speaker
Conference Operator
Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to the Pennant Park Investment Corporation's third fiscal quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. The call will be open for a question and answer session following the speaker's remarks. If you would like to ask a question at that time, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 2 on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Eric Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Penn and Park Investment Corporation. Mr. Penn, you may begin your conference.

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to Penn and Park Investment Corporation's third fiscal quarter 2021 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Richard Chung, our new Chief Financial Officer. Richard joined us in June from Guggenheim Partners, where he was head of Alternative Investment Accounting for many years. Prior to Guggenheim, he was at E&Y. We are thrilled that Richard has joined us and are confident that his extensive experience will be a tremendous asset to the company. We thank Aviv Efrat for all his contributions to PNNT since inception and are grateful that he is continuing with Penn and Park, focusing on strategic initiatives. Richard, please start off by disclosing some general conference call information and included discussion about forward-looking statements.

speaker
Richard Chung
Chief Financial Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Thank you, Aud. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call is being recorded. Please know that this call is the property of Penn and Park Investment Corporation and that any unauthorized broadcast of this call in any form is strictly prohibited. Audio replay of the call will be available by using the telephone numbers and PIN provided in our earning press release as well as on our website. I'd also like to call your attention to the customary safe harbor disclosure in our press release regarding forward-looking information. Today's conference call may also include forward-looking statements and projections, and we ask that you refer to our most recent filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results of different materiality from these projections. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements unless required by law. To obtain copies of our latest SEC filings, please visit our website at PennandPark.com or call us at 212-901-1000. At this time, I'd like to turn a call back to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Art Penn.

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Thanks, Richard. I'm going to spend a few minutes discussing how we fared in the quarter ended June 30th, how the portfolio is positioned for the upcoming quarters, our capital structure and liquidity, the financials, and then open it up for Q&A. We are pleased with our performance this past quarter. We achieved a 4.1% increase in adjusted NAV. adjusted NAV went up 38 cents per share from $9.20 to $9.58 per share. We are particularly pleased that our NAV today is up over 9% from what it was pre-COVID on December 31st, 2019. We have several portfolio companies in which our equity investments have materially appreciated in value as they are benefiting from the recovery. This is solidifying and bolstering our NAV We will highlight those companies in a few minutes. Additionally, we are making progress in our equity rotation program. During the quarter, we generated $51 million of cash proceeds from the equity portfolio, including proceeds from Wheel Pros, Walker Edison, DECO PAC, WBB, Cano, and others. As part of our business model, alongside the debt investments we make, we selectively choose to co-invest in the equity side by side with the financial sponsor. Our returns on these equity co-investments have been excellent over time. Overall for our platform from inception through June 30th, our $237 million of equity co-investments have generated an IRR of 28% and a multiple on invested capital of 2.9 times. In a world where investors may want to understand differentiation among middle market lenders, our long-term returns on our equity co-investment program are a clear differentiator. Our core net investment income was 14 cents per share, which excludes 1.1 million of one-time expenses in connection with the prepayment of a portion of our SBIC financing. With regard to growing net investment income, we have a three-pronged strategy which includes, number one, growing assets on balance sheet at PNNT as we move towards our target leverage ratio of 1.25 times debt to equity from 0.8 times. Number two, Growing our PSLF JV with Pantheon to about $550 million of assets from approximately $400 million of assets through balance sheet optimization, including a potential securitization. And three, the opportunity to rotate out of our equity investments over time into yield instruments. We're well on our way to implementing the NII growth strategy. In addition to generating $51 million of cash proceeds from our equity portfolio this past June quarter, since June 30th, PNNT has had new originations of $69 million. Although in the June quarter, repayments on loans roughly equaled new loan originations, in the September quarter so far, repayment activity has abated and new originations have accelerated. Our portfolio performance remains strong. As of June 30th, the average debt to EBITDA on the portfolio was 4.6 times and the average interest coverage ratio, the amount by which cash income exceeds cash interest expense, was 3.4 times. We have no non-accruals on our books in PNNT and PSLF. The portfolio is highly diversified with 86 companies and 29 different industries. Since inception, PNNT has invested $6.2 billion and an average yield of 12%. This compares to a loss ratio of about 15 basis points annually. This strong track record includes our energy investments, are primarily subordinated debt investments made prior to the financial crisis and now the pandemic. As we analyzed our 14-year track record at PNNT, it is clear our returns took a step function up starting in 2015. The IRR of our investments made prior to 2015 was 9.7%. Since 2015, we have achieved a 13.8% IRR. We believe this is due to four key factors. Number one, Better company selection within industry verticals where we have domain expertise. Number two, avoidance of investments in the energy industry and other cyclicals. Number three, excellent results from our equity co-investment program. And number four, a substantially increased focus on core middle market companies where our capital can be more important to companies. Core middle market to us means below 50 million of EBITDA. According to S&P, loans to companies with less than $50 million of EBITDA have a lower default rate and higher recovery rate than loans to companies with EBITDA higher than $50 million. Our performance through the global financial crisis and recession was excellent. During that recession, the weighted average EBITDA of our underlying portfolio companies declined by 7.2% at the bottom of the recession. This compares to the average EBITDA decline of the Bloomberg North American High Yield Index of 42%. Based on tracking EBITDA of our underlying companies through COVID, our EBITDA decline was substantially less than it was during the global financial crisis. Our median EBITDA decline at the bottom of COVID in June 2020 was 1.4%. This compares favorably to the 7% decline in EBITDA during COVID of the Credit Suisse High Yield Index. Many of our companies are in industries such as government services, healthcare, technology, software, business services, and select consumer companies where we have meaningful domain expertise. We believe that we are experiencing a strong recovery with some companies and industries being beneficiaries of the environment. We're pleased that we have significant equity investments in several of these companies, which can substantially move the needle of our NAV. I would like to highlight some of those companies. The companies are Cano, Walker Edison, PT Network, and JF Petroleum. Kano Health is a national leader in primary healthcare who is leading the way in transforming healthcare to provide high quality care at a reasonable cost to a large population. Our equity position has a cost and fair market value on June 30th of zero and 61 million respectively. Walker Edison is a leading e-commerce platform focused on selling furniture exclusively online through top e-commerce companies. Our equity position has a cost of zero and a fair market value of $9.5 million as of June 30th. Due to two capital transactions, one in dividend recap and another in equity financing by Blackstone, we have received cash equal to four times our capital on our equity position. PT Network is the leading physical and occupational therapy provider in the mid-Atlantic states. Our equity position has a cost of $23 million and a fair market value of $60 million as of June 30th. MidOcean JF Holdings, or JF Petroleum, is a leader in the distribution, installation, and servicing of vehicle fueling and related equipment to retail fueling locations in the US. As of June 30, PNNT owned equity securities with a cost and fair market value of $40 million and $49 million, respectively. These companies are gaining financial momentum in this environment, and our NAVs should be solidified and bolstered from these substantial equity investments as their momentum continues.

