on improving performance. Today's announcement should be viewed as part of a large effort to drive value for shareholders. We will continue to be focused on our stock price, especially if it continues to trade at a wide discount to net asset value. Turning to our results in the portfolio, I'm going to focus my comments on three areas. details related to the quarterly NAV decline at FSK. Second, an update on our software exposure. And third, the current state of the portfolio beyond just the quarterly results. Beginning with the quarterly NAV decline. Overall, the NAV decline during the quarter was driven by company-specific credit events, which we consider to be more permanent in nature, and credit spreads and other mark-to-market moves that we believe would not be considered permanent impairment. These include moves on software and services names. The name-specific credit events, which include several 2021 and 2022 vintage loans, are being impacted by the combination of the lingering effects of the higher inflationary and higher interest rate environment, which reduced free cash flow levels for many companies and created issues specific to certain portfolio companies, including labor rates and changing customer behavior. These factors have continued to impact Specific legacy investments, including ATX and production resource group, which together represent approximately 15% of the total NAV decline, as well as current advisor investments, including Medallia, Cuba Corp, and Affordable Care, which together represent approximately 33% of the total NAV decline. We are taking proactive actions together with other lenders where applicable to support these businesses through capital infusions, or providing operational resources and oversights, including bringing in new management teams to drive stability and growth. Each company faces challenges and additional risk factors, which will take time to work through, and individual names could deteriorate further. Separate from the names mentioned above, we believe a meaningful amount of the remaining portfolio markdowns would relate to credit spreads and other market moves that are not considered permanent impairments. Looking back at our collective body of work, since April 2018, we have invested approximately $34.5 billion in new transactions at an unlevered IRR of approximately 8.7%, and we have put together a well-balanced liability structure. But with the benefit of hindsight, let me review the path we have taken. While we have maintained healthy portfolio diversification, we are focused on diversifying our portfolio and our top 20 investments. In 2021, we invested in what we believe to be high-quality second lien and junior debt deals. Unfortunately, some of these investments have underperformed. We avoided AR loans generally, as we did not like the risk profile, but we did invest in Medallia, considering the strength of the business at the time and the outsized equity check. This name has underperformed, and it was placed on non-accrual during the quarter. For reference, Medallia was marked down to 54 cents in the quarter. For the second topic, I'd like to provide additional color on our assessment of AI risk in our total portfolio and more detail on our software and services exposure. Our AI risk assessment was completed across our entire portfolio and used a 19-metric framework developed in partnership with KKR's private equity team. Based on our latest review, we believe that approximately 86% of our portfolio reflects low AI risk, 11% medium risk, and 3% high risk. Our software and services portfolio currently represents 16% of our investment portfolio and is diversified across 52 issuers. Based on our current assessment, we believe our software and services portfolio remains defensively positioned, typically falling within three categories, which we believe carry low near-term risk of AI disruption. The first is businesses where the data utilized is proprietary, sensitive, or the industry is highly regulated. The second is businesses where the software solution is deeply embedded or mission critical with low to zero tolerance for error. And third are businesses which have a substantial competitive moat, including high customer retention rates and advantage in deploying AI themselves. Our exposure also is focused on larger businesses with meaningful cash equity value support with average and median EBITDA levels of approximately $165 million and $118 million, respectively, and a median LTV of approximately 38%. Finally, our overall software and services portfolio continues to experience both average and median EBITDA growth on a quarter-over-quarter basis. While we remain comfortable with these credit metrics, we are mindful of slowing growth and lower-than-expected valuation multiples in the coming years for the space. And while we recognize these issues likely will impact equity holders more than credit providers, they generally will extend hold periods and potentially require additional capital to deliver lenders in advance of any maturity extension or refinancing. Finally, we are continuing to update our AI risk framework across all sectors, recognizing that this technology is evolving rapidly and has the potential to affect businesses across multiple industries, even businesses we might consider to be low risk today. Let's move to the third point, the current state of the portfolio more generally. We segmented our portfolio to understand where incremental risk may reside. When we analyze our first lien investments, currently marked at 90 and above, alongside our asset-based finance portfolio and our joint venture, these assets collectively total approximately 81% of the portfolio. We believe these investments are better positioned and that much of the forward potential downside risk is more likely to be concentrated elsewhere in the portfolio. Although, to be fair, forward events could create downside in this part of the portfolio as well versus current fair market value. The remaining approximately 19% of the portfolio are first, first lien loans marked below 90. Second, non-first lien loans in restructured name. This bucket would include names like Athena Health, which is performing and is 3.2% of the portfolio. And third, all legacy names, regardless of current performance. This includes names such as JWA and GlobalJet, where current performance has been strong. These total 3.3% of the portfolio. We believe this helps support our view of a disconnect in FSK's current stock price. Over the next 12 to 18 months, The advisor, with the assistance of the KKR credit team, will be focusing on the following. Reducing new portfolio company investments, reducing leverage levels, and maintaining sufficient liquidity for existing portfolio companies. Next, supporting the share of a purchase program while continuing to appropriately manage the liability side of the balance sheet. Rotating certain assets, including portions of larger size positions, certain lower yielding assets, and certain asset-based finance exposures. And last, continuing to pursue the strategic sale of certain individual portfolio companies where we maintain meaningful influence. These are generally minority PE positions where the goals are simple, maximize value, but at the same time be focused on rotating the names into income-producing investments. We look forward to keeping you updated on future calls as it relates to the progress on all these fronts. Turning briefly to the investing environment, during the first quarter of 2026, we originated approximately $499 million of new investments. Almost all of these new investments related to deals committed during 2025 or our add-on financing to existing portfolio company names, usually through delayed draw term loans. Our new investments, combined with $710 million of net sales and repayments, equated to a net portfolio decrease of $211 million during the quarter. As of March 31st, non-accruals represented 8.1% of our portfolio on a cost basis and 4.2% of our portfolio on a fair value basis. This compares to 5.5% of our portfolio on a cost basis and 3.4% of our portfolio on a fair value basis as of December 31st. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Stephen to go through our financial results.

