speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

in 2027 and beyond. It is reasonable to assume that by that time, our developer clients will have adapted to any remaining tariffs by both ensuring more of their procurement and passing on any increased costs. In fact, most of the public developers and sponsors who have already reported their first quarter results have confirmed strong confidence in their long-term pipelines just in the last few weeks. We also have a portion of our business that involves capital recycling on existing projects, which is an investment profile unimpacted by tariffs. In summary, we expect very limited impact from any increased tariffs on our business, particularly in the guidance period. Turning to page five, another issue worth discussing is the expected impact of a recession on our business. GDP contracted in the first quarter of 2025, and many economic forecasts have increased with a likelihood of a 2025 recession above 50%. However, as depicted on the slide, U.S. electric generation capacity continues to expand, even during economic downturns, in recent years substantially driven by wind and solar. If a recession occurs in 2025, we would expect investments in clean energy generation to be only marginally impacted, and we would expect any resulting... we would not expect any resulting material impact on our financial results. Also, as stated a few moments ago related to tariffs, the vast majority of our pipeline includes projects under construction, which are unlikely to be impacted by a recession. In summary, we have a non-cyclical business model in which growth and profitability are typically not directly tied to macroeconomic cycles. In addition, related to both the tariff issue and the potential slowdown, the forecasted demand for energy is expected to drive clean energy development in all policy and macroeconomic scenarios, resulting in a large volume of investment opportunities. As we mentioned frequently, our business model is resilient and adaptable. We have demonstrated the ability to thrive, despite interest rate fluctuations, policy changes, and economic cycles. Turning to slide six, our pipeline of new investments is sizable and well-balanced among our business lines. As stated earlier, the demand from sponsors is elevated, as more projects are being developed to address the significant expected increase in load growth. -the-meter solutions continue to be driven by fundamental consumer economics, increasing the demand for resi and community solar solutions, and by government efficiency initiatives, particularly at the state and local level. Grid-connected activity has been elevated due to the impending increase in load growth, and in addition to several solar projects, wind opportunities have re-emerged in the pipeline. And our FTN business continues to identify numerous opportunities, most notably in RNG, as that asset class has contributed meaningfully to our growth. Although not yet reflected in our pipeline, we continue to evaluate some of the new frontier asset classes that we discussed last quarter, and expect at least some of these sectors will become investable for us. As we turn to slide seven, we note that our managed assets have increased 12 percent -over-year, and that our robust pipeline has been successfully converted into a high volume of closed transactions in the first quarter. Significant investments in resi solar and public sector energy efficiency led to a first quarter volume above $700 million. We continue to see strong performance from resi solar assets, which we expect to remain an attractive consumer alternative as retail utility rates continue to increase. Importantly, the corporate issues that resi solar originators have faced are separate from the performance of the underlying assets in which we invest, and thus we expect to remain active in this asset class. In addition, our CCH1 co-investment vehicle with KKR now has a funded balance of $1 billion, and we are considering placing debt at the vehicle, which will increase its investment capacity. We have correspondingly extended the investment period until the fourth quarter of 2026. This partnership continues to provide significant value to our business as we maintain diverse sources of funding with several of these sources outside of capital markets. And with that, I'll pass the call on to our CFO Chuck Nucko.