speaker
Casey Alexander
Analyst, Compass Point Research & Trading

P&NT has among its lowest percentage of energy investments since 2013.

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Energy investments represent only 7% of the overall portfolio. RAM is now in stable operational financial footing and has benefited from higher prices and production. The company's free cash flow is positive after debt service and plans to use any cash flow to repay debt. As of June 30th, equity represented approximately 35% of the portfolio. Equity investments held for the past 12 months have appreciated by approximately 45%, driven by many of the companies previously mentioned. Our long-term goal continues to be to target that percentage down to about 10% of the portfolio. As we monetize the equity portfolio, we're looking forward to investing the cash into yielding debt instruments to increase net investment income. The outlook for new loans is attractive. We are as busy as we have ever been in 14 years in business, reviewing and doing new deals. With our experienced and many more. As a talented and growing team, our wide funnel is producing active deal flow that we can then carefully and thoughtfully analyze so that we can be selective as to what ends up in our portfolio. We are focused on the core middle market, which we generally define as companies with between 10 million and 50 million of EBITDA. We like the core middle market because it is below the threshold and does not compete with the broadly syndicated loan or high yield markets. As such, we do not compete with markets equity cushion is lower, covenants are light, wide, or non-existent, information rights are fewer, and EBITDA adjustments are higher and less diligent. And the timeframe for making an investment decision is compressed. On the other hand, where we focus in the core middle market, generally our capital is more important to the borrower. As such, leverage is lower, equity cushion is higher, we have real quarterly maintenance covenants, We receive monthly financial statements to be on top of the companies. EBITDA adjustments are more diligent and achievable, and we typically have six to eight weeks to make thoughtful and careful investment decisions. As we highlighted a moment ago, according to S&P, loans to companies with less than 50 million of EBITDA have a lower default rate and a higher recovery rate than those loans to companies with higher EBITDA. Let me now turn the call over to Richard, our CFO, to take us through the financial results.

