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.
spk01: Good morning and welcome to Sixth Street Specialty Lending, Inc.' 's fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31st, 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Friday, February 18th, 2022. I will now turn the call over to Ms. Van Horn, Head of Investor Relations.
spk00: Thank you. Before we begin today's call, I would like to remind our listeners that remarks made during the call may contain forward-looking statements. Statements other than statements of historical facts made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements and are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors including those described from time to time in Sixth Street Specialty Lending Inc.' 's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Yesterday, after the market closed, we issued our earnings press release for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, and posted a presentation to the Investor Resources section of our website, www.sixthstreetspecialtylending.com. The presentation should be reviewed in conjunction with our Form 10-K filed yesterday with the SEC. Sixth Street Specialty Lending, Inc.' 's earnings release is also available on our website under the Investor Resources section. Unless noted otherwise, all performance figures mentioned in today's prepared remarks are as of and for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2021. As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. I will now turn the call over to Joshua Easterly, Chief Executive Officer of Sixth Street Specialty Lending, Inc.
spk03: Thank you, Cami. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With us today is my partner and our President, Bo Stanley, and our CFO, Ian Simmons. For our call today, I will review our full year and fourth quarter highlights and pass it over to Bo to discuss our originations activity and portfolio metrics. Ian will review our financial performance in more detail, and I will conclude with final remarks before opening up the call to Q&A. After the market closed yesterday, we reported fourth quarter adjusted net investment income and adjusted net income per share of 63 cents and 57 cents, respectively. This resulted in a full-year adjusted net investment income per share of $2.16 or a return on equity of 13.6% and a full-year adjusted net income per share of $3.12 or a return on equity of 19.7%. These results were primarily driven by record levels of both funding and repayments, which helped us operate within target leverage levels throughout the year while also experiencing meaningful activity-driven income. At quarter end, we had approximately 20 cents per share of cumulative accrued capital gains incentive fees on the balance sheet, and approximately 11 cents per share would be payable in cash if our entire portfolio were to be realized after quarter end mark and normal course. The rest of the accrued fees are tied to unrealized gains from the valuation of our debt investments, inclusive of call protection, which if prepaid would require recognition of fees and investment income and trigger a reversal of previously accrued capital gains and incentive fees related to these investments. In Q4, the impact of such reversals was $0.03 per share. This was offset by a similar amount from realized and unrealized gains that were above our prior quarter valuation marks, resulting in a reversal of less than $0.01 per share of accrued capital gains and incentive fees on the balance sheet. As we discussed in previous quarters throughout 2021, we've excluded accrued capital gains incentive fees amounts in the presentation of adjusted results on the basis that the expense accrual requirement for the item creates noise around the fundamental earnings power of our business. As of December 31st, 2021, the amount of capital gains incentive fees due to the advisor in cash was zero because the gains driving the fee accrual were unrealized. Throughout 2021, we continue to focus on capital efficiency by distributing record level of $3.59 per share during the calendar year through a combination of our base, supplemental, and special dividends. Over that period, we've generated a total economic return to shareholders measured by the change in net asset value per share plus dividends per share of 19.1%, exceeding our average annual economic return rate since IPO of 12.9% through 2020. These returns were primarily driven by the overrunning of our base dividend through net investment income, accretive capital market transactions, and realized and unrealized gains on investments. Yesterday, our board approved a base quarterly dividend of 41 cents per share to shareholders of record as of March 15th, payable on April 18th. Our board also declared a supplemental dividend of 11 cents per share related to our Q4 earnings to shareholders of record as of February 28th, payable on March 31st. Our year in net asset value per share pro forma for the impact of the supplemental dividend that was declared yesterday is 1673, and we estimate that our spillover income per share is approximately 42 cents. We would like to reiterate that our supplemental dividend policy is motivated in part by tax and RIC distribution considerations, and our goal of steadily building that asset value per share over time remains very much part of our philosophy. The distribution of the special supplemental dividends this past year have significantly reduced our excise tax obligations, generating estimated annual savings of $0.08 per share relative to retaining that capital. With that, I'll now pass it over to Beau to discuss this quarter's record investment activity.
