Ares Capital Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 1, 2024

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning. Welcome to Ares Capital Corporation's First Quarter March 31, 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. I will now turn the call over to Mr.

Operator

John Stillmar, Partner of Ares Public Markets Investor Relations.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Let me start with some important reminders. Comments made during the course of this conference call and webcast and the accompanying documents contain forward looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results could differ materially from those expressed in such forward looking statements for any reason, including those listed in the SEC filings. Ares Capital Corporation assumes no obligation to update any such forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

Please also note that past performance or market information is not a guarantee of future results. During this conference call, the company may discuss certain non GAAP measures as defined by SEC Regulation G, such as core earnings per share. The company believes that core EPS provides useful information to investors regarding financial performance because it's one method the company uses to measure its financial condition and results of operation. A reconciliation of GAAP net income per share, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure to core EPS can be found in the accompanying slide presentation for this call. In addition, reconciliation of these measures may also be found in our earnings release filed this morning with the SEC on Form 8 ks.

Speaker 1

Certain information discussed in this conference call and the accompanying slide presentation, including information related to portfolio companies, which arise from third party sources and has not been independently verified. And accordingly, the company makes no representation or warranty with respect to this information. The company's Q1 ended March 31, 2024 earnings presentation can be found on the company's website at www dotarescapitalcorp.com by clicking on Q1 2024 Earnings Presentation link on the homepage of the Investor Resources section. Ares Capital Corporation's earnings release and Form 10 Q are also available on the company's website. I'll now turn the call over to Kipp DeVeer, Ares Capital Corporation's Chief Executive Officer.

Speaker 2

Chip?

Speaker 3

Thanks, John. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining our earnings call today. I'm here with our Co Presidents, Mitch Goldstein and Cort Schnabel our Chief Operating Officer, Janna Markowitz our Chief Financial Officer, Scott Lem and other members of the management team. I'd like to start by welcoming Scott to his first earnings call with me in his new role as Chief Financial Officer. Scott's been with us for quite a while as a key business leader within our finance and accounting team.

Speaker 3

He's been at Ares for more than 20 years, so having him join us as our newly appointed CFO is great. We look forward to his continued contributions to Ares Capital. Scott and his promotion is just another example of our culture of continuing to promote our strongest players and shows the depth of the talent that exists at Ares. We still believe this differentiates us from other companies in the market. Now we'll move on to our results.

Speaker 3

This morning, we reported another quarter of strong core earnings of $0.59 per share. Our core earnings per share increased 3.5% from the prior year and were well above our $0.48 per share 1st quarter regular dividend. These results were driven by continued strong attractive investment environment and the beneficial impact of higher base rates and attractive credit spreads. The strength of our earnings and the positive valuation momentum in our portfolio has also supported solid growth in our net asset value per share after paying a healthy level of regular dividends. Our NAV, which increased 6% year over year, reached another record of $19.53 per share.

Speaker 3

In the Q1 of 2024, while merger and acquisition activity levels remain relatively low, our share in the business continues to remain very strong. The banks are more active again, and this is generally good for all market participants as the increased availability of capital typically brings out more M and A and adds confidence to companies seeking financing for transactions. The firming of the credit markets, the aging of significant amounts of private equity dry powder and the continued pressures from LPs to return capital are all factors that support higher levels of activity. We're seeing signs of a pickup in transaction activity as evidenced by the $1,200,000,000 of commitments we've closed in the Q2 to date. While current market conditions are more competitive, this is not a new phenomenon for us.

Speaker 3

We have navigated many competitive markets over the past 2 decades. 2021 was the most recent that was similar. In these environments, we believe that our expansive direct origination capabilities that span the entirety of the middle market from the low, middle and upper segments become even more valuable. And having a very large portfolio also helps to drive new investment activity. We continue to find attractive investments with compelling returns at historically lower levels of relative risk.