speaker
Richard Chung
Chief Financial Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Thank you, Art. For the quarter ended June 30, core net investment income totaled 14 cents per share, excluding 2 cents per share of SBIC prepayment fees. Looking at some of the expense categories, base fees totaled $4.4 million, taxes, general, and administrative expenses totaled $1 million, and interest expense totaled $7 million. including one-time expenses from the prepayment of SBIC financing. Net realized gains and investments was $42 million of 62 cents per share. Change in net unrealized loss in our investments was $16 million of 25 cents per share. Change in the value of our credit facility decreased our NAV by 2 cents per share. Our net investment income equaled our dividend. Consequently, NAV per share went from $9.24 per share to $9.59 per share, up 3.8% from the prior quarter. Adjusted NAV, excluding the mark-to-market of our liabilities, was $9.58 per share, up 4.1% from $9.20 per share in the prior quarter. As a reminder, our entire portfolio, credit facility, and senior notes are marked to market by our board of directors each quarter using the exit price provided by independent valuation firms, securities exchanges, or independent broker-dealer quotes when active markets are available under ASC 820 and 825. In cases where broker-dealer quotes are inactive, we use independent valuation firms to value the investments. Our GAAP debt to equity ratio, net of cash, was 0.8 times. Regulatory debt to equity ratio, net of cash, which excludes SBIC debt, was 0.7 times. We have a strong capital structure with diversified funding sources and no near-term maturities. We have a $435 million revolving credit facility maturing in 2024 with a syndicate of banks. 64 million dollars of SBA debentures maturing in 2027 and 2028, 86 million dollars of unsecured notes maturing in 2024, and 150 million dollars of unsecured notes maturing in 2026. Our overall debt portfolio has a weighted average yield of 9.2 percent. On June 30, our portfolio consisted of 86 companies across 29 different industries. The portfolio was invested in 41 percent in first lien Secured Debt, 14% in Second Lean Secured Debt, 10% in Subordinated Debt, including 6% in PSLF, and 35% in Preferred and Common Equity, including 4% in PSLF. 91% of the portfolio has a falling rate, all of which has a LIBOR floor. The average LIBOR floor is 1%. Now, let me turn the call back to Art.

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Thanks, Richard. To conclude, we want to reiterate our mission. Our goal is to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns through income coupled with long-term preservation of capital. Everything we do is aligned to that goal. We try to find less risky middle market companies that have high free cash flow conversion. We capture that free cash flow primarily in debt instruments, and we pay out those contractual cash flows in the form of dividends to our shareholders. In closing, I'd like to thank our extremely talented team of professionals for their commitment and dedication. Thank you all for your time today and for your continued investment and confidence in us. That concludes our remarks. At this time, I'd like to open up the call for questions.

speaker
Conference Operator
Operator

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star 1 to ask a question. We can now take our first question from Casey Alexander with Compass Point. Please go ahead.

speaker
Casey Alexander
Analyst, Compass Point Research & Trading

Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions, or good afternoon, I guess it is. Can you tell us what the current outstanding debt is on RAM and using the current price decks, energy price decks as a baseline? To what extent can you pay that down, you know, quarter by quarter?

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Thanks, Casey. And it's a good question. It's about $40 million of debt on the balance sheet of RAM. We can pay it down over the course of the next two or three years. It's a very attractive long-term loan from the Fed Main Street program. So as we generate cash flow, we have the option to either pay it down or just accumulate cash on the balance sheet. will evaluate, you know, we'll evaluate things as they go. But it is cash flow generative. It is a company that's generating good cash flow today.

speaker
Casey Alexander
Analyst, Compass Point Research & Trading

So just to make sure that I understand your answer, that if you dedicated the excess cash flow to paying down the debt, you could have it paid off in two to three years?

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Yes.

speaker
Casey Alexander
Analyst, Compass Point Research & Trading

Yeah, okay, great. That's very helpful. Secondly, given that, I mean, you're, Return of NAV to above pre-COVID levels and yet the extreme discount in the stock, is there any consideration towards even a modest share repurchase program to take advantage of the discount? I mean, it's the highest in the peer group and yet, you know, your returns seem to be improving and NAV's clearly improved. and perhaps that would be a useful way to take advantage of it for shareholders.