speaker
Chuck Nucko
CFO

Thanks, Jeff. Over the past few months, we have certainly seen uncertainty in the markets from the public policy backdrop, and I believe we have constructed a portfolio that is well positioned to continue to deliver earnings growth through these periods of volatility. In addition, our healthy level of liquidity and our capital platform will continue to provide access to capital to fund the business and preserve, if not expand, our investment margins. Starting on slide 8, our portfolio is now at $7.1 billion, and as Jeff mentioned, we are delivering meaningful growth in our closed transactions. We had another quarter of delivering double-digit yields on new investments, with an average yield greater than .5% in Q1, and are continuing our success at generating growth in our portfolio with recurring earnings at attractive risk-adjusted returns. As a reminder, 50% of the balance sheet transactions that we close into CCH1 do not show up in our portfolio growth, but do provide earnings through upfront and annual management fees. Our portfolio continues to be well diversified across our different asset classes, which we believe is a key strength to the resilience of our business. On slide 9 is a trend of our portfolio yield and average debt costs. Our portfolio yield is at .3% and our cost of debt at 5.7%. As we continue to originate and fund investments at higher yields, we expect our portfolio yield to continue to increase. On the cost of debt side, we have mentioned on several calls our active hedging strategy to manage the risk of increases in interest rates. And want to reiterate the success we have had in managing our debt costs through this program. In addition to fixing the cost of our floating rate borrowings, we also have hedged a base rate for the refinancing of our 26 and 27 bond maturities, and recently executed base rate hedges with a notional amount of $300 million, related to expected debt issuances later in the year. These hedges were executed in early April, fixing base rates at an average of .5% when treasuries had declined meaningfully, and are a great example of the active management of our cost of capital. The details of our hedging activities are included in the appendix. Turning to slide 10, for our key profitability metrics, we ended the quarter with an adjusted EPS of $0.64. The growth in our portfolio and yield drove an increase of 11% in our adjusted net investment income to $72 million compared to the same period last year. In addition, we continue to see growth in our other recurring sources of income related to our securitization activities and our CCH1 asset management fees. Our gain on sale and other income were lower this quarter at $24 million compared to $30 million last year, due to higher than normal gain on sale activity in the prior year from asset rotations. As discussed in our Q4 call, our full year gain on sale activity is expected to be more in line with the levels seen in 2021 through 2023, and we expect that the majority of the total gain on sale this year to come through in the second half of the year, due to the expected timing of closings. Overall, we delivered strong adjusted EPS that continues to be predominantly generated from recurring earnings and is a large contributor to the confidence we have in achieving our adjusted EPS guidance. On slide 11, we illustrate key characteristics of our finance platform. Our available liquidity as of March 31st was $1.3 billion. We have been very focused on building a liquidity and capital platform that enhances the resilience of our business, and a key strength of this platform is the credit facility that we have enhanced over the years. We recently increased our credit facility by $200 million and now have approximately $1.6 billion in total capacity and include 16 relationship banks. This facility ensures we can continue to fund the growth of our business in times of market volatility and opportunistically time our longer-term capital market issuances. In addition, our commercial paper program has been a success at reducing our overall cost. We have a well-added maturity profile and are actively focused on our plan for refinancing our upcoming maturities. We recently, this past April, paid off our convertible bond due in Q2 with a portion of our available revolver commitments. And related to our upcoming bond maturity in 2026, our available liquidity will provide us flexibility in our refinancing plans, which we will likely address later this year or early 2026. We remain committed to managing our capital structure at a one and a half to two times leverage ratio, and we're at 1.9 times as of the end of the quarter. It is also important to highlight that Moody's recently reaffirmed in April our investment grade rating in the current environment. It is our liquidity, access to capital, and diversified sources of funding that will allow us to thrive in these periods of market volatility and is a key strength in the continued growth of our business. I will now turn the call back to Jeff for some closing remarks.

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Thank you, Chuck. Great job. Turning to page 12, we highlight our progress regarding carbon count and water count, as well as noting that our seventh annual sustainability and impact report was recently published and is available on our website. Concluding on page 13, with a reminder that we have substantial liquidity and ongoing access to capital, we have a demonstrated track record of successfully growing our earnings in all interest rate public policy and macroeconomic environments. Therefore, we're able to affirm our 2027 guidance, despite the current volatility. The long term fundamentals of our business are powerful and position us effectively for continued earnings growth over many years. I thank our outstanding team for their execution as we completed a successful first quarter of 2025 and continue to position ourselves for further prosperity. Thank you for your attention. Operator, please open the line for questions.