Speaker 3

And specifically for our originations in the Q1, the weighted average LTV was below 40%. All in yields were nearly 11% and leverage is nearly a half a turn below our weighted average over the past 2 years. Furthermore, the originated yield per unit of leverage, which we view as one measure of the risk adjusted return in the current rate environment, was 10% above the recent 2 year average. Our credit fundamentals across our portfolio are also indicating health and strength. Our portfolio companies showed organic EBITDA growth over the last 12 months of 10%, which is remarkable in today's economic environment.

Speaker 3

Interest coverage levels remain stable to slightly improve and leverage levels ticked down. The annual EBITDA growth of our portfolio companies is more than double the annual growth of the companies in the S and P 500, which we source from data provided by S and P. On a final point, and as Scott will discuss further, the current market environment does enable us to raise capital more efficiently. So far this year, we've been active as an issuer in the unsecured notes market and the secured bank and CLO markets. We've issued in all these markets in what we believe are the tightest pricing levels amongst the BDCs.

Speaker 3

With that, let me turn the call over to Scott to provide more details on our financial results and some further thoughts on our balance sheet.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Kipp. I'm excited for the opportunity to serve as Ares Capital's CFO. This morning, we reported GAAP net income per share of $0.76 for the Q1 of 2024 compared to $0.72 in the prior quarter and $0.52 in the Q1 of 2023. As Kipp stated, we also reported core earnings per share of $0.59 for the Q1 of 2024 compared to $0.63 in the prior quarter and $0.57 in the Q1 of 2023. Our investment income in the quarter was primarily driven by the continued benefits of higher base rates structuring fees due to an improving investing environment.

Speaker 4

Our structuring fees decreased from the Q4 of 2023 given the usual seasonality in our business. They increased meaningfully from the Q1 of last year. Our stockholders' equity ended the quarter at $11,900,000,000 or $19.53 per share, a new record high for us, which is a 1.5% increase per share over the prior quarter and nearly a 6% increase per share from a year ago. Our total portfolio at fair value at the end of the quarter was $23,100,000,000 up from $22,900,000,000 at the end of the 4th quarter, largely driven by net unrealized gains in portfolio for the quarter. The weighted average yield on our debt and other income producing securities percent at March 31, 2024, which was down slightly from 12.5% at December 31, 2023, but higher than the 12% at March 31, 2023.

Speaker 4

In terms of our capitalization

Speaker 3

and liquidity, we have had

Speaker 4

a fairly active start to the year, making sure we are able to continue supporting our investment opportunities. So far this year, we have amended, extended or raised over $7,000,000,000 of financing for ARCC. More specifically, in the Q1, we issued $1,000,000,000 of unsecured notes at market leading spreads and successfully settled our maturing $400,000,000 of convertible notes in almost all newly issued shares, allowing us to retain the capital and further bolster our permanent equity capital base. In March, we also extended each of the revolving period and maturity date for our SMBC funding facility by 3 years. Post quarter end, we renewed our largest revolving credit facility for another year, pushing it to a full 5 year maturity with the same pricing and terms.

Speaker 4

We also lowered the pricing on our BNP funding facility to SOFR plus 2.50 basis points. Finally, just last week, we priced our 1st on balance sheet CLO in nearly 18 years. The blended pricing through the AA tranche on the 4 $76,000,000 in notes was SOFR plus 186 basis points, which we believe is one of the tightest executions amongst issuers in this part

Speaker 3

of the

Speaker 4

market. Closing is expected in the next few weeks subject to customary closing conditions. This transaction allows us to further diversify our sources of committed debt financing at pricing levels currently below other forms of secured funding available in the market. Our overall liquidity position remains strong with approximately $6,300,000,000 of total available liquidity, including available cash and pro form a for all the post quarter end transactions previously mentioned. We also ended the 1st quarter with a debt to equity ratio net of available cash of 0.95 times as compared to 1.02 times a quarter ago and our lowest net leverage ratio since the end of 2019.