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Yeah, no, it's a great question and we're always considering it. I think, you know, as we look, we've generated 51 million of proceeds from equity investments this past quarter. I'm hopeful that as those continue and get even greater, we certainly would look at taking a portion of the proceeds which hopefully will be a lot greater than $51 million and dedicate a portion of that over time to buying back the stock. So, you know, we've got to play it out. We've got to start generating these proceeds, you know, over the coming quarters. And I would certainly, if the stock price continues to be where it is, certainly consider, we would certainly consider dedicating a portion of hopefully bigger proceeds to a very worthwhile investment of the stock.

speaker
Casey Alexander
Analyst, Compass Point Research & Trading

All right, great. Thank you for taking my questions.

speaker
Conference Operator
Operator

and we can now take our next question from Robert Dodd, Raymond James. Please go ahead.

speaker
Robert Dodd
Analyst, Raymond James & Associates

Hi guys. Yeah, good afternoon, I guess. For the capital structure, obviously you've been paying down the SBA debt and obviously you just did an unsecured bond. So your unsecured is a good portion, a very healthy portion of the mix. I mean, can you give us any idea where you'd, like the mix of debt to be, and should we expect the SBA to continue to shrink? You've only got two pools of debentures left, I think, in that $64 million. But is that going to be contemplated to be paid off ahead of maturity, which at least in maturity is a way out there, so?

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Yeah, so it's a good question. And the way the SBIC financing works is as you get towards the back end of the pool, which we are, you're not really permitted to make new investments from that. So you can just sit there with cash and pay the interest expense, or you can pay it off, which is why we elected to pay off about $45 million this quarter. So yeah, the SBIC will wind down over the coming quarters or years. We like unsecured financing, particularly at these type of levels. We did a did a deal not too long ago, which was well received. So, you know, over time, we're going to, you know, use unsecured, you know, probably to a greater extent targeting about, you know, 33% of the debt stack as unsecured. And we also like securitization technology. We haven't yet used it in PNNT. We've used it in the sister BDC PFLT. But we certainly like the long-term low cost of securitization. We like the long-term unsecured nature of bonds. And then the other piece of it, of course, will be plain old credit facilities, which is kind of what we already have. So over time, expect us to increase unsecured. Expect us to potentially utilize securitization both in our JV as well as on balance sheet at PNNT. And I think that's the game plan at this point in time.

speaker
Robert Dodd
Analyst, Raymond James & Associates

Got it. And that's the next question. Within the JV, obviously you mentioned potentially using securitizations in there. What would, given generally securitizations do within the JV, would allow higher leverage than can be carried on a balance sheet? What's the target level? Would the usage of securitization technology... Should we expect that to result in higher leverage? I mean, third party debt, not including your sublets at the JV or is the target leverage still kind of, you know, one and a half times within that vehicle?

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Yeah, so you can look again at the corollary at our joint venture over at PFLT where we did a securitization as a joint venture and we are contemplating using that because the securitization does give you very long term Thank you for joining us. leverage to junior capital, which, you know, could be very helpful from an ROE standpoint and generate nice NII for PNNT. So that's just one straw man that, you know, one could contemplate, you know, similar to what we're doing over at PFLT.

speaker
Robert Dodd
Analyst, Raymond James & Associates

Yeah, understood. One more, if I can, kind of following up to Casey's question. I mean, you know, with VAM still sizable, still equity, M&A market in oil and gas seems to be Starting up, I mean, I'm not an expert on that particular niche, obviously, but any M&A activity beginning to happen within the Austin Chalk or, you know, anything on that front that might make it, you know, Ram Tech monetization, because it's a big slug of capital, more likely in the, you know,

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

We hope so. It's early days, but we're hopeful. And yes, we're not going to wait for the last dollar. If there's a good, nice monetization event, we, like our shareholders, will look to convert the equity to cash, of course. We will not be perfect market timers. That said, it's still early. It's still early. When you see more robust M&A, when you see more drilling, I mean, ultimately some other oil and gas companies should be able to say, I have an option to drill or I have an option to do an M&A deal with someone like Ram. And, you know, because Ram has a very well delineated acreage and 12 holes in the ground that have been very productive, that's a really good use of shareholder investor cash to buy RAM. Every day you read in the newspaper the big companies are being very judicious and careful and they're not drilling and they've got the discipline and all this other stuff. I don't want to say we're waiting for people to be undisciplined, but we are waiting for them to feel a little bit more expansive about doing things, whether that be drilling, whether that be M&A, and we look forward to that day and we will try to optimize value in as expeditious a timeframe as possible.

