Great Elm Group Q3 2025 Earnings Report

Great Elm Group EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.17
• Consensus EPS: $0.33
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.50
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Great Elm Group Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.21 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Great Elm Group Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2025
• Date: 5/7/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:30AM ET

Great Elm Group (NASDAQ:GEG) (NASDAQ: GEG) is a closed-end investment company specializing in private credit and equity co-investments for U.S. middle-market companies. The firm’s portfolio is composed primarily of senior secured loans, unitranche financing structures and selective equity interests, with an emphasis on providing flexible capital solutions for growth initiatives, refinancings, acquisitions and recapitalizations.

Through a disciplined underwriting process, Great Elm Group evaluates opportunities across a diverse range of industry sectors, including healthcare, business services, manufacturing and consumer products. The company structures tailored financing packages that can include senior debt, subordinated debt and equity co-investments, allowing it to meet the unique capital needs of privately owned businesses while seeking attractive risk-adjusted returns for shareholders.

Headquartered in New York, Great Elm Group operates throughout North America and is managed by a team of credit and investment professionals with deep experience in investment banking, commercial lending and private equity. The firm’s active portfolio management approach combines rigorous credit analysis with ongoing engagement alongside portfolio companies, aiming to generate consistent cash distributions and long-term capital appreciation.

Great Elm Group Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Great Elm’s fee-paying AUM grew 15% year-over-year to approximately $565 million, driven by GECC’s $147 million equity and debt raises, record CLO JV income, and a 40% increase in base management fees to $1.3 million.
• Total revenues rose 15% to $3.2 million in Q3, though a net loss of $4.5 million reflected unrealized markdowns expected to reverse over time; adjusted EBITDA was $0.5 million.
• In February, the acquisition of Greenfield CRE launched Monomoy Construction Services, creating an integrated construction vertical to enhance Monomoy’s development platform and unlock operational and revenue synergies.
• Monomoy’s real estate pipeline advanced with the land purchase closed for its third build-to-suit project and significant progress on a fourth, while Monomoy REIT acquired a $3 million property and maintained a strong transaction pipeline.
• Under its $20 million buyback program, Great Elm repurchased 4.8 million shares for $8.7 million at an average cost of $1.84 (~15% discount to book value) and ended the quarter with roughly $32 million in cash.

Presentation

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, greetings and welcome to the Great Elm Group Fiscal 2025 Third Quarter Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star and zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Adam Yates, Managing Director. Please go ahead.

[Adam Yates, Portfolio Manager and Managing Director at Great Elm Group]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Great Elm Group's Fiscal Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded on Thursday, May 8, 2025. If you would like to be added to our distribution list, you can email GEG Investor Relations at greatelmcap.com, or you can sign up for alerts directly on our website, www.greatelmgroup.com. The slide presentation accompanying today's conference call and webcast can be found on our website under "Events and Presentations". A link to the webcast is also available on our website, as well as in the press release that was disseminated to announce the quarterly results. Today's conference call includes forward-looking statements, and we ask that you refer to Great Elm Group's filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements.

[Adam Yates, Portfolio Manager and Managing Director at Great Elm Group]

Great Elm Group does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements unless required by law. In addition, during today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable financial measures are included in our earnings release. To obtain copies of our SEC filings, please visit Great Elm Group's website under "Financial Information" and select "SEC Filing. Today's comments do not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy interest in any investment vehicle managed by Great Elm or its affiliate. Any such offer or solicitation will only be made pursuant to the applicable offering documents for such investment vehicle. On the call today, we have Jason Reese, CEO; Adam Kleinman, President and General Counsel; Nicole Mills, COO; and Keri Davis, CFO. I will now turn the call over to Jason Reese, CEO.

[Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group]

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We delivered a solid fiscal third quarter 2025 marked by significant year-over-year growth in both assets under management and revenues across our businesses. This momentum reflects our continued evolution into a streamlined alternative asset management business and strengthens our position to expand our core credit and real estate platforms as we execute on our long-term growth strategy. Among our recent highlights, in February, we launched Monomoy Construction Services, an integrated full-service construction business, with the strategic acquisition of Greenfield CRE, a leading construction management company, which was combined with our existing Monomoy BTS construction management business. We continued to grow our assets under management, increasing our fee-paying AUM by 15% on a year-over-year basis. We generated total revenue of $3.2 million, growing 15% year-over-year.

[Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group]

We closed on the land purchase for our third build-to-suit property and made meaningful progress on our fourth project. We continued to repurchase shares at a meaningful discount to book value, executing on our $20 million buyback program, and we ended the quarter in a strong fiscal position with approximately $32 million in cash available to facilitate continued growth across our asset management platforms. Diving into the quarter in more detail, fee-paying assets under management continued to grow and reached approximately $565 million, representing a 15% increase over the prior year period, primarily driven by our BDC, Great Elm Capital Corp, which raised approximately $147 million through equity and debt issuances in calendar 2024. Notably, GEG has participated in three equity raises at GECC with a combined investment of approximately $12 million, facilitating an increase in fee-paying AUM at GECC of over 40%.

[Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group]

GECC also delivered strong results to kick off the first quarter of 2025, generating record total investment income of $12.5 million, driven by cash flows from its CLO, JV, with net investment income that exceeded its recently increased quarterly distribution. Notably, it was also the highest cash income quarter in the company's history, a testament to the strategic portfolio enhancements undertaken in the last two years. As you may have seen, this week, GECC launched an at-the-market offering to sell common shares at NAV or better, which we expect will provide an additional avenue for growth in assets under management. Overall, GECC's recent successes further reinforce our growth strategy. The increased capital base expands our fee-paying AUM, driving both higher recurring management fees and incentive fee potential.

[Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group]

Notably, our base management fees from GECC grew over 40% year-over-year to $1.3 million, and GECC is well-positioned to pay meaningful fees in the coming quarters. We're very pleased with the performance of GECC, marked by continued portfolio growth and increased cash distributions. GECC continues to deliver significant value to shareholders by expanding and diversifying its portfolio while leveraging its institutional quality infrastructure. Shifting to our other products, Great Elm Credit Income Fund, our private credit fund, has delivered returns on invested capital of approximately 13.9% net of fees since inception through March 2025. With these returns and track record, we are favorably positioned for future growth in the fund. Meanwhile, our real estate business, Monomoy, continues to execute, and we are pleased to have closed on the land purchase for our third build-to-suit property, which we expect to complete during the calendar year.

[Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group]

We also made meaningful progress on our fourth project as we progress through our growing pipeline of opportunities. Looking ahead, we anticipate continued profitability across the Monomoy platform as we remain committed to executing on these development projects to drive profitability and deliver value for both our tenants and shareholders. Further, building on our strategic growth initiatives, in February, we significantly expanded our real estate capabilities through the acquisition of Greenfield CRE, a leading construction management company and a longstanding partner of Monomoy. Greenfield has deep knowledge of our development projects, a strong understanding of our tenant needs and expectations, and a proven track record of delivering on Monomoy's high standards. In connection with this transaction, we launched Monomoy Construction Services, or MCS, and combined the assets of Greenfield with the assets of our Monomoy BTS construction management consulting business.

[Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group]

MCS meaningfully bolsters our real estate platform by creating a fully integrated, full-service construction vertical to serve our existing asset management entities. Our close relationship with the Greenfield team has made for a seamless integration with Monomoy. MCS also expands our owner-rep consulting services with third parties, a majority of which are sourced from existing relationships within the Monomoy ecosystem. This adds accretive revenue opportunities and enhances operational efficiencies through the economies of scale, delivering revenue and operational synergies from Greenfield acquisition. With a large backlog and existing civil engineering and land planning talent, we are now able to offer an expanded range of services and fortify our overall real estate value proposition to our investors and clients. Additionally, Monomoy Reed continues to execute and maintain solid activity throughout the quarter.

[Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group]

We acquired a property for approximately $3 million during the quarter and continue to maintain a strong pipeline of transaction opportunities and open requirements from our tenants. Outside of our core businesses, we've made significant progress in repurchasing GEG shares under our $20 million buyback program. Through May 6, 2025, we have repurchased approximately 4.8 million shares for $8.7 million at an average cost of $1.84 per share, representing approximately a 15% discount to the quarter-end book value per share of $2.14. Before Keri reviews our financial results in more detail, I would like to note that the net loss in the quarter was primarily driven by unrealized losses related to our investments in CoreWeave and GECC shares. Both marked a lower quarter-end amid broader market volatility. We remain highly confident in these investments and fully expect the losses to reverse over time as market conditions stabilize.

[Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group]

While uncertainty can drive asset price volatility in the near term, it can also create very attractive entry points into investment opportunities. Our strong liquidity position, with approximately $32 million of cash at quarter-end, puts us in an advantageous position when market volatility presents. In addition, unique investments like the convertible preferred financing we provided for CoreWeave prior to its public listing and the private fund managed by Stone Ridge Asset Management, a best-in-class reinsurance manager, are a testament to the strength of our sourcing capabilities, both through our experienced board of directors and our network of investment partners more broadly. Our ample liquidity, combined with our unique sourcing capabilities, enables us to support future growth initiatives across our alternative asset management platform. In closing, we're pleased with the performance of our credit and real estate businesses this quarter.

[Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group]

The acquisition of Greenfield CRE strengthens our real estate capabilities while providing revenue and cost synergies, and GECC's continued growth demonstrates our momentum in credit. As always, we remain focused on our core objectives: enhancing financial performance, expanding our platform, and growing AUM. Looking ahead, we will continue to evaluate strategic opportunities to expand our businesses and add accretive, differentiated product offerings with attractive risk-adjusted return profiles. With that, I'll turn it over to Keri.

[Keri Davis, CFO at Great Elm Group]

Thank you, Jason. I will provide a brief overview of the quarter and, of course, welcome all of you to review our filings in greater detail or reach out to our team with any questions. Fiscal third quarter revenues grew 15% to $3.2 million from the prior year period, primarily driven by increased revenue from real estate project management fees and rental income, as well as increased management fees from GECC attributable to fee-paying AUM growth. AUM and fee-paying AUM totaled approximately $768 million and $565 million, respectively, up 12% and 15%, respectively, from the prior year quarter-end. Great Elm Group generated net loss of $4.5 million for the quarter as compared to net loss of $2.9 million for the prior year period.

[Keri Davis, CFO at Great Elm Group]

The net loss was primarily driven by unrealized losses related to certain investment positions marked down at quarter-end, which we expect to reverse over time as market conditions stabilize. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $0.5 million compared to $1.2 million in the prior year period. As of March 31, we had approximately $32 million in cash on our balance sheet to deploy across our growing alternative asset management platform. Please refer to slide 6 that provides an overview of our financial position and highlights our book value per share of approximately $2.14. This concludes my financial review of the quarter. With that, we will turn the call over to the operator to open for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and two if you would like to remove your questions from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while we poll for questions. As there are no questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Jason Reese, CEO, for closing comments.

[Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group]

Thank you again for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you in the future.

[Operator]

Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Keri Davis, CFO
• Adam Yates, Portfolio Manager and Managing Director

Analysts

• Jason Reese, Chairman and CEO at Great Elm Group