Speaker 4

We believe our significant amount of dry powder positions us well to continue supporting our portfolio company commitments, remain active in the current investing environment and eliminate any refinancing risk with respect to this year's remaining term debt maturities. Moving on to the dividend, we declared a Q2 2024 dividend of $0.48 per share. This dividend is payable on June 28, 2024 to stockholders of record on June 14, 2024 and is consistent with our Q1 2024 dividend. In terms of our taxable income spillover, we currently estimate that we ended 2023 with approximately $635,000,000 or $1.05 per share for distribution to stockholders in 2024. This estimated spillover level is more than 2 times our current regular quarterly dividend, which we believe helps bring stability to our dividend.

Speaker 4

I will now turn the call over to Mitch to walk through our investment activities.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Scott. I'm going to spend a few minutes providing more details on our investment activity, our portfolio performance and our positioning for the Q1. I will then conclude with an update on our post quarter end activity, backlog and pipeline. In the Q1, our team originated approximately $3,600,000,000 of new investment commitments across 61 transactions. We continue to find compelling investments with attractive risk adjusted returns despite some more competitive market conditions.

Speaker 5

We are generating double digit yields with a weighted average LTV on our senior loan commitments at levels below 5x debt to EBITDA. Excluding the $1,600,000,000 of loans on transactions we originated and distributed as agent, our commitments nearly tripled from the Q1 of 2023. The breadth of our sourcing capabilities allowed us to find value in companies with EBITDA from less than $15,000,000 to over $600,000,000 dollars Our expensive market coverage of companies of all sizes across the market enables us to source transactions in segments where we are seeing less competition or where we believe that we have a strong competitive advantage. Shifting to the portfolio, we ended the Q1 with a $23,100,000,000 portfolio at fair value, which grew 1% from the prior quarter and 9% from the prior year. The median EBITDA of our portfolio is $79,000,000 which reflects our presence in both the core middle market and the upper middle market.

Speaker 5

The weighted average LTM EBITDA growth of our portfolio of 10% that Kipp mentioned is also broad based. Importantly, in our portfolio, the size of a company has not been a driver of performance. Companies in our portfolio with $25,000,000 to $50,000,000 of EBITDA have similar to or even higher growth rates as compared to companies with over $100,000,000 of EBITDA. We believe company and industry selection as well as our underwriting process drive these types of positive results. In fact, our view is based on a study done by the Ares Quantitative Research Group that found that industry selection could account for approximately 500 basis points of difference in total for senior U.

Speaker 5

S. Loan returns over more than a decade of investing. With respect to our credit performance, our weighted average portfolio grade of 3.1 remains unchanged from the prior quarter's level. Our non accruals at cost ended the quarter at 1.7%, up slightly from the prior quarter, but lower than the same quarter a year ago. Our current non accrual levels remains well below our 2.9 percent historical average since the great financial crisis and the KBW BDC average of 3.8% for the same period.

Speaker 5

Our non accrual rate at fair value remained consistent with last quarter's at 0.6%, which continues to be well below historical levels for our company. Another indicator of stable credit performance is the fact that our portfolio companies with a risk rate of 1 or 2 declined quarter over quarter. And finally, our portfolio quality is also reinforced by the substantial amount of equity invested in our companies, primarily by large and well established private equity firms. At the end of the Q1, the weighted average loan to value in the portfolio was 43%, which we believe gives

Speaker 3

us strong downside protection in

Speaker 5

our loans. As the market dispersion results among managers, we believe our outperformance and credit position, including our significant diversification, differentiates us from our competition. Our strong and growing portfolio is well diversified across 510 different companies that span the market. The number of companies in our portfolio has increased 9% over the past year and 48% over the past 5 years and the average hold size is only 0.2% at fair value. Excluding our investments in Ivy Hill and the SDLP, which we believe are well diversified on their own, no single investment accounts more than 2% of the portfolio at fair value and our top 10 largest investments totaled just 11% of

Speaker 3

the portfolio at fair value.