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one on your different keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and then two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. Please may I also ask if you could limit your questions to one question and one follow up question. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary for you to pick up your handsets before pressing the star keys. One moment

speaker
Call Moderator
Moderator

please while we poll for questions. The first question comes from Chris Dendrinos

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

from RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions Chris.

speaker
Chris Dendrinos
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Good evening and thanks for taking the question. I guess maybe to start here, you mentioned doing some debt at the CCH1 level. Could you maybe discuss what kind of leverage profile that would look like and then does that interest rate look similar to HASSI's interest rate or how do we think about the interest rate there or maybe just the strategy in general to put the debt at that level?

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Sure, thanks for the question Chris. I would envision the leverage at CCH1 would be relatively low. Certainly more equity than debt. And in terms of interest rate, you know, it's probably premature, but I would say an investment grade type cost of funds would be very likely at the CCH1 level.

speaker
Chris Dendrinos
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

I guess would that be below the HASSI level cost of debt potentially?

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

I would say it would be in the same general vicinity would be our expectation.

speaker
Chris Dendrinos
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Got it. Okay. And then I guess maybe just as a follow up here, how does equity financing needs kind of factor into the pace of your investment? I'm thinking about the stock price right now being a little bit depressed given a lot of the uncertainty out in the marketplace. I'm just trying to figure out how you all factor that into the thought process of the rate that you go at.

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Thanks. Sure. So I think we've reduced substantially the number of shares we need to issue to grow our business, both through CCH1, through what we've done with the payout ratio. The CCH1 debt we were just talking about in addition ultimately reduces the number of shares we have to issue. So I think we've moved the business in a direction of issuing fewer shares per dollar invested, which I think over time is a very positive thing.

speaker
Chris Dendrinos
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Thank

speaker
Unknown (TD Cohen affiliation presumed)
Follow‐up question participant

you. Thank you, Chris.

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Noah K. from Oppenheimer and Company. Please proceed with your questions, Noah.

speaker
Noah K.
Analyst, Oppenheimer & Company

Hi all. Thanks for taking the questions. Nice quarter. Thanks, Noah. The extending of the CCH1 term through 4Q26, I assume we should not read into that as an indication of not getting to the 2 billion target funding by the end of 2025. Or can you kind of comment on timing of expectations there?

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Sure. I think you should definitely not read into that, into the extension. The extension is ultimately a reflection that we will increase the capacity of CCH1. And therefore it was logical to extend the investment period in mutual agreement between HACI and KKR. So it's just going to be a larger vehicle than originally contemplated. And therefore the investment period would naturally be longer.

speaker
Noah K.
Analyst, Oppenheimer & Company

Helpful. Thank you. Second one, just on the record transactions in 1Q. We understand that timing can be lumpy. Was there anything unique to the environment or the types of conversations with clients that maybe pulled forward some originations? I think you mentioned business as usual at the outset. In other words, what do we make of the 1Q record originations and any implications for future quarters?

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Sure. I'm going to ask Mark to jump in on that one.

speaker
Mark
Company Executive (Name not provided)

Thanks for the question. No, I would not attribute it to any specific pull forward of pipeline, but simply just the level of our business activity growing. And I do think it would be reasonable to assume that with the macro and political uncertainty that our competitive position has increased and we've seen some of our competition leave the market, which is certainly helpful as well.

speaker
Noah K.
Analyst, Oppenheimer & Company

Thank you. I'll follow up offline.

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Thank you.