spk02: Thanks, Josh. I'd like to start by sharing some perspectives on the broader credit markets and discuss the record levels of activities we experienced through Q4. In the leverage loan markets, LCD first lien spreads ended the year 29 basis points tighter than where they started the year, and second lien spreads actually tightened to 197 basis points. In Q4, first lien spreads saw a widening of 12 basis points, while second lien spreads tightened by 11 basis points. In 2021, new leverage loan issuance volumes reached a record level of $797 billion, fueled by a new high of sponsor-backed middle market M&A volume of $55 billion in Q4 alone and general corporate M&A activity. In part, a product of uncertainty from proposed tax changes that likely accelerated strategic plans on the part of business owners given the robust valuation environment. 2021 saw a continued recovery theme play out for most risk assets. Total return for the leveraged loan index in 2021 was 5.2%, up from 3.1% in 2020. Although 2021 returns were robust, the range of outcomes by sector were once again divergent, with cyclicals, such as energy, responding most significantly. In industries with high exposures to negative secular trends, such as radio and television, weighing down the index. Other sectors such as equipment leasing, food services and products, and drugs also experience returns below index average given the impact of supply chain issues and staffing cost pressures that have been a hallmark of the inflationary environment. Despite this, default rates for leveraged credit generally are at historic lows. These impacts meaningfully inform our approach to origination opportunities and reinforce our selective approach to themes and sectors. Understanding the unit economics and cost structures of borrowers remains a core component in our ability to appropriately position our portfolio to be resilient through economic cycles. Turning now to our investment activity, as Josh mentioned, Earlier, we generated record levels of commitments and fundings and experienced a record level of repayment activity in Q4 2021. As noted in our Q3 21 earnings release, much of our investment activity was weighted towards the back half of 2021, and this continued with $835 million of commitments and $656 million of fundings during the final quarter. Our deal volume in the fourth quarter spanned across 15 new and four existing portfolio companies. We continued to invest across several themes, including software and services, given their attractive revenue characteristics and high variable cost structures. For the full year, our commitment and funding levels exceeded our previous record high figures with $1.4 billion of commitments and $1.1 billion of fundings. Total repayments for the year were just over $1 billion, which meant the net portfolio growth of $113 million for the year. To dive into further detail in our Q4 activity, we continue to focus on our specialized sector sub-themes, including software and business services. As we briefly mentioned last quarter, we agented a $975 million first lien loan to Boomi in with a $379 million commitment and opportunistically contributed a $150 million equity co-invest, both parts of the capital structure being alongside affiliated Sixth Street funds. Boomi's high-quality, scaled recurring revenue base with attractive retention characteristics follows our thematic approach to investing in industries where we have deep understanding and expertise. Other investments in the space during the quarter included Information Clearinghouse, and several of our upsizes to existing portfolio companies, including HireLogic, Ricoh WireQuest, and Piano Software. Outside of software and services, our dedicated team of resources provides us the opportunity to diversify our portfolio by investing in other core areas of expertise. We expanded our retail ABL exposure during the quarter through a $300 million first lean term loan to Price Chopper Supermarkets. to facilitate a merger with Topps Markets, which closed in October. As agent, we committed $200 million across Sixth Street, including $75 million through TSLX, and syndicated a portion to a third party, generating a syndication fee of more than one cent per share. We also leveraged the Sixth Street platform by working alongside our dedicated energy team to originate a direct-to-issuer $275 million first lien term loan to TRP Energy during the quarter. While we remain opportunistic to our exposure in the energy sector, this investment presented an attractive risk-adjusted return at the top of the capital structure and an opportunity to deploy capital in the most actively developed basin in the U.S. with low break-even drilling inventory. At year end, our exposure to the energy sector represented 3.7% of our portfolio at fair value. In addition to macroeconomic factors, We attribute a meaningful portion of our elevated deal activity during the quarter to our relationship with borrowers and sponsors that we've built over the years. During the quarter, we leverage our existing relationship through our commitment to PageUp. PageUp was an existing portfolio company before our investment in Q4, and we're able to benefit from the relationship to agent a $190 million senior secure credit facility with speed and certainty of execution. Including upsizes, 28% of aggregate commitments during the corridor resulted from previous or existing portfolio companies. Turning to the repayment side, we had a record activity in Q4 with 10 full and 5 partial portfolio repayments, totaling $528 million. Net portfolio growth for the corridor was $129 million. This robust level of repayment activity, driven largely by M&A transactions during the fourth quarter, resulted in a combination to net investment income from activity-related fees of 19 cents per share. Of the 19 cents per share, 11 cents was driven by accelerated OID, and 8 cents was driven by prepayment fees. To highlight one of our largest payoffs during the quarter, JCPenney repaid the outstanding balance on its $300 million asset-based Philo term loan with call protection, resulting in a 14.5% IRR. We believe our retail ABL strategy continues to be a core strength of ours, as we've now generated a gross IRR of 20.4% on fully realized retail ABL investments. In addition to the ABL Philo, JCPenney also repaid the outstanding balance of its $519 million exit term loan during the quarter, As a reminder, in connection with J.C. Penney's emergence from bankruptcy in December of 2020, our pre-petition term loan and notes were converted to non-interest-paying instruments with rights to immediate and future distributions in cash and other instruments, including the exit term loan, as well as the earn-out co- and prop co-interest. Separate from the ABL and FILO, we have generated a 32.6% IRR and a 1.2% from the combined impact of our JCPenney securities. As of December 31st, 2021, investments in our retail ABL strategy comprise approximately 7.2% of our investment portfolio at fair value. Consistent with our investment philosophy in prior quarters, we've been selectively making equity co-investments alongside our debt positions, such as our investment in Boomi, as previously mentioned. During the quarter, we generated $22.4 million of realized gains on our equity investments, primarily in Nintex, MODIS, Risk Connect, and EMS links. These positions generated an average MLM of approximately 5X based on our capital invested. From a portfolio yield perspective, funding and repayment activity this quarter had a slight positive impact to our weighted average yield on debt and income-producing securities at amortized cost. Yield remains flat at 10.2% quarter-order of a quarter and is on par with what it was a year ago. The weighted average yield at amortized cost on new investments, including upsizes this quarter, was 9.8% compared to a yield of 9.6% on exited investments. Our ability to maintain these yield metrics reflects our continued selectivity in our origination approach across themes and sectors. Moving on to the portfolio composition and credit stats, This quarter, our portfolio equity concentration came down slightly to 6% on a fair value basis from 7% in Q3 and up about 2 percentage points from a year ago. The year-over-year increase is primarily driven by the increase in fair value of our existing equity positions, given net new fundings and equity positions during the year were relatively flat. Across our core borrowers from whom these metrics are relevant, we continue to have conservative weighted average attach and detach points of 1.0 times and 4.5 times, respectively, with their weighted average interest coverage remaining relatively stable at 3.0 times. As of Q4 2021, the weighted average revenue in EBIT of our core portfolio companies was $114 million and $32 million, respectively. Finally, the performance rating of our portfolio continues to be strong, with a weighted average rating of 1.13 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the strongest. We continue to have minimal non-accruals that let us spend 0.01% of the portfolio at fair value across two portfolio companies. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Ian to cover our financial performance in more detail.