Speaker 5

We believe this degree of diversification further adds to the credit strength of our portfolio as it reduces the impact to the overall portfolio from any single negative credited event at an individual company. And finally, we have had an active start to the Q2. From April 1 through April 24, 2024, we made new investment commitments totaling $1,200,000,000 of which $1,100,000,000 were funded. We exited or were repaid on $249,000,000 of investment commitments, which resulted in us earning $1,000,000 of net realized gains. As of April 24, our backlog and pipeline stood at roughly $1,300,000,000 Our backlog contains investments that are subject to approvals and documentation and may not close or we may sell a portion of these investments post closing.

Speaker 5

I will now turn the call back over to Kipp for some closing remarks.

Speaker 4

Thanks a lot, Mitch. In conclusion,

Speaker 3

we believe that the company is well positioned to navigate the opportunities ahead of us. At Ares Capital, we've navigated a variety of market environments, credit cycles and interest rate cycles over our 20 year history with a cumulative average return on equity in the double digits. In our opinion, this is a very good time to be invested in a high quality company focused on private credit. Our portfolio is performing well, and we believe that the potential returns on our investment remain compelling by historical standards. While we remain mindful of the potential for increased credit risks delivered with a higher for longer rate environment, we are highly diversified and defensively positioned companies and our companies are demonstrating healthy and differentiated levels of growth.

Speaker 3

Our balance sheet and liquidity position remains strong, which we believe allows us to take advantage of this compelling new investment environment. Overall, we are confident that the factors that have driven our historical outperformance remain firmly in place. And as a result, we remain optimistic about our future prospects. As always, we appreciate you joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

Speaker 3

With that, operator, we can open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank as a courtesy to those who may wish to ask a question, please limit yourself to one question and a single follow on. If you have additional questions, you may reenter the queue. And we'll take our first question today from John Hecht with Jefferies.

Speaker 6

Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Good morning. Thinking about a lot of activity in the quarter, both on the deployment and repayment side, I'm wondering, Kipp, can you give us kind of an update on the syndicated and liquid of owned markets and how they're influencing activity with you guys and elsewhere in the market?

Speaker 3

Sure, John. I mean, I think it's not a huge driver, frankly, of what we're doing. There's been a lot of press, I'd say, about the banks returning to the market and perhaps more risk on way to try to arrange an underwrite and syndicate more traditional leverage finance transaction. So that's certainly picked up. I think if you look specifically at our activity, I think it was about 70% of our new deals were coming from the existing portfolio, a little bit slower on the kind of new platform side, which was a little bit surprising for us.

Speaker 3

But as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we're pretty optimistic that a handful of factors remain in play that should compel pretty good transaction activity this year.

Speaker 6

Okay. And then you had obviously a lot of again deployment and repayment activity and the capital structuring fees as a percentage that were a little lower. Is there anything to read on that side or is that just a function of the mix of originations?

Speaker 3

It's more mix than anything, although I will say we've noticed a little bit of pressure on upfront fees on new deals in the market simply because there aren't as many of them. So it's one of the levers that a borrower can pull to a certain degree to try to achieve more attractive financing, but it's more mixed than anything else.

Speaker 4

Yes, I'll just add real quick. The numbers are probably a little bit inflated just because we also as a rolled agent, we did front some deals. So the true origination was probably closer to $2,000,000,000 Right. You sort of have to

Speaker 3

back that number out. Yes, exactly. So is the true what

Speaker 6

was that the true origination was what?

Speaker 7

About $2,000,000,000 because about $1,500,000,000 was us as our role of

Speaker 4

agent fronting for some deals.

Speaker 6

Got you. Okay.

Speaker 3

Which happens from time to time, yes. It happens from time to time just depending on what syndicate composition looks like, who can fund it closing, who can, it's sort of a technical point, but when you evaluate it just make sure you look at the math in that light.

Speaker 6

Okay, perfect. Thanks.

Speaker 3

Thanks, John.

Operator

Our next question will come from Finian O'Shea with Wells Fargo.

Speaker 8

Hey, everyone. Good morning. Hi, Kim. Hi, Kim. Can you how are you?