speaker
Stephen Lilly
Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Dan. As of March 31, 2026, FSK's investment portfolio had a fair value of $12.3 billion, consisting of 236 portfolio companies. At the end of the first quarter, our 10 largest portfolio companies represented approximately 20% of the fair value of our portfolio, compared to 19% as of the end of the fourth quarter. We remain focused on senior secured investments as our portfolio consisted of approximately 60% first lien loans and 64% senior secured debt as of March 31st. In addition, our joint venture represented approximately 14% of the fair value of our portfolio as of the end of the first quarter. As a result, when investors consider our entire portfolio, looking through to the investments in our joint venture, Then first lien loans total approximately 69% of our total portfolio, and senior secured investments total approximately 73% of our portfolio as of March 31st. The weighted average yield on accruing debt investments was 9.7% as of March 31st, a decrease of 30 basis points compared to 10% as of December 31st. As a reminder, the calculation of weighted average yield is adjusted to exclude the accretion associated with the merger with FSKR. Turning to our quarterly results, our total investment income was $304 million for the first quarter, a decrease of $44 million compared to the fourth quarter. The primary components of our total quarterly investment income were as follows. Total interest income was $224 million. representing a decrease of $32 million quarter over quarter. The decline in interest income was driven by lower base rates and investments placed on non-accrual during the quarter. Dividend and fee income totaled $80 million, a decrease of $12 million quarter over quarter. Our total dividend and fee income is summarized as follows. $60 million of dividend income from our joint venture, other dividends from various portfolio companies, totaling approximately $18 million during the quarter, and fee income, totaling approximately $2 million during the quarter. As a reminder, on February 23, 2026, our partner, South Carolina Retirement Systems Group Trust, increased its equity ownership percentage in our joint venture from 12.5% to approximately 21%, and our ownership percentage changed from 87.5% to approximately This purchase was executed at the then-current net asset value of the joint venture. This change in ownership, therefore, is reflected partially in the dividend income from the joint venture in the first quarter and will be fully reflected beginning in the second quarter. Our total expenses were $187 million during the first quarter, which is a decrease of $26 million compared to the fourth quarter. The primary components of our total expenses were as follows. Our interest expense totaled $105 million, a decrease of $5 million quarter over quarter. Our weighted average cost of debt was 5.3% as of March 31st. Management fees totaled $48 million, a decrease of $2 million quarter over quarter. Income incentives total $25 million, a decrease of $3 million from the fourth quarter. Other expenses total $9 million, an increase of $2 million quarter over quarter. The detailed bridge in our net asset value per share on a quarter over quarter basis is as follows. Our ending 4Q 2025 net asset value per share of $20.89 was increased by GAAP net investment income of 42 cents per share and was decreased by $2 per share due to a decrease in the overall value of our investment portfolio. We experienced a 48 cents per share reduction as a result of the total quarterly distribution paid during the quarter. The sum of these activities results in our March 31, 2026 net asset value per share of $18.83. From a forward-looking perspective with respect to net investment income, we want to be cognizant, as we have discussed today, that we expect to have activity with regard to portfolio rotation, which we expect will result in a smaller-sized balance sheet. Coupling that activity with the expected share buyback, we currently expect net investment income to be in the range of 8 percent to 9 percent of net asset value on an annualized basis over the coming quarters. So we would add that this level of net investment income will depend on numerous factors, including geopolitical risks, the overall U.S. economy, and the overall health of our investment portfolio. As of March 31st, our gross and net debt to equity levels were 138% and 131% respectively, as compared to 130% and 122% at December 31st. At the end of the first quarter, approximately 51% of our drawn balance sheet and 38% of our committed balance sheet was comprised of unsecured debt. In terms of anticipated 2Q activity, with lower new net deployment and a line of sight of certain portfolio rotation moves that are ongoing, we are expecting net repayments in excess of $500 million. I would note that there could be some timing differences to when these events actually occur, and certain portfolio rotation activities could occur after June 30th. On May 8th, we completed an amendment to our senior secure revolving credit facility, whereby, among other things, we reduced the size of the facility to $4.1 billion, we reset certain covenants, and the applicable borrowing spread was increased by 12.5 basis points. After giving effect to this amendment, our pro forma March 31, 2026 liquidity was $2.3 billion, which included pro forma undrawn debt capacity, cash, and net receivables for open trades. And with that, I'll turn the call back to Michael for a few closing remarks. before we open the call for questions.