spk11: Thank you, Bo. As Josh and Bo mentioned, we finished the year with a strong quarter from an earnings and investment activity perspective. In Q4, we generated net investment income per share of $0.63, resulting in full year net investment income per share of $1.97. Our Q4 net income per share was $0.57, resulting in full year net income per share of $2.93. As Josh noted, we accrued $0.19 per share of capital gains incentive fees in 2021. However, none of this amount was payable at year end. Excluding the 19 cents per share that was accrued this year, our adjusted net investment income and adjusted net income per share for the year were $2.16 and $3.12, respectively. At year end, we had total investments of $2.5 billion, total debt outstanding of $1.2 billion, and net assets of $1.3 billion, or $16.84 per share, which is prior to the impact of the supplemental dividend that was declared yesterday. Following this quarter's net funding activity, our ending debt-to-equity ratio was 0.95 times, up from 0.9 times in the prior quarter. However, due to the quarter-end timing on a number of fundings, our average debt-to-equity ratio decreased slightly from 1.01 times to 0.99 times quarter over quarter. For full year 2021, Our average debt-to-equity ratio was one times, up from 0.91 times in 2020, and well within our previously stated target range of 0.9 to 1.25 times. Our liquidity position remains robust, with $1.2 billion of unfunded revolver capacity at year-end against $156 million of unfunded portfolio company commitments eligible to be drawn. Our year-end funding mix was represented by 74% unsecured debt, and our weighted average remaining life of debt funding was 3.6 years compared to a weighted average remaining life of investments funded by debt of only 2.4 years. Consistent with our historical cadence, we expect to amend our existing credit facility in early 2022. Looking across our debt maturities, we have approximately 100 million remaining principal value of 2022 convertible notes that will mature in August of this year. Similar to our approach on the early conversion on a portion of these notes last year, in accordance with the requirements under the indenture, we announced to holders earlier this year that we will be settling our 2022 converts with primarily stock and a small portion of cash, creating an equity issuance in Q3 22 related to the remaining principal outstanding. We would expect the conversion to be marginally accretive to NAV per share at the time of conversion. We will continue to assess the impact of the settlement of the converts on our leverage and return profile and look for ways to optimize ROE through the same tools we've used in the past, including through the use of special dividends. Given interest rates are clearly top of mind for many of our constituents, I'd like to hit on the Fed's latest guidance, specifically the expectation for the forward yield curve. At the time of our Q3 21 earnings call in November last year, We didn't expect reference rates to reach the average floor levels of our debt investments until Q4 of 2023. We now expect reference rates to return to our average floor level of 1.08% during Q2 of this year. Given that 98.9% of our debt investments are floating rate in nature and 53% of our portfolio is funded with equity, A rising rate environment provides an earnings tailwind for our business once we reach our average floors. To give an illustrative example of the impact once we reach our floors, assuming our balance sheet remains constant as of Q421, for every 100 basis points increase in rates, we would expect approximately 14 cents per share of uplift to annual net interest income. Again, in a rising rate environment, The sooner rates rise through our floors, the sooner we will benefit from this positive asset sensitivity of our matched floating rate exposures. Conversely, to the extent expected rate rises take longer to reach our floors, we anticipate a potential negative impact to net interest income. Moving to our presentation materials, slide 10 contains this quarter's NAV bridge. Walking through the main drivers of NAV growth, we added 63 cents per share from net investment income against our base dividend of 41 cents per share. There was a 40 cents per share reduction to NAV, primarily from the reversal of net unrealized gains on our equity positions as we booked these gains as realized upon sale. There were minor impacts from changes in credit spreads on the valuation of our portfolio and And there was a positive $0.07 per share impact from the early conversion of a portion of our convertible notes and the impact from our dividend reinvestment plan. And finally, there was a $0.39 per share positive impact from other changes, primarily realized gains on investments of $0.31 per share. A large portion of this was driven by our investments in Nintex, Modus, Risk Connect, and EMS Link, as Beau mentioned earlier. Slide 11 contains an NAV bridge for full year 2021 for your further reference. Moving on to our operating results detail on slide 12. Total investment income for the quarter was $78.3 million, up 10% compared to $71.2 million in the prior quarter. Walking through the components of income, interest and dividend income was $61.8 million, up slightly from the prior quarter. Other fees, representing prepayment fees and accelerated amortization of upfront fees from unscheduled paydowns, were $14 million, up from $10 million in the prior quarter, due to higher portfolio repayment activity. Other income was $2.6 million, up from $1.8 million in the prior quarter. Net expenses, excluding the impact of a non-cash accrual related to capital gains incentive fees, were $32.5 million, up slightly from $31.2 million in the prior quarter. This was primarily due to higher incentive fees from this quarter's over-earning. There was no waiver of management fees during Q4, given average this quarter was below the one-time threshold. As Josh mentioned, during the year, we've generated a return on equity on adjusted net investment income of 13.6%. For a year of record fundings that were met with heavy repayment activity, we managed to increase our average financial leverage year-over-year to one times, and we exceeded our full year 2021 beginning year ROE on adjusted net investment income target of 12%, or $1.90 per share. Further, net realized and unrealized gains on our investments contributed to a record high ROE on adjusted net income of 19.7% for 2021, compared to 15.9% in 2020. As we look ahead to 2022, based on our expectations for our net asset level yields, the movement in reference rates, cost of funds, and financial leverage, we expect to target a return on equity of 11% to 11.5%. Using our year-end book value per share of $16.73, which is adjusted to include the impact of our Q4 supplemental dividend, This corresponds to a range of $1.84 to $1.92 for full year 2022 adjusted net investment income per share. With that, I'd like to turn it back to Josh for concluding remarks.