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Moses Sutton from BMP. Please proceed with your questions, Moses.

speaker
Joe Nuff
Analyst, Moses Sutton

This is Joe Nuff. I'm from Moses Sutton. Thanks for taking that question. Average yield on new investments is pushing north of 10.5%. How would you break out the dispersion of that blend in yield? Anything pushing 12, 13% or higher? Are the Mesdebt slices of the capital stack pushing in double digits or is yield expansion coming more from equity investments? Thank you.

speaker
Chuck Nucko
CFO

Yeah, I think in general, the asset yields that we saw in the quarter pretty consistent with the yields on closing of transactions last quarter. We're not really seeing asset yields jumping into the mid double digits by any stretch of the means right now based on the nature of the assets that we are investing in. But we are continuing to see strong yields in double digits.

speaker
Call Moderator
Moderator

Great. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

from Mark Strouse from JP Morgan. Please proceed with your questions, Mark.

speaker
Michael
Analyst, JP Morgan (on behalf of Mark Strouse)

Yeah, hey, this is Michael. I'm from Mark. Looks like it was a pretty strong quarter of volumes within Resi Solar. Can you give some color on the dynamics that play there and is that related to Sunstrong?

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

I'll start and maybe Mark can add to my answer, but no, that is unrelated to Sunstrong. Sunstrong at this point is a servicing platform. And the investments we made in Resi Solar were consistent with the Resi Solar investments we've made historically in terms of being mezzanine loans on pools of Resi Solar leases. Mark, would you add anything else to that?

speaker
Mark
Company Executive (Name not provided)

I would just want to reinforce that we invest at the asset level and are continuing to see strong performance in our underlying Resi Solar assets. And that performance is not impacted by the sponsor's financial position, which I understand has been a little bit more volatile.

speaker
Michael
Analyst, JP Morgan (on behalf of Mark Strouse)

Yeah, and then maybe just as a follow up, you mentioned a historically high volume of requests for capital. Can you, I know you mentioned some competitors dropping out of the market and maybe that has something to do with it, but is there, are there any other underlying drivers there in regards to policy uncertainty or care of uncertainty that you'd call out?

speaker
Susan
Company Executive (Name not provided)

Thanks for the question. I think really the underlying factors here continue to be the high demand growth really across all sectors and our clients transacting on the pipelines that they've had in place for a while. So we don't see that as again, I think the question about a pull forward of tariffs or uncertainty and our clients and partners have been, have inflated themselves largely from some of that volatility.

speaker
Call Moderator
Moderator

May I just confirm all those, all your questions? Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

The next question comes from Ben Kettle from Bayard. Please proceed with your question.

speaker
Ben Kettle
Analyst, Bayard

Hey guys, just thinking about like the cadence of investment with uncertainty about the IRA. I know that there's like a long timeline with what you guys do. So how should we think about like Q2, Q3, I have that. And then is there a subsector that you guys like find more appealing right now than others? Thank you.

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Thanks Ben. I would say the pipeline is well balanced by timing of closings as well. So again, to reiterate, a high first quarter was not a pull forward of a number of things that may have closed later in the year. That's not how to view the first quarter. We're very bullish on our continued volumes through second, third and fourth quarter. And that volume of calls we're talking about, you know, continues to build the pipeline. So we're just not seeing a lot of impacts of IRA or tariffs from our developers. Again, for all the reasons we've mentioned in terms of fundamental economics and low demand, we still view it as low probability that the core components of the IRA will be repealed. And so again, we go back to that sort of business as usual phrase. If anything, business even slightly elevated from usual, if anything. So we're just not seeing the impact of these policy items in our business right now.

speaker
Call Moderator
Moderator

Thank you. Thank you. Thank

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

you. The next question comes from Brian Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions, Brian.

speaker
Tyler Bisseton
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Hey, guys, this is Tyler Bisseton from Brian. Thanks for taking our questions. So just want to piggyback on the last question on the IRA. I'm just curious, what's your latest view on the outlook for and timing of potential changes to the IRA?

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Sure, Susan, why don't you go ahead on that one?

speaker
Susan
Company Executive (Name not provided)

Thank you. The anticipation of next steps with the IRA and the reconciliation bill, I think are public now, but sometime in the next few days or weeks, the first draft of the bill is anticipated to come out from the House Ways and Means as well as other drafts that come from, that are related to come from committees. But again, we anticipate and certainly in the American Clean Power Association that we're involved with, anticipate this is the beginning and certainly there may be rocky headlines, but it's a process and negotiation. And the industry remains confident that the bill won't be repealed and that the majority, majority both in the House and the Senate realize the importance of again of meeting our priorities of energy dominance, dominance, AI, the demand from growth or growth from AI, as well as the low cost of renewable energy is part of all the above.

speaker
Tyler Bisseton
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Super helpful. And then appreciate the commentary on the limited impact from tariffs. And can you just remind us, like, what is your exposure on the storage side, like standalone and also solar plus storage projects?

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

So on standalone, it's very, very minimal on solar plus storage. Certainly most of what we do in either utility scale solar or residential solar does involve some component of storage. But again, as I alluded to in the prepared remarks, the partners we have there have generally already reported and I think have expressed a very high degree of confidence in their ability to procure ongoing storage equipment. And most of and to also amplify something I said in the prepared remarks, most of what we'll invest in in the next 12 to 18 months is already constructed or nearly already constructed. And so this issue, even if it became more challenging, would have a substantial period before it would impact folks like us.

speaker
Tyler Bisseton
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Super helpful. Thank you guys.

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Thank

speaker
Unknown (TD Cohen affiliation presumed)
Follow‐up question participant

you.

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Maheep Mandaloi from Missouri Securities. Please proceed with your questions, Maheep.

speaker
Maheep Mandaloi
Analyst, Missouri Securities

Hey, thanks for the question and I apologize if this was disturbing something between calls here. On the tax credit transferability, any thoughts on that? Like if that is removed, does that impact your overall funnel of projects available in the market here under the IRA?

speaker
Susan
Company Executive (Name not provided)

This is Susan again. Thanks for the question. I think there are a couple of things. One is that the tax market certainly includes both traditional tax equity and transferability has expanded that market. But the again with the safe harboring projects, not only for this year, but the years going forward, a lot of the a lot of the pipeline is already insulated from whatever from whatever may happen with changes in the tax bill. But again, that's viewed as an important component of the value of the energy tax credits and building out more and more clean energy projects on across the associations, utilities and other other groups.

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Yeah, and I would I would also mention there's broad support for transferability by utilities, corporates. It's really worked very well and I think that broad support will go a long way.

speaker
Maheep Mandaloi
Analyst, Missouri Securities

Right, right. No, I think the concern is also how would the JCT even attribute any cost savings from removing that. But I guess that's a different question. And separately, just on the financing, could you just help us understand once you lock in drop down yields, do you lock in the cost of capital at the same time or or do you use the liquidity on hand to kind of manage that? I'm just trying to understand the if rates are volatile, then how do you manage that for the project you're dropping in the next quarter or two? Thanks.

speaker
Chuck Nucko
CFO

Yeah, hi, this is Chuck. I assume you're referring to assets originated in the CCH one with that question. Or

speaker
Maheep Mandaloi
Analyst, Missouri Securities

any any assets in general, like you haven't logged in the interest rates and trade change before you go and log. Okay,

speaker
Chuck Nucko
CFO

I understood. Yeah. So when we're funding assets, we typically initially use our revolver and available liquidity to fund those investments. And we we have some hedging products to lock in the interest rate that we're paying on that. So we're not really wearing interest rate risk once we fund some of those investments and for longer term take out of the short term facility. We also have some hedging products that we have where we hedge the long term take out as well.

speaker
Maheep Mandaloi
Analyst, Missouri Securities

Appreciate the color.