speaker
Michael Forman
Chief Executive Officer and Chairman

Thank you, Stephen. While we believe that FSK is not alone in dealing with specific issues affecting individual portfolio companies, we recognize that our recent NAV volatility has been meaningful. With that in mind, the actions being announced today are focused on achieving long-term stability for the fund, and we believe the course of action we are pursuing represents a beneficial path for shareholders. As always, we appreciate you joining us today. With that, operator, we'd like to open the line for questions.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. At this time, we'll conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder to ask a question, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question comes from the line of Kenneth Lee of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

speaker
Kenneth Lee
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just one on the tender offer process there. Maybe just talk about how you went about setting the $11 share offer price despite intrinsic value that's potentially higher there. Thanks.

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

Good morning, Ken. Thanks for the question. I think on the tender, we tried to be pretty detailed in the prepared remarks and in the press release. Due to securities law points and the way the tenders work, we can't comment much over that. But I think you can note the price versus either closing levels or kind of recent activity over a 30- or 60-day period. But I just refer back to the press release and the prepared remarks because of that.

speaker
Kenneth Lee
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Gotcha. And just one follow-up, if I may, in terms of the portfolio rotation, wondering how active you could be in terms of rotation. Is it going to be dependent on prepayments, or are there other factors or other ways that you could be a little bit more active in terms of rotation there? Thanks.