spk03: Thank you, Ian. Before we conclude, I'd like to reflect on the performance of the business beginning with the onset of the global pandemic almost two years ago from today. Clearly, the pandemic imposed on all of us an environment that we had not previously experienced, creating for a period in time one of the most challenging tests of our business experience tests our business has seen to date. The immediate and uncertain economic downturn beginning in Q1 2020 was a true test for the resilience of our business and the principles for which we operate under. During 2020, we sought to communicate our framework of managing an inherently fragile asset base by building a business model and developing principles to mitigate volatility and uncertainty. These elements included investing in high-quality sectors, with a selective approach to financial sponsors and management teams, building anti-fragility on the right-hand side of our balance sheet by swapping our fixed-rate liabilities into floating rate, paying for the option on liquidity, and maintaining a leverage level well below regulatory limits. Our goal through any market dislocation is to position ourselves such that we not only survive the volatility uncertainty, but grow and create value. Looking back, we believe we accomplished this goal, allowing us to play offense in a time of dislocation. Over the past two years, we are extremely proud to note that we have generated an average annual economic return for our shareholders of 17.5%, well above industry-level returns, and above our average annual economic return to shareholders since IPO prior to that time period of 12.2%. We believe our performance highlights the successful application of our framework and principles. For average readers of our presentation, we added a new page to our earnings presentation for today's call, which highlighted the consistency and resilience of our returns since we completed our IPO almost eight years ago. Slide 5 presents key return metrics measured on both a return on equity basis, that is, using adjusted net income as a numerator, as well as on an economic perspective, which calculates movement in net asset value per share plus dividends. I've already highlighted our performance, but I also wanted to emphasize how strong our returns were during that period. with calendar year adjusted return on equity of 15.9% and 19.7% for 20 and 21, respectively. And while our BDC peers that have reported to date generally appear to have provided solid returns for the calendar year 2021, it is coming off a particularly weak prior year, where the average return on equity for our peer set was less than 1%. The ability to manage our business through the course of an economic cycle remains a key differentiator of how we deliver returns to our shareholders. ENA already provided guidance on expectations for financial performance in 2022, but to add some more color to its comments, we remain constructive on the opportunities set ahead of us. We continue to experience limited yield compression in our assets, and we expect credit losses to remain low given our investment selection, discipline, and the health of our existing portfolio. And while we begin the year with significant liquidity and capacity to drive incremental return on equity through financial leverage given we're at the low end of our target leverage ratio. In closing, I wanted to call out how excited we are at the prospect of return to a more normalized post-COVID environment as we head deeper into 2022. From a work environment perspective, the 6th Street team officially returned to the office earlier this year, and in the case of our New York office, in a new premise, and it's extremely motivating for me to see everyone again in person. To my colleagues and the partners in our business, internal and external, we look forward to enjoying 2022 together in person. With that, thank you for your time today. Operator, please open the line for questions.
spk10: Operator?
spk01: Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press Star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Finian O'Shea with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.
spk12: Hi, everyone. Good morning. Josh, on the outlook for earnings, you touched on higher average leverage helping you more recently this year and such. Can you talk about the outlook to keep running at these levels if your origination footprint has grown or if it's the overall private market activity lifting things up here?