Speaker 8

Can you talk about the environment for 2nd lien if the reduced exposure there is more market related or your portfolio positioning? And if that should continue or if applicable, your ability to replace that with other forms of junior and structured equity. There's a lot of that in the portfolio, but wondering if there are sort of adequate volumes there, if second lien recedes? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes, I'm going to have Cord follow on a couple of thoughts on my side. I would say look when last year came around and kind of the private credit players, that's included, really were representing new deals in the market. Almost everything that we're doing is getting done as a unitranche regardless of size. And that second lien, which has been a larger part of our investing effort is just frankly not as prevalent in the market in terms of the mix of new deals. Does that come back some large deals actually get done as 1st lien in the syndicated market where we can provide junior capital?

Speaker 3

Maybe I guess we'll wait and see. As you know, our 2nd lien investing tends to emphasize much, much larger companies and is very often in with the syndicated first lien. And that transaction just really hasn't been prevalent in the market, I'd say for the last, call it, 3, 6, 9 months. And we'll see where we go from here. The only other thing I'd add, and I'll take it to Kare if he wants to add on it.

Speaker 3

We are seeing a lot of really good companies to your point about junior capital investing and structured equity and all of that that are performing well but simply don't have the amount of cash flows they expected. So you see some senior lenders that are probably saying, well, with higher rates, I'm not really deleveraging the way I was hoping to. And frankly, on the other side, the equity is looking for an extension of duration to accomplish what they want to achieve from an IRR perspective. So there is, we think a pretty interesting opportunistic credit pipeline and funnel to do some of these deleveraging junior capital deals. So Hopefully that answers the question, Cord, if you have anything to add.

Speaker 7

No, I Chip, I think you covered it all.

Speaker 6

Obviously, we're the return opportunities in the 1st lien market are super attractive. So regardless of the fact that there aren't as many second lien opportunities right now, we're not too bothered by that given the other opportunities that the market is showing us, but certainly more a function of what the market is giving rather than a purposeful change on

Speaker 8

part. Awesome. Thanks. And I guess small follow-up maybe sort of related. We noticed the special opportunities or ASOF Group was moved over to credit presumably under your domain KIP.

Speaker 8

Is that is there any anticipated change there? Like maybe if you can go over your historical collaboration or co investment with that unit and how might that change going forward? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes, I mean it plays into the comment that I made about opportunistic credit and I guess all I'd say is there's been a lot of collaboration over the years and frankly because that business was changing I'd say a little bit and it's opportunity to look more credit facing and less like it should be attached to our private equity efforts. It was just a pretty simple move for us that we made kind of around year end that became formal here at the end of the Q1.

Speaker 2

Thanks so much.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Ben.

Operator

Our next question will come from Melissa Wedel with JPMorgan.

Speaker 9

Good morning. Appreciate you taking my question. Notice that dividend income was substantially higher quarter over quarter. As we think about the dividend income stream going forward, should we think about that as being aligned with the direction and change in interest rates and really consider that as much a floating rate east of the portfolio?

Speaker 2

Yes. Hey, Melissa, thanks for

Speaker 3

your question. So it's 2 things, right? So Ivy Hill obviously represents the lion's share of that dividend income, but I'd say for this quarter, it's higher because we actually took on a kind of one time dividend from one of our equity investments. So that's probably why you see it tick up. I don't think there's a big change there away from maybe that one time event, but we obviously benefit from having a diversified equity portfolio that can deliver dividends from time to time.

Speaker 9

Okay. And then I was hoping to follow-up on one of the things that Scott touched on. Scott, hi, welcome. I look forward to working with you. The CLO issuance post quarter end, I think you mentioned it's been a while since you've done something like that.

Speaker 9

I was hoping you could talk about CLO issuance as part of the funding strategy and mix going forward? What role can that play? When will you select that versus other secured or unsecured? Thank you.