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

No, thanks for that. I think it's a little bit of both, right? Obviously, you know, there's a consistent amount of repayments in a portfolio like this, you know, while they could be a little bit slower with what's going on market-wise, I think we'd still expect to see that. You know, Stephen did mention, you know, the $500 million plus number of what we're expecting in Q2. And then, you know, we have been active, and there's been some pretty what I call good demand for, you know, us kind of trimming some of the taller trees or some of the larger names of the portfolios or certain, you know, lower-yielding assets or certain of the ABF assets that we think we can optimize in a better sort of format. So it's probably a little bit of everything, but I think you should expect we'll be active on the portfolio side.

speaker
Dan

Gotcha. Very helpful there. Thanks again. Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Aaron Sangnovich of True Securities. Your line is now open.

speaker
Aaron Sangnovich
Analyst, True Securities

Hey, good morning. Thanks. Dan, with FSK now limited to supporting existing investments for new investment activity, how is this going to impact your overall platform in terms of direct lending and how much other or how much assets do you have in other vehicles that will kind of keep you relevant from an investing standpoint?

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

Yeah, Aaron, thanks for the question. I would just make two points. I think I would think about it more in the context of reduced new investing activity. I think we want to be mindful about the buyback and be mindful about leverage. You know, but I think it'll be, you know, reduced and it could be, you know, position size wise, you know, meaningfully reduced as we look to continue to build further diversification. You know, if you do think about it in the confines of the overall credit business and the private credit business, you know, on one hand, you know, this was a very material part of total AUM. If you went back, you know, a handful of years ago, all the way back to April of 2018, You think of our total, just put it on the direct lending side, that's roughly $40 billion. You look at the private credit side in totality, that's $140 billion area of AUM. You look at the credit business overall, it's $330 billion of AUM. So this is an important and meaningful pool of capital, but the business has grown around it. I think that's a good thing. I think it's a good thing because it gives us more firepower, but I think we're you know, able to build, I think, over time more diversification here with it being a smaller size of the overall sort of footprint.

speaker
Aaron Sangnovich
Analyst, True Securities

Okay. And then the second question I have is it's, you know, good to see the waiver on the subordinated incentive fee. Why is not a future standard participating in that waiver as well?

speaker
Dan

Yeah, I mean, I'd start by talking about just, I would think about the total package here, right?

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

You know, we're kind of active on, you know, the convertible prep. We're active on, you know, the tender. We're mindful about, you know, the waiver and what that can mean for NII and dividends. But I wouldn't think about it in terms of the total package.

speaker
Michael Forman
Chief Executive Officer and Chairman

Yeah, and thank you for the question, this is Michael Foreman. I'd say first, you know, we fully appreciate and support This strategic initiative, we think they're a really important step forward. While we've all not been happy with the performance, we believe the dynamic will change. And we believe that this is in the best interest of the fund and the shareholders. Dan and I and our firm spent a lot of time with the board mapping out what we thought we could do going forward. And I think it's got to be looked at in that lens. I conclude with the nature of this partnership. It's been a very strong partnership. It's been a very good collaboration. I think that ultimately will yield positive results for our investors and for the fund.

speaker
Dan

Thank you. Thanks, Sam.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Robert Dodd of Raymond James. Your line is now open.

speaker
Robert Dodd
Analyst, Raymond James

Hi, guys. A special dividend is not part of this discussion. So I just want to ask about how the spillover, et cetera, is going to be managed. I mean, obviously, if there's a buyback, spillover per share goes up. If you were to distribute Spiller, the leverage goes up, right? So there's lots of moving parts in there. But what's the approach going to be on managing that? Because obviously if the dividend does come down in the variable, right, if it comes down, then you run up against the limits on how much you can roll over as well. So what's the approach going to be on managing that component?

speaker
Stephen Lilly
Chief Financial Officer

Robert, it's Stephen. Thank you for the question. It will not surprise you at all that we wanted to have certainty with the discussions that have been going on internally and also with the board, as Michael says, over the last decently long time period and have certainty on those actions, have certainty with our financing agreements. So I think during the course of the year, as we mentioned on our last call, we receive the K1s from partnerships and things that do affect our spillover balance on an annual basis. And we'll learn more about that in the sort of August, September timeframe. So I think it's very reasonable for you and the market to conclude that later in the year, we'll certainly be talking about that, I think would be a conclusion you could come to. But it was important to put these items that Dan mentioned in his prepared remarks in place first.

speaker
Robert Dodd
Analyst, Raymond James

Got it. Thank you. My second question is more, Dan, I think you said after talking about the specific names, you know, ATX, PRG, Medallia, et cetera, you said individual names could deteriorate further. How much, I mean, Obviously, the valuations right now are our best efforts valuations, right? But I mean, what's your confidence level that there's going to be stability going forward? Or is it more likely that there would be additional deterioration in fair value if various macro uncertainties persist? Obviously, it's your best assessment of fair value right now, but how... how much variability could there be in the downside on that?