spk03: Hey, thanks, Finne. I think I understood the question. People can hop in. I have Beau, Fishman, and Ian. First, look, our outlook on earnings, just to hit it, when you look back historically, I think I recently did this. Our outlook on earnings on a return on equity basis are basically the same outlook which we beat kind of year in and year out since we went public since 2015 or something, which is range between 10.5% and 11.5% or 12%. So I think our outlook on earnings are exactly the same The two crosswinds, I would say, is one is that a little bit higher leverage than historically, but obviously a very low, a much lower base rate interest rate environment. So on kind of a risk-adjusted basis compared to risk-free, we're actually earning a higher return on equity than we historically have. As it relates to prospects of a little bit of higher leverage, You know, our origination footprint at SX3 has most definitely increased significantly. And you saw that with, this was, I think, our highest origination year ever with over a billion dollars of origination. With rates increasing slightly a little bit, my guess is activity will be a little less and portfolio turnover will be a little less. And so, as in the final comments, I feel, you know, Constructive on the forward year, given we have a whole bunch of excess capital, we have excess liquidity, we can lag in the leverage. The investment environment, I think, is going to have a little bit less portfolio turnover, given that we don't drive our economics through origination activities. But I think there will be a little bit more ability to hold leverage, and we'll be able to drive returns That way with less portfolio leverage given the environment. Bo or Fishman, do you have anything to add or Ian?
spk02: Yeah, another thing I'd say is that we remain constructive on the opportunity set. I agree with Josh. You know, we'd expect last year was a very robust M&A environment. We expected to be fairly robust this year, but probably not on par given the interest rate environment. But, you know, remain constructive on the opportunity set, the deals that we're seeing today.
spk12: I think that's helpful as a follow-up. Is there any change in the cadence on front-end leverage? And can you remind us, I think historically that's employed on about half of the portfolio names?
spk03: Yeah, I'll give you the exact number of what percentage. Our attachment points, if you look at our attachment points, which really matters, they really haven't changed. It's gone from I think historically it's ranged between 0.5 on an EBITDA basis as an attachment point to one. I think we're in that range of 0.5 to one, closer to one now. But I think our attachment points really haven't changed. And we'll come back on the percentage, but I think it's relatively similar, which is what percent of our portfolio has front leverage. But on a risk basis, our attachment points really haven't changed.
spk12: Okay, thanks so much.
spk03: Thanks, Aileen.
spk01: Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin Foltz with JMP. Your line is open.
spk09: Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. The portfolio weighted average EBITDA was $32 million this quarter, which has been trending down in recent quarters. Just curious if that's driven by finding more attractive opportunities with smaller borrowers or if it's being driven by something else you could possibly shine a light on.
spk03: Yeah, hey, Kevin, I think, good question. I think it depends on, I think last quarter it was 37 million. If you look back in 2019, it was 33 million. In 2018, it was 31 million. In 2017, it was 25 million. So I think it's kind of in the range. It kind of also depends on what's in that. That's the core number. And the core number is usually typically, I think, in between 75% and 85% of the portfolio. And so, for example, you know, we did one second lean this quarter, which had a much larger EBITDA that wasn't included in that. So it kind of moves around quarter to quarter. But I think it's, quite frankly, we have not changed our strategy one bit. Same quality, same size companies for the most part. You know, same margin profile. So the underwriting really hasn't changed. So I want to get caught up in the quarter to quarter stuff. It's because it's a function of what's in the core number, what's out of the core number, and it's kind of been in the historical range.
spk09: Okay, thanks, Josh. That's helpful. And then just one follow-up. 2021 was clearly an incredibly strong year for deployment and portfolio growth. Can you talk about your expectation for the pace of investment before the growth in 2022?
spk03: Sure. You know, I think what we've modeled is it's interesting when you think about the economics in our business. If we add assets, we generate higher return on equity because of financial leverage. If we have more portfolio turnover and we are not unable to grow assets, we generate more economics from activity-based fees, such as accelerated OID, given that all of our OID, the original issue discount, is not taken up front but is deferred. and some prepayment fees. And so how we've modeled it, we don't really know what environment we're in. How we think about the world is probably a couple hundred million dollars of net portfolio growth is what we've modeled. But again, the confidence level of the returns are pretty tight because unless we have an environment like we did this past year where you have a ton of origination activities, and a ton of repayments. And so you kind of got the benefit of both. You got the benefit of a little bit of higher leverage and the benefit of activity-level fees. That's what causes breakout years. But, you know, I think we're pretty confident in our level of returns this year.
spk09: Great. That's helpful, Colin. And then I'll leave it there. Congratulations on a really nice quarter. Thanks. Thanks.
spk01: Our next question comes from Melissa Wedel with JP Morgan. Your line is open.
spk05: Good morning, everyone. Appreciate you taking my questions today. Many of them have actually been asked already. So hoping that we could turn to a couple of new investments. It looks like in the human resources space, there were a few new holdings listed. If I'm looking at this right, Employment Hero Holdings and Prime Pay Intermediates. I was hoping we could walk through those briefly and maybe you could talk about the opportunity there and the resilience of those businesses as you see it.
spk03: Yeah, I'll turn it over to Bo. Just one caveat, thanks for that question. They are typically software businesses that support human resource activities on a B2B basis. So, Bo, you can get into it. I think my guess is it's Employment Hero is one, and my guess is it's PageUp is another?
spk02: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. PrimePay would be tangential. So that's a sector that we've been quite active in over the past decade. Obviously, as businesses continue to digitalize and manage their businesses, HR is an important function for back offices of these businesses, including Employment Hero, which is an Australian-based company. It really helps businesses you know, really help with the onboarding, the hiring and tracking of employees through the system with a very tight labor market. It's, you know, imperative that these companies do this in a fashion that is more constructive than in the past. So, again, the sector we really like, as it relates to Employment Hero, this is, you know, a low leverage security with high return on investment capital. and really good retention rates. So that's really what we're focused on. These have really become mission critical functions for the human resources departments. And again, highlighted in an environment where a tight labor market is really important for people to be agile with their technology solutions. So that was across all of those investments that we made this quarter.
