Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp.

to Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp's second quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the management team's prepared remarks. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. I'd like to turn the call over to Robert Pawn, Head of Investor Relations for NCDL. Robert, please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Naveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp's second quarter 2025 earnings call. Today I'm joined by NCDL's Chairman, President, and CEO, Ken Kinsell, and Chief Financial Officer, Shai Vickness. Following our prepared remarks, we will be available to take your questions. Today's call may include forward-looking statements. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, and undue reliance should not be placed thereon. These forward-looking statements are not historical facts, but rather are based on current expectations, estimates, and projections about the company, our current and prospective portfolio investments, our industry, our beliefs and opinions, and our assumptions. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, some of which are beyond our control and difficult to predict. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements. We ask that you refer to the company's most recent filings with the SEC for important risk factors. Any forward-looking statements made today do not guarantee future performance and undue reliance should not be placed on them. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements at any time. Our earnings release, 10Q, and supplemental earnings presentation are available on the investor relations section of our website at ncdl.com. Now I would like to turn the call over to Ken.

Thank you, Robert. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. During my prepared remarks, I will discuss our results for the second quarter, our origination activity, portfolio positioning, and forward outlook. After that, I'll hand the call over to Shai for a more detailed discussion of our financial performance. Before discussing our results for the quarter, I wanted to express our deepest sympathies and condolences to those affected by the tragic events last week in New York at 345 Park Avenue, just steps away from our headquarters next door. Our thoughts are with the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims and all those that were affected. Now turning to our results, we are pleased with the returns we generated this quarter, reflecting the positive momentum in our business driven by the strength of our platform and our high-quality investment portfolio. NCDL's financial performance continues to be strong, as we reported net investment income of 46 cents per share during the second quarter, which exceeded our regular quarterly distribution of 45 cents per share. Gross originations total approximately 48 million in the quarter, compared to 166 million in the first quarter of this year. The decline quarter-over-quarter was intentional. as we sought to reduce leverage modestly during Q2. In addition, global trade policy changes created volatility in the markets, which temporarily slowed transaction volume in April and early May. Our investment portfolio continues to perform well, despite the volatile market environment during the second quarter, largely due to the strength of our senior loan investments. Net asset value was $17.92 per share at June 30th, compared to $17.96 per share at March 31st. The slight decline quarter over quarter was primarily due to modest valuation declines in some of our watch list names, partially offset by the positive impact of our share repurchase program. In terms of the recent market environment, the second quarter began with increased market volatility and uncertainty regarding global trade policy, which ultimately led to a pause in transaction activity early in the quarter. The second quarter ended with a rebound in market sentiment and investment opportunities. In fact, by June, investment activity returned to a more normalized level, similar to what we experienced during the first quarter of this year. Against that backdrop, our business continues to perform well, and we are intensely focused on continuing to invest in high-quality assets and deliver attractive, risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders. As we look ahead to the remainder of the year, we believe we are well-positioned and entering the second half with positive momentum. Our investment pipeline continues to increase and remain healthy and strong. While we expect geopolitical uncertainty to continue, we remain focused on maintaining underwriting discipline, selectively investing in high-quality companies, and proactively managing our current investment portfolio. In a period of constant change, a disciplined, time-tested approach to investment and portfolio construction is critical. Now turning to our investment activity. Despite uncertainty related to trade policy in April, new LBO deals for high quality assets that are in resilient, non-tariff exposed sectors continued to move forward in the second quarter. As clarity began to return in late Q2 and market conditions stabilized, we saw deal flow begin to rebound. In fact, within our own portfolio at Churchill, the number of deals reviewed in June was up more than 60% from April. The scale and breadth of the Churchill platform allowed us to sustain steady activity through refinancing and add-on acquisitions, maintaining uninterrupted access to high-quality deal flow. Churchill ultimately closed or committed $6.5 billion across more than 190 transactions in the first half of 2025, driven by a record-setting first quarter and renewed momentum heading into the summer. As I mentioned earlier, during the second quarter in NCDL, we intentionally reduced our allocation sizes to new deal flow given our focus on reducing leverage within NCDL to bring leverage back within our target range, while also continuing to benefit from activity at the platform level. Our new commitments remain focused on senior lending. which represented 95% of NCDL's origination activity in the second quarter. As a result, first lien debt remained steady as a percentage of the NCDL portfolio, representing approximately 90% of the fair value of the overall portfolio. In addition to our differentiated sourcing and long track record, we believe focusing the vast majority of our investments in the relationship-driven core middle markets typically companies with 10 to 100 million in EBITDA, helps insulate us from the more aggressive structures and loosening terms prevalent in the upper middle market and broadly syndicated loan space. In our view, risk-adjusted returns in this segment remain among the most compelling in private credit, particularly for scaled, highly selective managers with deep private equity relationships. We see the core middle market as a durable opportunity to generate great long-term value and enhance portfolio diversification for our investors. In terms of the portfolio and credit quality, company performance across our overall portfolio remained healthy and resilient, which we believe reflects the quality of the deal flow we've experienced over the last several years. Additionally, Our rigorous underwriting, high selectivity, and focus on diversification have been critical to minimizing losses and generating strong returns across multiple market cycles. That same discipline extends to today's shifting trade landscape. Our weighted average internal risk rating remains at 4.1 versus an original rating of 4.0 for all of our investments at the time of origination. and our watch list remains at a very manageable level of approximately 7% of fair value. Credit fundamentals within the NCDL portfolio remain strong, with portfolio company total net leverage of 4.9 times and interest coverage of 2.3 times on traditional middle market first lien loans. These metrics are a direct result of conservative structuring, and relatively low attachment points that we target when underwriting new transactions. This conservative approach has served us well in the elevated interest rate environment. During the second quarter, NCDL had no new non-accruals, and one investment came off non-accrual following a restructuring. As of June 30th, non-accruals represented just 0.2% of our total investment portfolio, on a fair value basis and 0.4% on a cost basis. This compares to 0.4% and 1% of fair value and cost respectively as of March 31st of this year. With a highly diversified portfolio of over 200 companies and only one name on non-accrual status, we believe that this metric compares favorably versus BDC industry averages. Diversification remains a key focus of ours within our investment portfolio. This has been achieved with a continued high level of selectivity, facilitated by the significant proprietary deal flow our sourcing engine is able to generate from the breadth and depth of our PE relationships. As of June 30th, we had 207 companies in our portfolio, and our top 10 portfolio companies represented only 13.6% of the total fair value. This diversification is critical as we seek to maintain exceptional credit quality and originate additional attractive opportunities. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, we remain focused on building upon our competitive advantages to source a pipeline of high quality investments in resilient, service-oriented sectors with minimal tariff exposure in the core middle market. We believe we remain well-positioned due to our scale, our differentiated sourcing as an LP over 325 private equity funds, and our nearly 20-year track record of investing across interest rates and economic cycles. Now, I'll turn the call over to Shai to discuss our financial results in more detail.