Mount Logan Capital Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Mount Lomegon Capital's third quarter 2024 results conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind listeners that except for historical information, the matters discussed during this call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual financial results, performance or achievements to be materially different from estimated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by those forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements reflect the company's current views with respect to future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties and assumptions we have made in drawing the conclusions included in such forward-looking statements. The company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking statements and we do not assume any obligation to do so. For a description of the risks associated with Mount Logan Capsules business, as well as information about the material factors and assumptions that could cause results to differ from any forward-looking statements and other relevant factors, please refer to the company's public disclosure record, particularly the company's MD&A, an annual information form for the year ended December 31st, 2023, which are available on CEDA. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mount Losing Capital. Mr. Goldthorpe, you may begin.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for our third quarter 2024 results call. During the call, we will refer to information provided in the third quarter 2024 press release, MD&A, and consolidated financial statements, all of which were released Thursday evening and are available on our website and CDAR. Joining me this morning to discuss our results and outlook for the business is our Chief Financial Officer, Nikita Klaassen, and our co-presidents, Matthias Ederer and Henry Wong, and a new member of our team and Head of Investor Relations, Scott Chen. As a reminder, all references to dollar amounts in this call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. Overall, the third quarter was another strong quarter for our business, and we are excited to review our performance with you today. We're also pleased to announce that we will be paying our 21st consecutive quarterly dividend, which consists of a set per share distribution for shareholders of record as of November 22nd, 2024. Before we provide a more detailed discussion of our third quarter financial results, I wanted to first highlight the growth we continue to see across our business, as well as increased efficiency and effectiveness of the team. We saw organic growth across our two key business segments, primarily measured by fee-related earnings, FRE, the asset management segment, and spread-related earnings, or SRE, for the insurance segment, which were built up significantly year over year. This quarter was our third quarter publishing SRE. Following discussions with key stakeholders, we implemented an SRE metric, performance measure for comparable public insurance platforms, to help investors better assess the performance of Mount Logan's insurance segment and help arrive at a valuation for this key business segment. Management continues to believe that our current share price and year-to-date price performance does not reflect the substantial work the team has done to scale our business and grow our key profitability metrics. As such, Mount Logan insiders including myself, recently made open market purchases, underscoring our conviction in the Mount Logan story. We believe there's a significant disconnect between the growth experienced in our primary business segments over the last several years relative to the market's implied valuation of Mount Logan. On the strategic front, after quarter end, Mount Logan, alongside BC Partners Credit, announced we entered into an agreement to acquire Runway Growth, a $1.4 billion alternative asset manager focused on venture and non-venture-backed growth companies. Mount Logan is purchasing a minority stake in Runway through the issuance of MLC common shares, and the transaction is expected to close by year-end. Runway primarily manages assets through its externally managed and publicly traded BDC, Runway Growth Finance Corp., listed on NASDAQ under RWAY. The transaction would represent Mount Logan's third ownership stake in a manager of a publicly traded BDC. These types of management contracts underpin our focus in the asset management segment, managing long-term, locked-up capital and a closed-end fund structure, which requires significant regulatory know-how in operations, systems, and support, all of which the Mount Logan and BC credit teams have a long track record in maintaining. Additionally, the management team's experience with BDC acquisitions and management of legacy portfolios positions positions our team in runway well for the future. We're excited about the collaboration with the Runway team as we look to leverage their capabilities to broaden our credit investment expertise and find ways to create new products to further grow our business organically and move one step closer to becoming a one-stop, fully diversified private credit manager. On the human capital front, during the quarter, we hired Scott Chand, expanding our presence in Canada and providing support to Mount Logan's capital markets and investor relations efforts. Previously, Scott was a financial services equity analyst at Canaccord Genuity, covering Mount Logan, major banks, life insurance companies, and asset managers. Scott is spearheading recent initiatives to broaden our investor outreach and help disseminate the Mount Logan growth story. Sam Reinhart also entered into an agreement with Mount Logan to support key strategic initiatives across the insurance solutions and asset management segments, leveraging his deep knowledge in the financial institutions space. including most recently his role as head of banks and diversified FIG solutions at UBS. From a financial results perspective, both segments saw top-line growth year over year. Our asset management segment achieved another strong quarter from a top-line and fee-related earnings perspective. And in our insurance segment, asset growth and active deployment and management of capital contributed to an increase in total insurance assets. Belody's total assets managed by Mount Logan were $629 million representing approximately 59 percent of Ability's total investment assets of $1.1 billion. Now Logan will continue to support growth across our insurance and asset management verticals. Our asset management segment encompasses our retail and institutional targeted businesses, generating $3.8 million in revenues during the third quarter, an increase of 20 percent year-over-year. We know this figure excludes $1.5 million of management fees generated under our management agreement with Ability, which increased 35% year-over-year. On the retail side, our two interval funds, SoftX and AltSIF, continue to benefit from investments made during 2023, which included growing our in-house sales force to support subscription activity and capitalize on growing demand for private credit in retail markets. SoftX, the opportunistic credit interval fund we launched and managed, experienced another quarter of growth, resulting in a 6% increase in assets as compared to the prior quarter, and a 15% sequential increase in fees. Net assets for the quarter ended September 30th for approximately $145 million. We expect SoftX's impressive track record of performance, approximately 43% cumulative inception to date, and 6% year-to-date through November 5th, plus its 9.5% annualized dividend, will support fundraising momentum for this differentiated private credit product. Our sales force remains focused on growing SoftX and AltSIF Alt-SIF, our other credit-oriented interval fund, had total net assets at quarter end of approximately $228 million. Mount Logan's specialty finance-oriented vehicle, the Alternative Income Fund, finished the quarter with approximately $199 million in asset center management. During the third quarter, we elected to begin the process of an orderly liquidation of the fund's assets and will continue our efforts to generate attractive returns for investors during this period. We believe in our specialty finance strategy and are actively evaluating new possible paths for leveraging our team to drive value for shareholders. On the institutional side, our BDC and CLO funds represented approximately $1.2 billion of assets as of the end of the quarter and continue to provide predictability in Mt. Logan's top line due to the stable nature of fees generated on the permanent and semi-permanent capital base. Logan Ridge achieved its ninth consecutive quarter of positive NII and declared a quarterly dividend of 36 cents per share during the fourth quarter, up 9% quarter over quarter. As of quarter end, Logan Ridge had a total asset base of $187 million. Now Logan maintains its exposure to its second BDC, Portman Ridge, through its minority interest in Portman Ridge's investment advisor, Sierra Crest. Portman Ridge finished the quarter with approximately $464 million in total assets, The management contract continues to provide consistent quarterly cash distributions to Pat Logan. On the CLO side, AUM for the quarter was $587 million. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the revenue share associated with our management of CLOs increased from 30 percent to 100 percent, which drove increased revenues in each quarter year-to-date and supported increased asset management revenues during 2024 relative to 2023. Lastly, our key sub-advisory relationships saw NAV growth to $87 million during the quarter and approximately 6% increase quarter-over-quarter. Year-to-date, this relationship has been profitable for our team. On the insurance side, during the quarter, Ability reinsured an additional $6 million of buy-go-flow. As of September 30th, Ability has approximately $1.1 billion of invested assets, of which Mount Logan manages a significant portion. We anticipate the asset base will continue to grow as we evaluate new potential partners for incremental micro-business. The insurance business remains highly strategic to Mount Logan and is a priority for our team. We are actively deploying capital and managing investments with attractive risk-adjusted returns across the credit spectrum. On the liability side, we believe our annuity reinsurance business is optimal in the current environment. Annuity policies we reinsure contain surrender charges protectability from earlier-than-expected policyholder withdrawals. As we look to reinsure more annuities, we believe the overall risk profile of our liability base decreases as our legacy insurance portfolio becomes a smaller piece of the overall business. Lastly, before turning the call over to Nikita Klassen, I did want to spend a moment to reinforce our excitement around the prospects of the business. Shareholders are benefiting from the organic growth across each of our key business segments, which is evident in the FRE and SRE expansion during the trailing 12-month period ending September 30th. Our team remains focused on streamlining our business, improving efficiencies, and increasing asset center management through our retail and insurance distribution channels. Our M&A pipeline also remains strong, and we are actively evaluating opportunities to increase investments into our key business segments and expand our investment and distribution capabilities. With that, I'll hand the call over to Nikita, who will review the financial results for the quarter.

Thanks, Ted. Good afternoon, everyone. I will now summarize our key highlights for the third quarter of 2024. As a reminder, all figures referenced on today's call will be in U.S. dollars, Mount Logan's functional and presentational currency. For our asset management segment in the third quarter of 2024, we generated $3.8 million of revenue. Breaking down our asset management revenue further, the Alternative Income Fund generated approximately $974,000 in management and incentive fees in the quarter. Our CLOs generated approximately $791,000 in management fees for the quarter, while SOFX, our interval fund, generated $675,000 in management fees. The net loss related to AltSIF, comprised of servicing expenses, was approximately $116,000 for the quarter. With regards to our BDCs, Logan Ridge generated approximately $850,000 in management fees, and we recognized a $74,000 gain on our minority interest in Sierra Crest, which manages Portman Ridge. Our asset management business revenue increased by 13% quarter over quarter, primarily due to smaller unrealized losses on our equity investments and gain on our investments in Sierra Crest. For the asset management segment on the expense side, for the quarter-ended September 30th, we incurred approximately $7.5 million in operating expenses, which is inclusive of corporate overhead expenses of $2.9 million. Asset management operating expenses increased 12% quarter over quarter, primarily due to increased general and administrative expenses, which include incremental stock-based compensation costs for restricted shares granted to employees and service providers during the quarter. For the quarter-ended September 30th, Mount Logan incurred $1.7 million in interest and credit facility expenses, which relate to our corporate credit facility and the venture unit. Our interest expense remained flat quarter over quarter due to principal paydowns on the corporate facility offset by growing paid and kind interest on the debenture unit. Fee-related earnings with $7.5 million for the trailing 12 months ended September 30, 2024. An increase of $2 million compared to the same trailing 12 months ended September 30, 2023. FRE increased year-over-year due to growth in fees across managed vehicles, partially offset by higher expenses associated with the operations of ovations over the past 12 months. Moving on to our insurance business, we had total revenue this quarter of $31.5 million, of which net insurance service expenses and net expenses of reinsurance contracts held. Revenue for the insurance business in the current quarter increased by $15.7 million compared to prior quarter. The increase in revenue was primarily attributable to unrealized gains on the corporate bond portfolio and interest rate swaps due to lower treasury yields in the current quarter. Additionally, there was a $1 million improvement in insurance service results due to higher loss recoveries for our long-term care business and lower losses on MIGA contracts. following the pause of new MIGA business. These revenues were partially offset by higher insurance service expenses for the long-term care business. Moreover, net investment income increased modestly by only $200,000 due to write-offs of uncollectible accrued interest during the quarter. These increases were partially offset by a $7 million increase in unrealized and realized losses on embedded derivatives attributed to an unrealized gain on funds held balances. as there were lower Treasury yields during the quarter. Our insurance business reported total expenses of $45.2 million during the current quarter. The increase in expenses was primarily attributable to changes in the interest rate environment, which resulted in higher net insurance finance expense compared to the prior quarter. Spread-related earnings was $10.7 million for the trailing 12 months ended September 30, 2024. an increase of $9.7 million compared to the trailing 12 months ended September 30, 2023. SRE has increased year-over-year due to increased investment income, lower cost of funds, and lower other operating expenses. For the quarter-ended September 30, 2024, Mt. Logan reported basic and diluted loss per share of 68 cents. This is compared to a basic and diluted earnings per share of 14 cents for the three months ended June 30th, 2024. The quarter over quarter decrease primarily resulted from an increase in net insurance finance expenses and an increase in realized and unrealized losses on the embedded derivatives for funds withheld under the insurance segment. Both line items are significantly impacted by quarterly mark to market accounting and are non-cash in nature. This decrease in earnings per share was partially offset by net gains in investment activity in the insurance segment and improved insurance service results. As of September 30, 2024, Mount Logan's balance sheet reflected total assets of $1.77 billion, total liabilities of $1.72 billion, and shareholders' equity of $50.9 million. The decrease in shareholders' equity from previously reported June 30, 2024 figures was due to net reported losses during the quarter. The net reported losses was primarily attributable to an increase in net insurance finance expense as a result of the decrease in interest rates, partially offset by higher net investment gains. On the asset management side of the balance sheet, total assets decreased by 4.6% quarter over quarter to $59.4 million, primarily due to decreases in cash and investment balances. Investment balances declined as distributions relating to management fees earned on the Portman Ridge BDC outweighed attributable gains picked up by the company's equity investment in Sierra Crest, as well as the decrease in fair value on equity securities. The company also continued to regime shares from its investment in SoftEx during the quarter. Asset management total liabilities of $82.2 million remained relatively flat quarter over quarter, primarily due to timing of payment for interest expense on its credit facility and minor changes in accrued expenses. On the insurance side of the balance sheet, total assets decreased or increased quarter over quarter by 55.2 million or 3% to 1.7 billion. The increase in assets was primarily attributable to increases in cash and cash equivalents by 19.4 million as a result of pay downs on investments in debt securities during the third quarter of 2024. Reinsurance contract assets also increased due to the lower discount rates, a key input in determining the reinsurance contract asset value in the current quarter as market rates have decreased. The increase in assets was partially offset by decreases in investments as a result of paydowns on debt securities and decreases in cash collateral due to the increase in value of the interest rate flow. Our insurance segment has total liabilities of $1.6 billion, representing an increase of $70.2 million from June 30, 2024. The increase in liabilities was primarily attributable to increases in insurance contract liabilities by $64 million as a result of increase in the present value of liabilities due to the decline in interest rates. Investment contract liabilities also increased by $1.9 million as a result of interest accretion on MIGA deposit liabilities. Accrued expenses and other liabilities increased by $2.9 million, primarily due to an increase in payables for investments purchased that were not settled by quarter end. The funds held liability also increased by $3.9 million due to investment income on investments held. These increases were partially offset by a $2.5 million decrease in the interest rate swap directive. Overall, the company is pleased with its financial performance for the third quarter of 2024, as evidenced by strong investment returns and insurance service results. I will now turn the call back to Ted for some closing remarks.

Thanks, Nikita. In closing, the foundation for our business's success has been built over the last several years and focus remains squarely on how to increase investment into our business, enhancing return for our shareholders. Private markets orientation differentiates us in the market and deserves a higher multiple relative to traditional asset managers. With continued private asset manager consolidation and U.S. publicly traded alternative asset managers trading at a premium multiples, we believe Mount Logan shares are significantly discounted to the public marketplace. As mentioned earlier, recently Mount Logan insiders, including myself, purchased Mount Logan shares to the open market, and we'll continue to do so as we see significant upside in our share price versus where it trades today, and we'll continue to find ways to demonstrate our support and believe in the business and valuation. As discussed on prior calls, we've actively been working to improve liquidity in our shares with initiatives already in flight. We're beginning to see the results of our efforts with Q3 average daily trading volume greatly increased compared to last quarter. We continue to believe our core pillars of the business, asset management and insurance solutions, provide stability and a clear path for growth. We also remain focused on identifying and executing on unique opportunities to grow our business, as evidenced by the recent runway acquisition alongside BC Partners Credit. We believe we're in the early innings of Mount Logan's growth phase, and our team is focused on executing our business plans. This concludes our prepared remarks and we'll now transition the call to a Q&A session if the operator could please coordinate.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question today, please do so now by pressing star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind or you feel like your question has already been answered, please press star then the number two to remove yourself from the queue. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your device and your microphone are unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from the line of Francis Lau with Lucinda Capital. Francis, please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Good quarter. You mentioned that there are other deals in the pipeline. Can you expand on what the characteristics are for the target? And will Mount Logan also be issuing shares to sell the final deal? Our strategy is important.

predicated on both organic and inorganic growth. And we do have a pretty robust pipeline of M&A opportunities. You know, they're all characterized in ways that are consistent with our existing business. So permanent capital and, you know, ability for us to grow. So we have two types of acquisitions that we always look at. Some are financially driven, some are strategic. Our pipeline today is much more financial in terms of being able to acquire scale at pretty good value and provides additional liquidity for us to execute additional M&A strategy. And again, we always try to do acquisitions in cash, but to the extent we have to issue stock, we'll do it. But it has to be at a level of where we think we're creating value for our shareholders. So issuing stock at market is probably our last option in terms of inorganic M&A.

Got it. And so the runway deal is pretty interesting. And, you know, DC partners, like the DC partners will source the deal and then Mount Logan will participate. And going forward, that's kind of the blueprint that we should expect. And as a follow-up to that, can you expand on runway prospects and how Mount Logan will benefit from the deal in the next, call it, one, three, five years? Okay.

So if you take a huge step back, runway is right on brand for us. As I mentioned earlier, this one matches both of our pillars. It's strategic and it's financial. So we think we've gone in at a very good valuation. We love the management team, adding a capability that Mount Logan today does not have. And we think we can actually grow this business. So growing a BDC is relatively difficult. In this space, there is a demonstrated track record of venture lenders being able to grow. If you want access, if you want exposure to this sector, you really could only do it through the publicly traded vehicles, unlike private credit where you have lots of different options. And so we think the stock should trade at a premium to book, and we should be able to grow it. And to your question about, you know, are we going to do stuff, and again, it's permanent capital and a very consistent, stable fee stream for our investors. To your second question about, you know, is this the model going forward, I mean, listen, Mount Worthing greatly benefits from its affiliation with BC Partners. So, you know, bringing to bear the resources of BC allows us to complete transactions like this, which is, you know, it's the second or third largest acquisition space ever. So it's a huge acquisition where we have scale with growth. And, you know, we probably would not be able to pull this off without the affiliation with BC Partners.

That's great. Thank you very much.

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question today, please do so now by pressing start followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We currently have no further questions registered. And so as a final reminder, if you have any questions today, please press Start followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad now. We have no further questions. And with that, I will hand back to Ted for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for your time today. As always, we are happy to make ourselves available for any questions you may have on the business. and we'll provide an interim update on key initiatives we are working on throughout the remainder of the year. We look forward to speaking with you to recap year-end results in the new year.

We hope you all have a very safe holiday season. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. This concludes our call, and you may now disconnect your lines.