spk05: Okay, thanks for that. As a follow-up, could we get an update on American Achievement? It looks like maybe that one had a little bit of a markdown further in the fourth quarter. Thank you.
spk03: Yeah, thanks. I think American Achievement is a relatively small position for us. It was a COVID-impacted name. I think it's like $18 million. I think that's right. Somebody will correct me if I'm wrong. It's in the yearbook class rings, caps and gowns business. Obviously, they missed the selling season in 2020. You know, 2021 should be better. The good news is the industry structure is pretty good. There's a couple players only. So, you know, our expectation and hope is that it would rebound, you know, around pre-COVID numbers. But it's obviously been a COVID-impacted name that has, you know, with a seasonal overlay that's been, you know, a challenge, but a relatively small position for us.
spk05: Thanks, Josh.
spk01: Thank you. Our next question comes from Kenneth Lee with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
spk06: Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I'm wondering if you could just share with us any updated thoughts around opportunities for more Junior capital structure investments. I see you touched upon equity co-investments in the prepared remarks. I just want to see what the opportunities are over the near term. Thanks.
spk03: Yeah. Like we've always said, we're going to be opportunistic in down the capital structure investments. We made probably our first pure second lien investment in a long time. This past quarter in a software name was a sponsor we knew very well that came along with an equity co-invest. We've had a great track record on our equity co-invest program. I think Bo mentioned, I think realized investments this quarter was like five times our money on realized equity co-invest. So we'll continue to be opportunistic. The environment is quite frankly, obviously an interesting environment, which is valuations that come off. People might think that's an opportunity. People might think that's a risk. On high quality businesses, we probably think that's an opportunity. and, you know, the interest rate environment. So we'll keep focused on what we do, which is investing in high-quality businesses that can pass along pricing to their customers. But, you know, we'll be opportunistic. Beau, any comments?
spk02: No, the only thing I would say is, you know, if you look at the equity co-invest levels over time, it really hasn't changed. We've always kind of picked our spots. and made investments, you know, particularly in areas that we had strong kind of thematic views and that, you know, we thought could be supplementary to our returns on the debt piece. But that, you know, that level of activity really has not changed over time. We'll continue to be opportunistic and, again, focus on those opportunities where they're available to us in, you know, sector themes that we've been following and feel like we have a real view on.
spk06: Great. That's very helpful. And just one follow-up, if I may. On the liability side, especially in the context of a potentially rising rate environment, I wonder if you could talk about how you see the funding mix or position and whether there could be any potential changes around that over the near term. Thanks.
spk03: Yeah, I'll start, and then you can pick up. Look, we've always had this view of we match funder assets with our liabilities, which is in a rising rate environment, our portfolio generates more income. Half our book is funded effectively with fixed rate liabilities in the form of equity that have a fixed rate dividend profile. The payout ratio should increase on that. But we don't make a real directional call on rates outside of how we're positioned given the nature of our book on the equity side. And so we've always swapped our liabilities. We'll continue most definitely to swap our liabilities. That's because in the down case, which you saw in 2020, we actually had net interest margin expansion at the time that the whole industry had some risk of increasing credit costs. And so you don't want to have a fixed rate liability profile where in an economic downturn, rates go to zero, you have less income off your book, and then on a net interest margin basis, less credit cost is even worse. And so we'll probably keep our profile exactly the same, and there's obviously asset sensitivity in the nature of our book, given the floating rate nature of our assets.
spk10: Anything to add there? No, the only thing I would add is, Ken, we've committed to the investment grade market and we've done a pretty deliberate job moving our funding profile and the funding mix more towards the unsecured side of the opportunities there over the last four years. And we like that market and I think we can be efficient in issuing into that, but we still have the flexibility of having capacity in our existing revolver, and that's why we highlight the capacity that we build up over the last two years. So it's still going to be a mix, but I think the mix that you see today of about 75% unsecured is pretty good guidance.
spk03: Yeah, the last thing I'll add is, look, what we think we do well is underwriting idiosyncratic credits and making investments in corporates and in capital structure. And obviously macro has a little piece to do with that, but mostly we think of ourselves kind of on a, you know, idiosyncratic basis. Like, you know, picking, making a directional call in rates is something that we really don't do. And so, and doesn't, you know, doesn't, it's not, you know, in our deep core set. And I think, you know, as I said, it's historically competing against central governments, And policymakers, I think, is a tough business.
spk06: Gotcha. Great. That's very helpful. Thanks again.
spk01: Thank you. Our next question comes from Ryan Lynch with KBW. Your line is open.
spk08: Hey, good morning, Joshi and Bo. Congrats on the nice quarter and really nice 2021. I wanted to touch on kind of some of your commentary around market activity and kind of outlook of pipelines for originations. Just because in 2021, that was such a robust year. It sort of went on all sides from a portfolio activity standpoint for you and the overall market. But as we turn into 2022, I do think a lot of those tailwinds and pent-up demand is probably somewhat diminished, and then you have that coupled with rising rates, which could pressure valuations for some of these sponsor-backed businesses, which I think would make them less willing to transact. Now, your business is, you know, you guys have a little bit more of a specialty lending business, so you do some other things. But I'm just curious, you know, from a pipeline standpoint, you know, what are you guys seeing as far as outlook, as far as the pipeline and potential to grow the portfolio in 2022?