speaker
Robert Dodd
Analyst, Raymond James & Associates

Got it. Thank you and congrats on the new quarter.

speaker
Conference Operator
Operator

As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We can now take our next question from Ryan Lynch of KBW. Please go ahead.

speaker
Ryan Lynch
Analyst, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods

Good afternoon, Art, and congrats on the next quarter. The first question has to do with the equity co-investment strategy. Obviously, that's been a really successful strategy in the past. I'm just curious, with the size of your equity portfolio today and the way it has been really for the last several quarters, have you guys modified that equity co-investment strategy at all? Or are you guys still trying to take equity co-investments as much as you can on new investments? Does the nice start of exiting proceeds from the recent equity investments of $51 million, does that help ease that and allow you to be a little more aggressive in that area?

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Yeah, it's a great question, and it's a little bit of a conundrum. Last quarter, equity was about 35% of our book. This quarter, it's about 35% of our book, but we took $51 million of cash, and then we had markups. I guess that's good, right? That's good. That means we're generating cash and we've had valuation increases at the same time as we want to try to get more exits and try to work that percentage of the portfolio down. So I guess we'll take increases in NAV and cash proceeds all day long if we can do that. So short answer long, we're just going to continue what we're doing on the equity co-invest. Now, none of these investments are ever that large and individuality. You know, Canoe across our platform originally was, you know, eight or nine million and that's across different vehicles, right? So, Wheel Pros was like four or five million across different vehicles. So, no one of these co-invests were that large to weight down a PNNT or PFLT or any of our other vehicles. They, if they do start, if they do well, then they weigh them down, but that's kind of a good way down because, you know, You know, kind of 5 million becomes 50 million or whatever. So, you know, so we really haven't adjusted because each individual, you know, each individual investment we make is not that big. So just to answer your question. But it's something we're cognizant of. And frankly, you know, when it works well, it would be wrong for us. It's been working well, so it would be wrong for us to not continue that. PNNT itself got weighed down with the energy investments we made a bunch of years ago, and we're not doing those anymore. So we still have to work our way out of this, but I think we see the light at the end of the tunnel. We see the pathway. We're encouraged with our results recently and the way we've been investing really since 2015, where we saw a 400 basis point increase in our IRRs due to a lot of factors. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. In the meantime, we got to clean up the mess that was created before.

speaker
Ryan Lynch
Analyst, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think shareholders would welcome that can come from every quarter by having significant cash proceeds, but not having the equity book go down, given the rise in share values. And that's obviously a good place to be. The second question that I had... may require you to pull out a crystal ball a little bit. You mentioned 69 million of new originations quarter to date in the September quarter. You said repayments have sort of abated, which was not the case really in the June quarter ended. I'm just wondering, given how active the markets are broadly today, Do you expect the repayments to kind of stay at that lower level, or do you think that's just a little blip and it's more likely than not that they will kind of advance back to higher levels in kind of concert with just higher market activity going on right now?

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Yeah, so I'll try my best on the crystal ball, and I'm just giving you kind of news flashes off. off of what we're looking at week by week as we bring deals through investment committee. And I'm theorizing now, but I think a lot of the reduction in repayments is due to the fact that we're now getting more mature in this cycle. And the first wave of deals were refinancing, repayments, M&A. So you pick one company, DECO PAC, which is a company that we were in for a while, and as a nice company, that company got sold. It got sold to a bigger buyout shop financed by a bigger private lender. It's a really nice company, but when we got involved with it three or four years ago, we were part of the first institutional capital of a family-owned business. The family sold their company to a private equity firm. We financed that deal and this M&A trade that just happened a couple months ago is the next iteration as the company got bigger, more mature, and it went to a different portion of this direct lending private equity ecosystem. And I think that's a lot of what you've been seeing over the last six months as COVID has kind of hopefully abated a little bit. The deals we're seeing that are coming in the door these days are kind of the next phase of this, which are back to companies that it's their first time in this direct lending private equity ecosystem. It's a founder, it's a family, it's an entrepreneur. and the private equity firm that we're backing.

speaker
Casey Alexander
Analyst, Compass Point Research & Trading

It's the first institutional capital and our debt is the first institutional debt on that balance sheet.