Speaker 4

Yes, sure. So I think, just like one of our main themes for capital raising is diversity and I think it is a pretty compelling opportunity for us. The spreads in that market were very attractive relative to other forms of secured financing. So, I think as we're seeing also just as assets have moved into the from the BSL side to the private credit, the flow of debt capital in the CLO market

Speaker 5

is also moving that way. So,

Speaker 4

it made a lot of sense for us to tap that market to diversify funding sources at a pretty attractive spread. And going forward, I think it's definitely part of our playbook now.

Operator

Our next question will come from Casey Alexander with Compass Point.

Speaker 10

Yes. Hi, good morning and thank you for taking my question. Scott did not mention, traditionally you guys mentioned what the spillover income is, but he did mention that. I was wondering what that number is, unless I missed it, which could be. But you continue to pile up the spillover income quarter over quarter.

Speaker 10

At what point in time do you sort of reach the limit or do you just consider it to be a cheap form of financing with the excise tax? But when do you sort of reach the limit at which point in time you'd kind of be forced to make some special distributions?

Speaker 3

Yes, I mean, look over the history of the company, Casey, I appreciate the question. We've obviously done specials in a whole host of different ways. And as I said, as we tend to really want to look at it on an annual basis because it's a tax calculation that we can really true up at the end of the year and that's typically when we make determinations. But we're in a little bit of a tricky position as you can probably appreciate because while we have loads of earnings in excess of the regular dividend, the trajectory for rates going forward is reasonably uncertain. I think if you ask around the table folks would have very different views.

Speaker 3

So combining that with the fact that we really aren't in a position, in my opinion anyway, where we want to put the company in a place where it would have to reduce its regular dividend. We just feel better materially out earning it today and building the NAV. So hopefully that answers the question, but it's a little bit tricky in a world where the rate environment changed quickly. We obviously wanted to recognize the much more substantial earnings power of the company when we increased the dividend to the $48,000,000 But yes, it's something we talk about a lot. When is the right time?

Speaker 3

Do we get credit for specials? Do we not? All of that's very much in the dialogue with the management team and our Board.

Speaker 10

That's my only question. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Okay, thanks.

Operator

Our next question will come from Paul Johnson with KBW.

Speaker 7

Hey, good afternoon or good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. You touched on my question in terms of just kind of pressure on fee income. But is this is that something that you think you've experienced more on deals that you've refinanced in the market? Or are you also seeing a little bit of fee compression on new platform deals as well?

Speaker 6

Yes, it's Cort Schnabel here. I would say it's primarily on existing transactions. New transactions are seeing some fee pressure, but as was mentioned before, the mix shift this quarter, I think we were 72% of our originations were to incumbent borrowers. And that was really the big driver of the numbers that you're seeing there. There is definitely some pressure across all fronts, but as is normally the case, existing portfolio companies don't deliver the same kind of fees as new borrowers do.

Speaker 7

Appreciate that. And one last question I had, just kind of higher level, but I was wondering kind of get your thoughts on a feature a loan feature that we've heard more about, portability, if that's something that you've offered in any of your loans, if that's something that you come across, but any kind of thoughts on that feature would be nice to hear. Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes, we've agreed to do it a couple of times. You've put a lot of guardrails obviously around when that financing can forward I. E. To what counterparty would we be continuing to be involved with, will it be the fees, loan documentation, all sorts of other stuff. I actually think that's more of a feature, frankly, of last year where the financing environment felt more complicated.

Speaker 3

So having the value of an incumbent group kind of move over with a new equity check-in a sponsor to sponsor deal is highly valuable, right, when the financing markets feel uncertain. I wouldn't say that the financing markets feel particularly uncertain today. So my guess is the request for portability apps would go down. But we'll see where we go from here.

Speaker 10

Appreciate it. That's helpful.

Speaker 11

Congrats on

Operator

a good quarter. Thanks guys.

Speaker 3

Thanks. Appreciate the questions.

Operator

Our next question will come from Mark Hughes with Truist.

Speaker 11

Yes, thank you. Good morning. You had mentioned earlier in the call that your quantitative group determined that industry selection got to 500 basis points or could account for 500 basis points of outperformance. How stable is that over time those industry groups that migrate or is that pretty steady?