spk03: Yeah. Thanks, Ryan. Okay. I think most, I think it depends on what line of business you're talking about, quite frankly. So I think when you think about, we have multiple lines of businesses. We have kind of the sponsor business and non-sponsor business. We obviously do some things that are, you know, I call in lane two and three, which are, you know, or more kind of opportunistic lending with good companies and bad balance sheets or bad companies and, you know, bad business models and good assets like our ABL. You know, so we have a pretty well-rounded breadth in what we do. You know, my guess is given the valuation environment, companies that, you know, used to raise equity, high valuations, for example, are probably not going to raise equity. and still have to fund their business. So that's probably, you know, the lower valuation environment is probably pretty bullish for activity. I think I just saw an article right now where there's, you know, large players in like the later stage growth business who are on the equity side who kind of are taking a step back. And so I think that's helpful to our business. I think the buyout and kind of the M&A is probably going to be, activity is going to be less. But overall, I think we have a pretty broad base originations platform. And what I would say is our ability to grow, you can't look at growth originations. You have to look on a net basis because net funding is what drives economics. And so I would also think one of the actual tailwinds we have in our businesses is probably going to be less portfolio turnover. And so I feel pretty comfortable about the broad range of our skills across different kinds of deals and what that means, and that you don't have the tailwind of probably such a robust M&A activity, but you probably don't have the amount of turnover in your portfolio. So I think what most definitely feels like we'll be able to grow the book on a net basis And we're seeing interesting things in this quarter for sure. Beau?
spk02: Yeah, we've got a handful of interesting things that we're working on in kind of a normal environment in Q1 where you're rebuilding the pipeline from an M&A perspective. I agree with everything Josh said, which is if you look at statistically over time, we've generally had a kind of two-thirds to one-third ratio of sponsored to non-sponsored deals as we have other core sectors such as repeal, OVL, farmer royalty. energy that, you know, go direct to company quite often. You know, having that diversified stream of pipeline opportunities has helped us over time go through cycles where there's less M&A. I would agree with you. We're probably going to see less M&A this year. That's what we're, you know, forecasting. However, I think we do have a large portfolio that are still going to do add-ons. You'll have the ability to, you know, grow the existing portfolio from there. And then as Josh mentioned lastly, kind of a late stage growth businesses. We have raised equity capital that's been very cheap over the last couple years. That's going to become more difficult, and they're going to have to look to other solutions, such as credit solutions, to continue to fund their businesses, which still have pretty robust unit economics in this environment.
spk08: That's really helpful. You know, kind of on that point, you know, you guys, as you kind of look throughout the year, you guys have a pretty meaningful, you know, deep leveraging event, you know, coming to law in the third quarter, as you guys mentioned, you know, and the exact amount, you know, probably hasn't been decided yet because you said a combination of cash and stock. They're probably mostly stock with Convert. Yeah. I guess, is it the intention to try to grow leverage kind of into that event, that deleveraging event? And does your guys' co-investment policy, would that allow you to potentially hold more at TSLX versus some of the other funds or a bigger allocation than you would maybe normally take, knowing that that event is kind of on the horizon?
spk03: Yeah, it's a great question. It's a great question. So you're talking about the the equity settling to convert with the $100 million, roughly $100 million outstanding. That's right. So what I would say is, yeah, obviously we're not talking about raising equity going forward. We plan to, you know, we have the ability to, you know, kind of run, you know, leverage higher. What I would say on the co-investment side, the first stop for kind of middle market specialty lending has always been SOX. And so... We don't have, we determine our position sizing by risk tolerance and what needs are for the business. And so that's definitely a lever. The other lever which we've used historically is we still have 42 cents or something like that. It's still over income. And so we can effectively manage the leverage in the business and the economics through special dividends And so either we're going to grow the book and we're going to be in our target leverage ratio with taking on the additional $100 million of equity, or there's obviously a valve to create leverage or economic leverage in the book through the return of capital, which was historically a return on capital that we just haven't fleshed out.
spk08: Okay. Understood. Makes sense. Appreciate the time this morning. Thanks, Ryan.
spk01: Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question at this time, please press star then one on your touchtone telephone. Our next question comes from Robert Dodd with Raymond James. Your line is open.
spk07: Hi, everyone, and congratulations on the quarter, on 2021, and frankly, on having a six-year track record where the lowest ROE you've generated is 11.6%, which kind of brings me to my question. So how much faith, bluntly, should we have in your guidance of 11 to 11.5% when the only times it's ever been that low were in 2014, 2015, when you were under-levered and had one-time expenses? So can you walk us through a little bit? What are the assumptions there? that lead to the lowest expected ROE in six years for the business?