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

Thanks for the question. I think you're right. I mean, these are clearly our best judgments of value today. I think we are cognizant of what's gone on sort of macro-wise, what's gone on geopolitical, what's gone on with you know, market commentary around, you know, sectors like software, you know, some of the specific subsectors and sort of healthcare. So, you know, our entire goal and focus here is, you know, maximizing value in each of these situations. But I think we are, you know, we'll call it being realistic or being mindful about, you know, that sort of current market condition. You know, I think we're doing a lot of good things on, you know, these names. I mean, obviously, you know, something like Medallia for the quarter was painful. But I think, you know, that company with a lower capital structure will be in a better spot to be able to grow. You know, they haven't probably been able to invest in things like AI enough. You know, we made some significant management changes to a handful of portfolio companies. You know, there's been some really good progress on names like JWA and GlobalJet. So it's active across the board, Robert, is just how I would say it. Got it. Thank you.

speaker
Paul Johnson
Analyst, KBW

Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Finian O'Shea of Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is now open.

speaker
Finian O'Shea
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

Hey, everyone. Good morning and thanks. So, on the KKR parent call, the team sort of went out of their way to outline that performance issues aren't there, at least to this extent, across the direct lending suite. Can you sort of outline why that is? What are the sort of inputs that led to greater losses here? And are those fixes you're going to make where performance will converge over time?

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

Ben, good morning. Thanks for the question. And you were a little low volume, but I think I got it. But if not, feel free to add to it. You know, on FSK itself, and we've talked about this, you know, over an extended period, you know, clearly, you know, some of the, although we're probably, you know, tired of talking about, I'm sure the market's tired of hearing about it. you know, a lot of the now volatility has been caused by legacy names. By definition, they wouldn't be in the pools of capital you're referring to. That's sort of point one. Point two, you know, we historically have not had a dedicated junior debt fund on the institutional side. We've only had that of late. So the funds that you would be referring to were direct lending only or or ABF only, so very sort of dedicated strategies. And where we have felt some NAV volatility, especially in recent quarters, is some of these 21, 22 vintage names that I think we and others felt were very high quality when they were done. They're pretty broadly held across names like Solera and Peraton and Cubic, and we think Solera and Peraton are both good businesses. But that would be outside the scope of that. You know, the nature of this vehicle obviously is a little bit, you know, sort of different, right? The funds are IRR focused. It's not a consistent dividend payer with sort of, you know, NAV on sort of the other side. But, you know, we've been happy with the performance there. You know, I think even looking at the body of work here that I talked about, you know, new investments of $34.5 billion at an 8.7% sort of unlevered. You know, I think, you know, again, we're disappointed by what we've seen from some of those recent knob volatility on, you know, a handful of these names. But I think it's – and clearly there's going to be some 1L names in there, but it's just smaller and I think, you know, in some ways more spread out.

speaker
Dan

But hopefully that answers the question.

speaker
Finian O'Shea
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

Yes, thank you. Hopefully I'm a little louder this time. Just for the follow-up, you outlined the company will likely shrink pursuant to buybacks and delevering. Does that, and appreciate you gave the sort of step-by-step there, does that go beyond the buyback program you just put in place?

speaker
Dan

When you say beyond FIN, what do you mean by that?

speaker
Finian O'Shea
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

It was $300 of buyback you announced, right?

speaker
Dan

No, that's correct.

speaker
Finian O'Shea
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities

Like, will you do another one?