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

Thanks. Thank you. The next question comes from Jordan from security. Please proceed with your questions Jordan.

speaker
Henry
Analyst (asking on behalf of Jordan)

Hi, all. It's Henry on for Jordan here. Thanks for taking my questions. Um, just start. Can you just give a little bit more color around the potential wind opportunities you mentioned you're seeing in the pipeline now? I would assume those are onshore opportunities given the current policy environment and then just what kind of the timeline you see for those.

speaker
Mark
Company Executive (Name not provided)

Sure. Thanks for the question. I can confirm that they are all onshore and that there's nothing in our pipeline that is offshore. There is the type of projects that we look at in wind are very consistent with the projects that we've done in the past and and frankly very consistent with solar projects as well. Simply a different different technology. One of the reasons that we did call that out is because wind has been in the news and when does not then in our closed transactions more recently, we did want to note for investors that that we are starting to see more wind assets available and and continuing to move forward. But but in terms of the uniqueness, I would I would consider the revenue streams and risk profile to be very consistent with what we've seen in the

speaker
Henry
Analyst (asking on behalf of Jordan)

past. Understood. Thanks. Thanks for that. And then just a quick one looking at FDN within CCH one. It looks like it's a pretty decent piece of the mix right now. I guess is that primarily being driven by RNG at this stage and if you expect that level of mixed to kind of hold up in CCH one develops.

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Yes, that is primarily renewable natural gas at this point. And I would just think of the CCH one balance sheet profile, so to speak, to be very consistent with HACI. So we've constructed to CCH one. So look a lot like HACI from an asset diversification perspective. So as we grow our RNG business, CCH one's RNG percentage should be consistent.

speaker
Call Moderator
Moderator

Okay, thank you.

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

The next question comes from Jeff Osborne from TD Cohen. Please proceed with your questions.

speaker
Jeff Osborne
Analyst, TD Cohen

Great. Thank you. I just had one Jeff Lipson on CCH one actually, I guess, just given maybe I'm a naive Texan, but given it had one in the name, I was assuming that it was a CCH one. So I was wondering instead of making it longer and bigger, you would just create CCH two and maybe extract more value for yourself. So maybe you could just enlighten me. Was there any conversation about creating a new vehicle that maybe had different terms and conditions as opposed to extending the existing one and making it larger?

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

So good question, Jeff. I think the way to think about that is the existing CCH one is working particularly well. I think both parties are very pleased with it. I think the notion of putting debt on CCH one, which is an objective of both HACI and KKR and growing it to something like two and a half to three billion without additional equity contributions from the partners. But rather through debt was just a very prudent way to continue forward and allow this vehicle to exist in terms of an investment period through next year. And so there might be a CCH two someday. But I think at the current moment, this was a very prudent way to attack the notion of increasing the capacity of CCH one.

speaker
Jeff Osborne
Analyst, TD Cohen

Got it. And I think I know the answer to this question, but just to reiterate that there's another company in the storage space reporting tonight that lowered guidance for this calendar year. And so the light of the tariffs. And so is there a way of talking about your pipeline or funnel as it relates to what percentage of the behind the meter, front of the meter assets that required batteries that typically people don't buy batteries year in advance, just given they degrade and prices historically have gone down. And so, as intrigued by your comment that you're locked and loaded for the next 12 to 18 months, I think even for solar projects with batteries potentially being delayed. So is there a way

speaker
Unknown (TD Cohen affiliation presumed)
Follow‐up question participant

of flushing that out for investors?

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

You know, I think the again, the status of the projects that comprise our pipeline is such that equipment has generally been procured, identified safe harbor and these issues that you are raising are real issues, but very unlikely to impact our pipeline and therefore very unlikely to impact our volumes in the next 12 to 18 months. I think there'll be issues in that post pipeline period, which, which I talked about in the prepared remarks, but I do think our pipeline reflects a stage of construction and development in which these issues are not a large risk.

speaker
Unknown (TD Cohen affiliation presumed)
Follow‐up question participant

Great to hear that. That's all I have. Thank you.

speaker
Jeff Lipson
CEO

Thank you.

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just one final reminder. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. We will pause to see if we have any further questions

speaker
Call Moderator
Moderator

before we conclude.

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

Thank you.

speaker
Call Moderator
Moderator

There are no further

speaker
Call Operator
Operator

questions at this time, and this does conclude today's teleconference. Thank you very much for joining us today and you may now disconnect your lines.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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