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

So this is my theory as to why we're seeing less repayments so far. We'll see if it continues. But a big part of what we do is finding those situations where it's the first institutional capital in a business, company does 10, 15, 20 of EBITDA, The sponsor has both inorganic and organic plans to take that EBITDA to 30, 40, 50, 70. Our debt capital will hopefully help fuel that growth, and our equity co-invest will ride alongside and generate some upside. So I think we're seeing more of those deals walk in the door, which will hopefully be a new part of the direct lending private equity ecosystem for years to come.

speaker
Ryan Lynch
Analyst, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods

Okay, yeah, I appreciate that, you know, that thought process, you know, it's a possible question to answer with any clarity, but that's helpful. Those are all my questions. I appreciate your time this afternoon.

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator
Operator

We can now take our next question from Kyle Joseph of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

speaker
Kyle Joseph
Analyst, Jefferies & Company

Hey, Art. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Most have been asked, but... I just wanted to pick your brain and get your sense for the revenue and EBITDA growth you guys are kind of seeing currently and where you expect that to go over the remainder of the year as we lap some of the COVID comps.

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

It's a phenomenal question because, you know, with a big chunk of the portfolio, you know, a year ago everything was shut down. So never in my 35 years in the business have I been seeing, you know, Revenue's up 300%, EBITDA's up 400%, you know, which is kind of some of the situations you're getting, you know, in this environment. It's kind of like, you know, hopefully we will never see this again in our time. We may, but obviously in many of these cases the year-on-year growth is tremendous. You know, I think as I indicated in our prepared remarks, you know, we tracked EBITDA down through the, and I'm searching for my piece of paper, We tracked EBITDA down through the cycle on a median basis. It was only down really less than 2% to the bottom. In our portfolio, the bottom was June 30, 2020. So that was kind of the bottom point. I'm searching around. I can get back to you, Kyle, on what we've seen since then. But clearly, we've seen rapid growth. We've seen, and certainly the most rapid growth has been in the more COVID-impacted names, you know, so by definition. So it's hard to, I really need to get back to you with kind of a statistic, and this is something we can generate over the coming days and weeks. How does it look versus 2019? You know, how does EBITDA of the portfolio, to the extent it's name for name, to the extent we had a name in 2019 and we have it in 2021, what does EBITDA look like relative to that? I would say by definition, given the NAV trends, it's up substantially, but I would only be guessing. So if you give me a little time, I can call you back, and we can certainly disclose it on the next conference call, kind of tracking 2021 versus 2019 and give you a sense of kind of how it's looking on a portfolio basis.

speaker
Kyle Joseph
Analyst, Jefferies & Company

Got it. Yep, that makes sense. And then one follow-up for me. Just looking at the yield on the portfolio, again, a little bit of a crystal ball question here with a lot of moving parts and rates and spreads and everything, and also kind of the mix shift as you rotate equity. But just how do you think about the yield on portfolio given portfolio rotation and kind of spreads you're seeing in the market right now?

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Yeah, I mean, we see stable yields and spreads here. So we're not seeing diminution of the spreads and yields at this point. They've bounced back for sure. We are now back to a more quote-unquote normal basis. I think what we're seeing, though, that's better is the quality of the companies. The companies that we're financing today, by definition, did well through COVID. In some cases, they did better through COVID. So even though spreads and yields are maybe creeping back to pre-COVID levels, and so on. So, the game for us really is to continue to select really good credits. Lessons that we continually learn are it's all about the company. Find really good companies and if you stretch a little bit on leverage, if you stretch a little bit on yield, if you find really good companies, it all works. So we've got to find really good companies. We're finding some a lot today. Utilize the various levers we have available to us in terms of leveraging up the PNNT balance sheet, leveraging up the PSLF joint venture balance sheet, and working the equity rotation. Those are the three levers. And if we can continue to find quality deal flow with high quality companies, We should be able to substantially grow NII and also hopefully ride some NAV leftover time with a chunk of our portfolio that's in equity securities.

speaker
Kyle Joseph
Analyst, Jefferies & Company

Got it. Very helpful. Thanks a lot for answering my questions. Thank you, Kyle.

speaker
Conference Operator
Operator

We have no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the call back to Mr. Penn for closing remarks.

speaker
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pennant Park Investment Corporation

Thanks, everybody, for being on the call. We wish everybody a enjoyable and hopefully very healthy rest of the summer. Our next quarterly conference call will be in November, mid-November, for our 10Q, excuse me, our 10K. It's the September 30th 10K that we'll be filing in mid-November, so look forward to speaking to people then, if not between now and then. Have a great summer, everybody. Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator
Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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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