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

I mean, I think we'll, you know, we can evaluate that, you know, on the other side of this being completed. I think when we talk about, you know, how we see the balance sheet evolving, and I think You know, I think the buyback is important. You know, we will look and intend to sort of get that done. I think it will be subject, as we mentioned in our prepared remarks, around repayments coming in, sort of et cetera. I think we do, you know, want to get leverage down some more inside that target range. I think the combo of those two things will just bring you to that. But I think you can hear from our remarks that, you know, where we're kind of sitting today, you know, You know, we think the stock has been dislocated. I think we're trying to put these actions in place as we think about enhancing equity value. As we talked about, we're going to be mindful if there's still a big disconnect between stock and sort of NAV. So we got a lot of these actions being announced today, and we got a lot to execute on.

speaker
Dan

Great. Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Again, as a reminder to ask a question, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. And our next question comes from Rick Shane of J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open.

speaker
Rick Shane
Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Look, my first question is going to be a little ironic given all my questions previously about repurchasing shares. But as you sort of pursue this path, Obviously, one of the headwinds to your multiple is the relatively low return on capital. And I'm curious how you, as you sort of move through this, how you manage capital profitability to the extent that the business may be descaling.

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

Yeah, no, I appreciate the question. You know, I think there's probably a couple of pieces of that, right? You know, we did have and sort of have had, you know, a very low amount of fee income. You know, I think the environment we're going into, even with the lower kind of new level of deals, we can see that sort of pop up. I think we've talked about this on prior calls. You know, we've got a focus area on, you know, reducing non income producing assets as well as non accrual assets. Obviously we felt some non-accrual moves this quarter with Medallia and Affordable Care. And I think that will take a couple of forms, Rick. You know, sometime that could just be, you know, regular way asset sales. You would have heard us on prior calls, you know, talking about some of the historic names in the portfolio like JWA or GlobalJet that have, you know, paid out historic or recent, you know, decent amount of dividends. And, you know, most of that's been return of capital. But that's another way. So I think we've got to be laser focused on that side because that is probably one of the more creative things that drops down to the bottom line. But it's a fair question and we appreciate it.

speaker
Rick Shane
Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Got it. And then, look, there's a little bit of a fine line between palace intrigue, which is not my favorite thing to traffic in, and corporate governance, which obviously we have to think about. Can you help us understand a little bit more about the decision, KKR's decision, and sort of how you balance incentives between the two managers here, and if this dynamic sort of creates any divergence in terms of what each side's incentives might be?

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, I would go back to a couple of points. As I went through in the prepared remarks, we spent a lot of time going through kind of all the various details and options on these proposals. We did that as a group. As Michael sort of talked about, I think the partnership has been strong. We spent a lot of time talking about with the board as well. So I think it was an open and sort of transparent conversation Throughout this, I think, you know, a lot of work went into announcing, you know, the points of this action plan here. Got it.

speaker
Unknown Analyst
Analyst

Okay. I appreciate it, guys. Thank you for taking my questions, as always. Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Johnson of KBW. The line is now open.

speaker
Paul Johnson
Analyst, KBW

Thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Appreciate the supportive actions from the advisor as well as the high conversion rate on the preferred, but just curious why that was, I guess, the more optimal decision on the preferred capital infusion as opposed to something like an infusion of common equity at MAV or even committing some to the tender offer.

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

Yeah, good morning, Paul. Thanks for the question. You know, I would probably, you know, go back a bit again to just thinking about the totality of the package here. You know, I think we're trying to address a bunch of different sort of pieces between the convertible pref, between the tender, between the share of a purchase program, and between the incentive fees of a piece. you know, obviously touching on, you know, NAV and other things from the share of a purchase, you know, stock price sort of moves or support with the tender, you know, liquidity and maybe even liquidity to help on the share of a purchase vis-a-vis the convertible prep. And then, you know, NII and sort of dividends and think about the incentive fee. So it was trying to really touch on

speaker
Dan

and capture sort of all four of those points as we thought about it and decided on this path. Okay. Thanks. That's all for me. Thanks, Paul.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'll now turn it back to Dan Petersack for closing remarks. We wanted to thank you for your time today.

speaker
Dan Pietrzak
Chief Investment Officer and President

We know there's a lot of information here, and we're available at any time for follow-up questions if needed. Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer

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