spk03: Well, it's a great question, Robert. I think we've had the exact same guidance every year. I think so, too. You beat that. Imply what you want on that, but we've had the exact same guidance. You know, obviously the 11, the 11.5 ROEs are harder in a lower interest rate environment and actually provide a a more significant value proposition to our shareholders given the rate environment. What I would say is when you look at activity-level income, so we kind of model our business in those ROEs with very low activity-level income. And so I'm going to – I'll talk about last year's guidance. and what we had modeled, and people, correct me if I'm wrong, last year we modeled only about 18 cents per share. So if you look back, our ROEs last year was in that same range, 11 to 12%, and embedded in that was about only 18 cents per share in accelerated OIDs and prepayment fees, and another 10 cents in amendment fees and other income. So relatively, call it 28 cents per share in non-pure interest income, okay? How the year ended up, and I'm doing this math in my, you know, roughly, 33, I'm doing it, 58 cents, ended up about 58 cents per share in those categories. And so when you historically look back, just to put it out there, I think our lowest year with those levels were in 2016, which was 13, I'm doing this on the fly, I don't know, maybe 26% per share. So we tend to model very conservative levels of attribution from non-interest income, which is why we've always said given our OE range where it is and which was always we beat it. And so the way I kind of think about it, by the way, this is what's created the spillover income, which is when you model a business with credit losses and you set the bar very low and there's multiple levers to exceed the bar, you tend to have beats more often than not. And so that's kind of how philosophically we think we have thought about the business and modeling the business, which was, model it conservatively from a credit loss or credit cost perspective, from an activity-level perspective, and then, you know, communicate that, and that's what's historically driven the beats. Got it, got it. I appreciate that.
spk07: Yeah, you do tend to exceed the guide. That's kind of it. On just the other topic, structuring, I mean, or structures available in the market right now. I mean, you have tended to focus on... ensuring that you have core protection in your structures. It's a very competitive market out there, as we know. It certainly looks from the figures on page five of the presentation that you're still able to structure those deals kind of the same way with a lot of potential core protection. fill in them. I mean, do you expect that to change in terms of, you know, if the market remains this competitive, is the ability to structure with that kind of potential embedded fee income going to persist, or do you think that's going to retreat over the next year?
spk03: I mean, look, obviously environments got more competitive. I mean, I think we do a pretty good job. When you look at, I think about 90% of our book has, sorry, I think 90% of our book is We have some call protection. I'll come back on the exact number of call protection on the book, but we still have a significant amount of call protection in the book. So what I would say is we focus on areas where we can add value to clients, where in industries that we know, where we tend to get the last look, some of when we sell off revolvers and some first out stuff, which Finn alluded to, we most definitely, that helps on how efficient our capital is and what call protection we can, what we can drag. About 85% of our book has call protection today, 85.2%. I think that's consistent historically. But it's just, and when you look at the corollary or the analogy, which is portfolio yields, I think portfolio yields have, you know, in a relatively competitive environment, have held up on a vintage by vintage basis. So, Adam, Beau, do you have anything to add?
spk02: No. What I would say is it's been an intensely competitive environment over the last two to three years. We have not seen an acceleration of that over the last three to four quarters. It's remained intensely competitive. We haven't seen stark changes in deal terms, our ability to get call protection and other features such as covenants that protect us and our investors. That has not changed. We continue to pick our spots, generally playing in areas that we're bringing more to the table than just capital, have some expertise that can provide certainty, and that allows us to be a value add, and it gives some of these call features that we think are an important part of a fixed income book.
spk03: Yeah, and let me – I'll point you to one place in the Earnings Act that I think was helpful to quantify this, which is on page eight of the earnings presentation that we lay out, which is the fair value as a percentage of call price. So that kind of gives you an estimate of how much upsides in the book if it gets called away. I think the fair value today is 95.2% of the call price of our book. It was 96.7% last quarter. So there's actually more kind of embedded economics in the book. And that's ranged from 94.6% a year ago and this is 95.2% today. So it's kind of in the range.
spk07: Yeah, I mean, that was the number I was actually referring to. I went to page eight, not page one. I mean, that's the point, right? I mean, it's improved this quarter versus last quarter in this competitive environment.
spk03: I mean... That's a mixed issue because, you know, call protection is a declining asset, and so there's been portfolio turnover issues And there's new vintage stuff is a higher percentage of our book, which you would expect has more call protection. So that's the benefit of the kind of the mix issue. Got it. Got it. Thank you.
spk01: Thank you. And I'm currently for the questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Josh Easterly for closing remarks.
spk03: Great. Hey, I want to come back to Finn's question because Finn's had a question. Finn, on the first out, it's ranged, and first out, last out mix, it's ranged between, you know, it's hovered between 40, 60, 60, 40 on either side, and we're kind of exactly in that range today. I think it's 43% pure first lanes and 50% last out. So it's been historically right in that mix, so I don't think it's changed. I wanted to come back as we kind of dug around and found the answer. Look, you know, to me, 2021 was a great year for 6th Street and the direct lending business. I actually think 2020 was a better year, just to put it out there. And so, you know, because we were able to generate significant returns across both environments. Very proud of the team. Look forward to seeing people in the spring. I hope people enjoy their President's Day weekend. I think this is the first time we've had our earnings call before President's Day weekend, so I hope people enjoy their President's Day weekend. And we're thankful for the support, and Ian and Cammie and Mike and Bo were available for a follow-up. Thanks so much. Thanks, everybody.
spk01: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer