PennantPark Floating Rate Capital Ltd. Q2 FY2023 Earnings Call

Good morning, and welcome to the PennantPark Floating Rate Capital Second Fiscal Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PennantPark Floating Rate Capital. Mr. Penn, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to PennantPark Floating Rate Capital's Second Fiscal Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. I'm joined today by Rick Allorto, our Chief Financial Officer. Rick, please start off by disclosing some general conference call information and include a discussion about forward-looking statements.

Thank you, Art. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call is being recorded. Please note that this call is a property of PennantPark Floating Rate Capital and that any unauthorized broadcast of this call in any form is strictly prohibited. An audio replay of the call will be available 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 to differ materially 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 pennantpark.com or call us at 212-905-1000. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Art Penn.

Thanks, Rick. We're going to spend a few minutes discussing how we fared in the quarter ended March 31, how the portfolio is positioned for the upcoming quarters, a detailed review of the financials, and then open it up for Q&A. For the quarter ended March 31, our net investment income was $0.35 per share. Core NII was $0.34 per share, which excludes $0.01 per share for one-time interest income. GAAP NAV decreased slightly to $11.15 per share or 1.3%, which was due primarily to market-driven valuation adjustments on equity co-investments, partially offset by net investment income in excess of the dividend. With this backdrop of consistent earnings and a stable portfolio, the Board of Directors has approved an increase in the monthly distribution to $0.1025 per share, beginning with the July distribution. This represents a 2.5% increase in the monthly distribution and an 8% increase from a year ago. During the quarter, we continued to originate attractive investment opportunities for both the PFLT portfolio and the JV portfolio. For the quarter, PFLT invested $85 million in new and existing portfolio companies at a weighted average yield of 12.2% and had sales and repayments of $63 million. For the investments in new portfolio companies, the weighted average debt to EBITDA was 4.0x, and the weighted average interest coverage was 2.1x, and the weighted average loan to value was 55%. We continue to believe that the current vintage of middle market directly originated loans should be excellent. Leverage is lower, spreads and upfront fees and OID are higher, and covenants are tighter. With a debt portfolio that is 100% floating rate, we are well positioned to continue to grow our net investment income as base rates rise. For the quarter ended March 31, our weighted average yield to maturity was 11.8%, which is up from 11.3% last quarter and 7.5% last year. As of March 31, the JV portfolio equaled $771 million. Together with our JV partner, we continue to execute on the plan to grow the JV portfolio to $1 billion of assets. Subsequent to quarter end, the JV closed its second CLO financing and the sixth CLO for the PennantPark platform. This new financing will allow the JV to further diversify and increase its balance sheet. We believe that the increase in scale and the JV's attractive ROE will enhance PFLT's earnings momentum. We believe NII can continue to grow as we optimize the balance sheets of both PFLT and our JV. With leverage at PFLT at 1.17x debt-to-equity and target leverage of 1.4 to 1.6x, we plan on thoughtfully moving towards our target. The combination of excellent credit quality and higher yields on our portfolio matched with a visible pathway to more optimized balance sheets at PFLT and the JV positions us for stable and growing NII over the coming quarters. In the face of a challenging economic environment and rising base rates, the credit quality of the portfolio continues to perform well. As of March 31, we had four nonaccruals out of 130 different names in PFLT. This represents 1.6% of the portfolio at cost and 0.4% at market value. Our investment in Walker Edison was returned to accrual status after the completion of a balance sheet restructuring, and our investments in Lucky Bucks and Output Services Group were placed on nonaccrual. PFLT has an equity ownership in Dominion Voting, which subsequent to quarter end settled their lawsuit with Fox News for $787 million. Dominion has communicated their intention to distribute the net settlement proceeds, with PFLT's share estimated to be approximately $4 million. As we look forward, we'd like to be positioned for capital preservation as a senior secured first lien lender focused on the United States, where the floating rates on our loans can protect against rising inflation. We continue to believe that our focus on the core middle market provides the company with attractive investment opportunities where we are important strategic capital to our borrowers. We have a long-term track record of generating value by successfully financing high-growth middle-market companies in five key sectors. These sectors where we have substantial domain expertise allow us to ask the right questions and have an excellent track record. They include business services, consumer, government services and defense, health care, and software and technology. These sectors have also been resilient and tend to generate strong free cash flow. In our software vertical, we don't have any exposure to ARR loans. In many cases, we are typically part of the first institutional capital into a company, and the loans that we provide are important strategic capital that fuel the growth, helping companies with $10 million to $20 million of EBITDA grow to $30 million, $40 million, $50 million of EBITDA or more. We typically participate in the upside by making an equity co-investment. Our returns on these equity co-investments have been excellent over time. Overall, for our platform from inception through March 31, we've invested over $394 million in equity co-investments and generated an IRR of 26% and a multiple on invested capital of 2.2x. Because we are an important strategic lending partner, the process and package of terms we receive is attractive. We have many weeks to conduct our diligence carefully. We thoughtfully structure transactions with sensible credit statistics, meaningful covenants, substantial equity cushions to protect our capital, attractive upfront fees and spreads, and equity co-investment. Additionally, from a monitoring perspective, we receive monthly financial statements to help us stay on top of the companies. Regarding covenants, virtually all of our originated first lien loans have meaningful covenants, which help protect our capital. This is one reason why our default rate and performance during COVID was so strong and why we believe we are well positioned in this environment. This sector of the market, companies with $10 million to $50 million of EBITDA, is the core middle market. The core middle market is below the threshold and does not compete with the broadly syndicated loan or high-yield markets. Many of our peers who focus on the upper middle market state that those bigger companies are less risky. That may make some intuitive sense, but the reality is different. 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 higher EBITDA. We believe that the meaningful covenant protections of core middle market loans, more careful diligence, and tighter monitoring have been important parts of this differentiated performance. Our credit quality since inception over 10 years ago has been excellent. PFLT has invested $5.1 billion in 461 companies and experienced only 18 nonaccruals. Since inception, PFLT's loss ratio is only 17 basis points annually. Our experienced and talented team and wide origination funnel have been producing active deal flow. Our continued focus remains on capital preservation and being patient investors. Our mission and goal are steady, stable, and preserving the dividend stream, coupled with the preservation of capital. Everything we do is aligned to that goal. We seek to find investment opportunities in growing middle market companies that have high free cash flow conversion. We capture that free cash flow primarily in first lien senior secured instruments, and we pay out those contractual cash flows in the form of dividends to our shareholders. Let me now turn the call over to Rick, our CFO, to take us through the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Art. For the quarter ended March 31, net investment income was $0.35 per share, and core net investment income was $0.34 per share. Core net investment income excludes $0.01 per share of onetime income related to the acceleration of OID amortization in connection with the early repayment of our loan to PRA. Operating expenses for the quarter were as follows: interest and expenses on debt were $9.8 million; base management and performance-based incentive fees were $7.1 million; general and administrative expenses were $850,000; and provision for taxes were $150,000. For the quarter ended March 31, net realized and unrealized change on investments, including provision for taxes, was a loss of $8.3 million or $0.17 per share. The unrealized appreciation on our credit facility and notes for the quarter was $1.2 million or $0.02 per share. As of March 31, our GAAP NAV was $11.15, which is down 1.3% from $11.30 per share. Adjusted NAV, excluding the mark-to-market on our liabilities, was $11.10 per share, down from $11.22 last quarter. As of March 31, our debt-to-equity ratio was 1.17x, and our capital structure is diversified across multiple funding sources, including both secured and unsecured debt. As of March 31, our key portfolio statistics were as follows: our portfolio remains highly diversified with 130 companies across 46 different industries; the weighted average yield on debt investments was 11.8%, and 100% of the debt portfolio is floating rate; the portfolio was invested in 86% first lien senior secured debt, less than 1% in second lien debt, 4% in the equity of PSSL, and 10% in other equity; debt to EBITDA on the portfolio is 4.8x, and interest coverage was 2.5x. The portfolio as a whole has a meaningful cushion regarding interest coverage. On a sensitivity basis for overall interest coverage to decrease to 1.25x, base rates would need to go up 150 basis points, and EBITDA would need to decrease by 35%. Now let me turn the call back to Art.

Thanks, Rick.

And Art, we'll turn the call back to you. I apologize.

Great. Thanks, Rick. In closing, I'd like to thank our dedicated and talented team of professionals for their continued commitment to PFLT and its shareholders. Thank you all for your time today and for your investment and confidence in us. That concludes our remarks. At this time, I'd like to open up the call to questions.

We'll take our first question from Paul Johnson.

I guess you described a little bit of the general movements in the quarter, but were there any notable equity investments this quarter that contributed to the slight decline in NAV?

Yes, thank you, Paul. The slight decline in NAV was caused by several minor fluctuations in our equity co-invest. Our equity co-invest portfolio has typically performed well, with MOICs averaging 2.2x over time. However, in the past quarter, there was a mix of different names, including By Light, GCOM, and PRA Events, where the equity co-invest values were lower than in the previous quarter. We exited our investment in PRA, and the exit fee from this was the main contributor to the one-time income. Therefore, while we received the one-time income, the NAV experienced a slight decrease due to various small changes, but there were no significant issues.

Yes. I guess in the quarter, as things progressed and quarter-to-date here, I'm just asking, are you guys starting to see any sort of notable uptick in amendment requests or potentially PIK conversions? Anything there?

Yes. So there's nothing material on amendments or PIK. Certainly, it's a mixed economy. We're seeing a much more mixed economy than we saw coming out of COVID. Nothing material. Look, we have these quarterly tests, maintenance tests, which we talk about, which, in some sense, really give us a seat at the table early. Those can be good things to kind of get the right diligence done. They can mean fee income for us and additional equity potentially from the sponsor. Nothing meaningful, but certainly much more to date, but a much more mixed economy than we saw.

Got it. And then I'm just kind of curious, I'm trying to understand the financing arrangement and the JV. I'm curious, the CLO financing arrangements that you guys execute, are you able to kind of tell us who's generally on the other side of those placements? Who's kind of the buyer of those securitizations? Are these banks in any way, any sort of regional banks, or are these more of a diverse set of investors?

Yes. So these are AAA securities down to BBB securities, generally. The big buyers are insurance companies, and the big buyers can be banks. It's a good asset for banks. The banks that have been winning deposits find it to be a good asset because it's a floating rate asset for them and it's very secure. I mean there's never really been a loss on AAAs. So it's a mixture of insurance companies and banks. We typically hire a placement agent who goes and accesses the market. Now that we've had six CLOs, we have repeat investors who've gotten comfortable with us and our platform and how we invest. We're benefiting from it becoming easier each time we do it because we're getting more well-known in that marketplace.

That's interesting. And then lastly, just kind of maybe your general thoughts on what you guys are seeing with the consumer, just in light of the slowing economy and it seems to be declining inflation, but obviously persistently kind of high inflation for some time now.

Yes, I believe "mixed" accurately describes the situation. On one side, consumers are excited about travel, including trips, cruises, hotels, and airlines, which indicates they're willing to spend on experiences. Our recent success with PRA Events shows this trend, as corporate events have surged as both companies and individuals are eager to travel for such experiences. However, in contrast, the market for goods has been more challenging. For instance, Walker Edison, which specializes in furniture, saw a surge in sales during COVID, but now demand has significantly decreased. Consumers are exhibiting a range of behaviors, both positive and negative, requiring us to stay closely attuned to the shifts in consumer demand. It's clear that while people are willing to invest in experiences, their spending on goods has diminished considerably at this time.

We'll take our next question from Kevin Fultz from JMP Securities.

My first question relates to your outlook on portfolio yield. I'm assuming the Fed is nearing the end of its rate hiking cycle; do you see nearing the peak in terms of portfolio yield? Or do you see incremental opportunity to pick up wider spreads that could drive portfolio yield higher longer term?