Speaker 2

Good. That is Mitch,

Speaker 5

by the way. Yes, our group, if you look at how they did the analysis, it was over an extended period of time in our portfolio. And if you have been following us for as long as we've been doing this, our industry groups that where we tend to invest has been pretty stable. So, they were able to get that analytics through our portfolio over a very extended period of time.

Speaker 11

And is it that the industry groups that you focused on have been reasonably stable And that Yes. If you look at our business services,

Speaker 5

our healthcare services, the industries where we invest really haven't changed a lot. We don't invest in cyclical businesses. We don't invest in low margin businesses. So they were able to have a significant amount of data with which to make that analysis out of.

Speaker 11

Yes. Okay. Appreciate that. And then the exits seemed low for April. Anything to that or just happen to be lower?

Speaker 7

Yes. I don't think there's anything to it.

Speaker 3

It's just a single month of data, so I wouldn't take too much away.

Speaker 11

Very good. Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question will come from Eric Zwick with Hovde Group.

Speaker 7

Good morning. I wanted to start just maybe a quick follow-up. Chip, you mentioned earlier some uncertainty. I think as we all know with regard to the future direction of interest rates and just looking at Slide 5, percentage of fixed rate investments in the portfolio is up a little bit year over year, not a huge change by any means. But curious if that's reflective at all of either your preference or borrower preference to maybe do floating versus fixed given their belief in the direction of interest rates or maybe that's more kind of natural migration from quarter to quarter?

Speaker 3

Yes, I don't think there's anything particularly targeted there. I will say when we do some of our junior capital investing, we try to strike the right balance between floating and fixed rate and frankly have a mix of both. But yes, I think you're right. One borrower today may say I want fixed because I think we're higher for longer and another borrower may say the exact opposite. So there's nothing particularly intentional there and different situations just lead to different outcomes that wouldn't take too much away.

Speaker 6

Nothing intentional around the small change quarter to quarter, but definitely intentional in terms of having some fixed rate exposure in the portfolio, which I think is a differentiator for us versus others in the market and just gives us more ballast to operate through all different kinds of environments. Some of that fixed rate, also Kent mentioned the junior capital tying back to his comment about some of the opportunistic situations we're seeing for delevering balance sheets right now given the higher rates. A lot of those are also fixed rate opportunities. So that's probably driving a little bit of that tick up that you're seeing.

Speaker 7

Thanks. I appreciate the color there. And just a bit of a follow-up as well on kind of your funding strategy today. You noticed mentioned how active you've been in the 1st part of the year on the unsecured debt market. The spreads have been very attractive and tight for you all.

Speaker 7

So you're up to I guess 78% of unsecured debt to total debt at this point. And wondering if you could just kind of refresh on your bigger picture view of over time what your preferred mix is and it sounds like as you noted as well CLOs have kind of reentered the picture as well. So just curious your overall kind of bigger picture thoughts there? Yes.

Speaker 4

Look, I think we're always our investment grade rating is very important to us and maintaining that and definitely a big component of that is making sure we're majority unsecured. So I think we're probably a little heavier unsecured at the moment than we would normally, but I think we're happy at the levels we're at now and I think like doing the CLO and other forms of secured finance are also part of our, like I mentioned, part of our playbook. So we'll continue to probably do everything.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks for taking my questions today.

Speaker 11

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question will come from Robert Dodd with Raymond James.

Speaker 2

Good morning, MB. Last quarter, you gave us an update on the tail side of the portfolio. There were some liquidity pressures. Obviously, I mean, Novecrest is still early lows, there's only 1 new one this quarter. If I look at the revolver and delayed oil utilization, it did go up a couple of 100 basis points this quarter, but not a lot.

Speaker 2

So can you give us any more color on what the liquidity pressures are in the tail end of the portfolio? And do you think if rates do stay higher for longer into 2025, is there

Speaker 5

a point at which those liquidity pressures really become problematic?

Speaker 3

Yes, thanks for the question, Robert.

Speaker 4

So I mean, yes, we saw

Speaker 3

a modest, but I wouldn't say material uptick in just revolver drawdown that probably does obviously tell us that there's likely companies that obviously have less liquidity than they might like and I mentioned this a bit earlier in the call. It's kind of a unique period at least in my opinion having done this a long time because you have a lot of pretty strong company performance and even with that strong company performance you have capital structures that got set up that maybe can't live through 5% base rates for a long period of time. And that's why you're seeing more equity and more structured equity come in to deleverage a lot of these situations with potential for rates to remain higher for longer, which frankly is kind of our baseline expectation around here. So we're managing the portfolio and thinking about risk as if we have higher base rates for longer. But again, none of our metrics have really shifted materially, right?

Speaker 3

Our non accruals are up a touch, but materially below historical averages. And again, when you look at what we consider to be our underperformers and loss list, the 1s and the 2s, is pretty consistent in terms of the percentage of the portfolio. So all in all, as a big macro overlay to thinking about the portfolio as a whole, we definitely take that into consideration and that's how we think about managing the assets today, but it's not a particular concern.

Speaker 2

Got it. Thank you. And one more if I tell you, obviously, pick and I don't necessarily have a huge problem with pick, but pick collections for the last couple of quarters have been quite low. Obviously, I think cash pick collections voluntary by the borrower rather than at repayment. I mean, is there any trend there?

Speaker 2

I mean, it's volatile quarter to quarter anyway, But anything you've seen from borrowers who might have in the past 2 years don't want to pay their people cash and are electing to just hold the cash now instead?

Speaker 3

I don't think there's any significant trend. I just looked at Scott and he whispered, where it's episodic, which I think it just comes quarter to quarter and it's not all that easy to predict. I wouldn't take any big picture trend away from some of that data. Robert, it's Mitch. I think you

Speaker 5

have to look at when M and A picks up, a lot of preferred where we like to invest down the balance sheet where we see real value is based on exits, right? And when M and A

Speaker 3

picks up, you'll see a

Speaker 5

lot of that preferred come through. When M and A is slow, you'll see that just continue to stay out there, which we're happy to because the companies are performing.

Speaker 2

Got it. Understood. Thank you.

Speaker 11

Thank you.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Kipp DeVeer for any closing remarks.

Speaker 3

I'll just thank everybody for their participation today and look forward to speaking to you all next quarter.

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes our conference call for today. If you missed any part of today's call, an archived replay of the call will be available approximately 1 hour after the end of the call through May 30 at 5 pm Eastern Time to domestic callers by dialing 1-eight hundred-eight thirty nine-five thousand six hundred and thirty five and to international callers by dialing 1-four zero two 2202-five 61. An archived replay will also be available on the webcast link located on the homepage of the Investor Resources

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Key Takeaways

  • Strong earnings and NAV growth: Q1 core EPS was $0.59, up 3.5% year-over-year and comfortably above the $0.48 regular dividend, while NAV per share reached a record $19.53, up 6% from a year ago.
  • Robust investment activity: The team originated approximately $3.6 billion across 61 transactions in Q1, with a weighted average LTV below 40%, all-in yields near 11% and leverage a half-turn below the two-year average.
  • Strong balance sheet and liquidity: Stockholders’ equity stood at $11.9 billion, the total portfolio at fair value was $23.1 billion, and available liquidity was about $6.3 billion, with net leverage at 0.95x, the lowest since 2019.
  • Diversified and efficient capital raising: Year-to-date refinancing and new financings exceeded $7 billion, including $1 billion of unsecured notes, $400 million convertible note conversions and the first on-balance sheet CLO in 18 years at SOFR+186 bps.
  • Healthy portfolio credit metrics: Portfolio companies delivered 10% organic EBITDA growth over 12 months, interest coverage is stable to improving, and non-accruals remain low at 1.7% of cost (0.6% fair value), well below historical and peer averages.
A.I. generated. May contain errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Ares Capital Q1 2024
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