Trying to predict the Federal Reserve's actions is as uncertain as forecasting the weather. However, our portfolio indicates that controlling inflation is challenging. We recently observed a 5% inflation reading for the economy. Our view at PennantPark is that the current high interest rate environment is likely to persist for some time. Nevertheless, we benefit from SOFR floors on all our deals. We have two main ways to increase net interest income and potentially the dividend for PFLT. First is leverage; currently, we're at 1.17x, whereas our target is between 1.4 and 1.6x. Second is our joint venture, which just completed securitization financing and is expected to grow from $770 million to between $950 million and $1 billion over time, leading to strong return on equity for PFLT. We believe these two factors will enhance our net interest income. Even if you assume a decline in risk-free rates and SOFR, which we don’t expect, we remain confident in our ability to generate income, underpinning our decision to increase the dividend.

Okay. I appreciate the insight there. And then just one more, I guess, in regards to portfolio positioning, are there any pockets or industries that you find particularly attractive right now? I'm just curious where you're seeing the rest of these return opportunities.

Yes. So look, our five key sectors remain where we're focused: health care, which is always needed — you've got to be careful about reimbursement and cost, but health care has had a very good track record for us. Government services and defense has always been a key sector for us in a world of geopolitical risk and uncertainty; that is a good sector, and the other sectors as well. In the consumer sector, you have to be in the right area. Business services is a general catch-all, and software and tech remain good. We don't do ARR loans; we're classic EBITDA cash flow lenders. So those are the sectors where we see the most opportunity.

And our next question comes from Mickey Schleien from Ladenburg.

My questions are just the following. We have this dynamic where the regional banks have their problems, obviously, and that may boost your opportunity in the lower middle market. But we also have large commercial banks constraining their lending and the BSL market is very tough for most lenders — I mean, portfolio companies, unless they are very high-quality. So that would imply you have opportunities up and down the middle market. But I've heard that spreads are actually pretty tight in the lower middle market. So I'd like to ask you, where do you see the best risk-adjusted returns today in terms of allocating your capital given the structure of PFLT?

Look, in the core middle market, or some may call it the lower middle market, we are not seeing tight spreads. You may be hearing that from some of the people who focus on the upper middle market. But we're seeing very wide spreads. We're seeing increased opportunities to conduct thorough due diligence, meaningful covenants, and OID. So I don't know where you heard it from; it might be someone who's not in our market, but I can tell you, it's a good environment for us.

And our next question comes from Mark Hughes from Truist.

Art, could you comment on how the pipeline is looking, and how 2Q may be shaping up in terms of investment activity? What you might see happening through the balance of the year to the extent anyone can see it?

Yes. Look, things are starting to loosen up a little bit. There's starting to be more deal flow. No guarantees. It's never guaranteed from incoming inquiry to what we actually end up investing in since we are so selective. But it is starting to get busier. Our deal flow is starting to gain steam. Which of those deals end up on this side of June 30 or the other side, your guess is as good as mine. Usually, it does take us at least a month, usually 2 to 3 months, to properly diligence, negotiate, and execute a loan. The first quarter is always seasonally slow. It was, after all, the first calendar quarter. It was slower this year because of the turmoil in the market. Frankly, buyers and sellers need to figure out where the new equilibrium is, given higher interest rates and some economic uncertainty. We're feeling like it's going to be a busier second half of the year. We'll see.

Very good. And then the CLO financing, any observations about this around the kind of the structure? You mentioned that you're getting generally more well-known. Does that help in terms of the economics or is that more just the ability to transact? And if so, what's the tempo on that? When can you do the next one, so to speak?

Yes. So for now, at PFLT, we are set at this point with securitizations, although we're always looking at the market and opportunities. There may be other securitizations within the PFLT complex at some point. The PFLT complex also includes the joint venture. I think becoming well-known means more investors come to the table and could mean an easier execution, potentially tighter pricing. The fact that our name in the middle market CLO market is now getting very well known, and our performance has been good, our performance through COVID was really excellent. So we're pleased, and we thought the execution that we just got for the JV was attractive. It's another form of financing that we will look to in the future as one of the many options that we have.

And at this time, we have no further questions. I'd like to turn the call back to our speakers for any closing remarks.

I just want to thank everybody for their time today and your support, and we look forward to speaking to you next in early August when the June 30 numbers come out. Thank you very much. Have a good day and a great weekend.

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference. We appreciate your participation. Have a wonderful day.