NASDAQ:HRZN Horizon Technology Finance Q4 2025 Earnings Report $4.44 +0.22 (+5.08%) As of 11:11 AM Eastern This is a fair market value price provided by Massive. Learn more. ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast Horizon Technology Finance EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.18Consensus EPS $0.30Beat/MissMissed by -$0.12One Year Ago EPSN/AHorizon Technology Finance Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$0.58 millionExpected Revenue$25.64 millionBeat/MissMissed by -$25.06 millionYoY Revenue GrowthN/AHorizon Technology Finance Announcement DetailsQuarterQ4 2025Date3/3/2026TimeAfter Market ClosesConference Call DateWednesday, March 4, 2026Conference Call Time9:00AM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress Release (8-K)Annual Report (10-K)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Horizon Technology Finance Q4 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrMarch 4, 2026 ShareLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Positive Sentiment: Merger with MRCC/Monroe is expected to close soon and management says it will materially increase Horizon’s equity capital and scale, enable larger co-investments (already seen with the OSSIO deal) and drive origination of bigger venture loans. Negative Sentiment: Q4 net investment income was $0.18 per share and NAV fell to $6.98; the board declared monthly distributions of $0.06 for Apr–Jun 2026, which management says will be supported by $0.65 of undistributed spillover and anticipated post-merger improvement. Positive Sentiment: Portfolio economics remain strong with a quarterly debt yield of 14.3% (nearly 16% for full-year 2025), $103M funded in Q4, a $154M committed backlog and $82.5M of new commitments that management expects will help grow NII over time. Positive Sentiment: Liquidity and balance sheet flexibility are highlighted — $189M available liquidity, ~ $472M potential new investment capacity as of year-end, net leverage ~1.05x below target, and completed debt issuances to refinance higher-rate notes. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallHorizon Technology Finance Q4 202500:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xTranscript SectionsPresentationParticipantsPresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Greetings. Welcome to the Horizon Technology Finance Q4 2025 conference call. At this time, all participants will be in listen-only mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press * 0 on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to Megan Bacon, Director of Investor Relations and Marketing. Megan, you may begin. Megan BaconDirector of Investor Relations and Marketing at Horizon Technology Finance00:00:28Thank you, and welcome to Horizon Technology Finance Corporation's Q4 2025 conference call. Representing the company today are Mike Balkin, Chief Executive Officer, Paul Seitz, Chief Investment Officer, and Dan Trolio, Chief Financial Officer. I would like to point out that the Q4 earnings press release and Form 10-K are available on the company's website at horizontechfinance.com. Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that during this conference call, the company will make certain forward-looking statements, including statements with regard to the future performance of the company. Words such as believes, expects, anticipates, intends, or similar expressions are used to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to the inherent uncertainties in predicting future results and conditions. Megan BaconDirector of Investor Relations and Marketing at Horizon Technology Finance00:01:24Certain factors could cause actual results to differ on a material basis from those projected in these forward-looking statements, and some of these factors are detailed in the risk factor discussion in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2025. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Horizon Technology Finance's CEO, Mike Balkin. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:02:02Welcome, everyone, and thank you for your interest in Horizon. Today, we will update you on our quarterly performance in the current operating environment. Paul Seitz, our Chief Investment Officer, will take us through recent business and portfolio developments as well as the current status of the venture lending market. Dan Trolio, our Chief Financial Officer, will detail our operating performance financial condition. We will then take questions. 2025 was a year of transformation for Horizon in many respects. While we navigated a number of micro and macro challenges throughout the year, we believe we began to successfully lay the groundwork for Horizon to succeed over the longer term. While the government shutdown in the Q4 led to our merger with MRCC being delayed into 2026, we are excited to be holding our special meeting shortly and hopefully closing the merger in the weeks ahead. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:03:04As a reminder, closing the merger will significantly increase Horizon's equity capital available for investment in earning assets and allow it to take advantage of greater economies of scale in the combined vehicle. Additionally, Monroe Capital, which is the parent company of Horizon Technology Finance Management, will be continuing to provide ongoing support to the post-merger company. As a result, we expect you will see an even more coordinated and synergistic effort between Monroe and Horizon in 2026, which is already evidenced by Horizon's Q1 co-investment with Monroe in a venture loan to OSSIO. With Horizon's larger capital base and Monroe's ability to co-invest, we expect to originate larger venture loans to cutting-edge early and later-stage venture capital and institutional-backed companies, as well as small cap public companies. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:04:04The merger, working with Monroe and increasing our ability to fund larger transactions, will allow us to bring the Horizon platform to the next level. I cannot be more excited for Horizon's future. Turning to our specific results for the quarter, we generated net investment income of $0.18 per share, while our NAV per share ended the year at $6.98. Based on our outlook, our undistributed spillover income, and the anticipated completion of our merger with MRCC, our board declared regular monthly distributions of $0.06 per share payable in April, May, and June of 2026. As we grow our portfolio in future quarters, it remains our goal to deliver NII at or above our declared distributions over time. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:04:59We achieved a portfolio yield on debt investments of over 14% for the Q4 and nearly 16% for the full year 2025, once again at or near the top of the BDC industry. We redeemed our notes due in 2026 with the proceeds of our issuance of 7% notes due 2028. We finished the year with a committed and approved backlog of $154 million, and our portfolio returned to growth in the Q4. Finally, we are closing attractive venture debt investments while our pipeline of venture debt opportunities continues to grow. As we begin 2026, we remain excited for our long-term future growth given our numerous strengths, including our portfolio yield remains among the industry's highest, which we expect will lead to increased NII over time. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:05:58Our liquidity and balance sheet are strong and will further strengthen post-merger. We maintain a strong, committed backlog, a robust pipeline, and with the backing of Monroe Capital, we are able to compete for larger, higher quality opportunities to make debt investments to growing companies, which will grow our loan portfolio. Finally, the demand for venture debt capital remains high, and we expect to be a key supplier of such capital in the coming year and beyond. Again, we appreciate your continued interest and support in the Horizon Technology Finance platform. I will now turn the call over to our Chief Investment Officer, Paul Seitz, to give you the details of our Q4 results and progress. Paul? Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:06:49Thanks, Mike. Good morning to everyone. As Mike noted, we are preparing for next week's special meeting, which, if shareholders approve the proposal to issue more shares, will allow us to close the merger with MRCC. If approved and closed, Horizon will have the additional size and scale to originate larger venture loans to growing public and private small companies, which will enable us to grow our portfolio and NII over time. We remain very excited to do so. At the end of the year, our current portfolio stood at $647 million as we return to growth. In the Q4, we funded 9 debt investments totaling $103 million, including 2 refinancings of our existing investments. We also continued to make progress in building our pipeline, including larger venture loan opportunities in our target sectors. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:07:412 of our pipeline opportunities, Pelthos and OSSIO, have already closed in 2026. In Q4, we increased our committed backlog by $35 million from the end of Q3, which positions us well to further grow our portfolio in the quarters ahead. In Q1, we expect to further grow our portfolio driven by our current pipeline. Along with the venture loans, which have already closed since the end of the year, we have been awarded 2 new venture loans transactions, representing $82.5 million in total commitments. It goes without saying that we will always be disciplined in originating and underwriting new loans. During the Q4, we experienced 1 loan prepayment and 2 refinancings totaling $43 million in prepaid principal and collected approximately $1 million in warrant proceeds. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:08:32Our onboarding debt investment yield of 12% during the Q4 remained consistent with our historic levels. We expect to continue to generate strong onboarding yields with our current pipeline of opportunities, which we believe will generate strong net investment income over time. Our debt portfolio yield of 14.3% for the quarter was once again among the highest-yielding debt portfolios in the BDC industry, despite the lower level of prepayments in the quarter. Our ability to generate industry-leading yields continues to be a testament to our venture lending strategy and our execution of such strategy across various market cycles and interest rate environments. As of December 31st, we held warrants, equity, and other investments in 97 portfolio companies with a fair value of $51 million. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:09:19Structuring investments with warrants and equity rights is a key component of our venture debt strategy and potential generator of shareholder value. As mentioned, we ended the year with a committed and approved backlog of $154 million compared to $119 million at the end of the Q3. We believe our pipeline of investment opportunities, combined with our committed backlog with most of our funding commitments subject to companies achieving certain key milestones, provides a solid base to prudently grow our portfolio over time. As of year-end, 87% of the fair value of our debt portfolio consisted of 3 and 4 rated debt investments, while 13% of the fair value of our portfolio was rated 2 or 1, consistent with our levels at the end of the Q3. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:10:04We continue to collaborate with all of our portfolio companies in utilizing a variety of strategies to optimize returns and create future value. Turning to the venture capital environment. According to PitchBook, approximately $92 billion was invested in VC-backed companies in the Q4, driven again in significant part by continued large investments in AI. At $339 billion of investment, 2025 was the largest year of investment since the record year of 2021 and a positive sign that investment activity has sufficiently recovered from 2023 and 2024. Exit markets remained opened, though slow in the Q4, with approximately $100 billion of exit value driven primarily by tech IPOs. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:10:48While the M&A market appears to be healthy and the IPO market is open, given the performance of many H2 2025 IPOs, investors and bankers may be more circumspect in bringing companies public in 2026. The life science IPO market remains limited, creating more opportunities for ventured loan originations, as evidenced by our loans to Pelthos and OSSIO. In terms of tech, there remains considerable optimism, and we continue to be doing deep due diligence, particularly in AI and defense technology, to determine the best types of opportunities for future investments. We want to take a moment to make a few comments about AI. First, note Monroe Capital published a white paper on AI on February 6 of this year, which we believe summarizes our current view on AI in the tech sector. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:11:35It's obvious to us that AI is changing the game, and AI-related risk has been a central focus in our underwriting process. We believe the claim that the days of enterprise software are over are inflating the risk, and at the same time, those who claim it's business as usual are underestimating the risk. Given Horizon and Monroe's track record in software investing, we are confident we can navigate this changing environment. As we progress through 2026, we believe venture debt remains a compelling option for companies to access capital with lower dilution to their investors as companies continue to grow and prepare for exits. This compelling option provides significant opportunities for Horizon to seek high quality, well-sponsored tech and life science companies to add to its portfolio. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:12:20To sum up, while 2025 was a challenging year, we have made significant strides to succeed in both 2026 and for the long term. If and when we close the merger, we will have an even greater capacity to target larger venture loan opportunities for both private and small cap public companies. We will continue to work diligently on optimizing outcomes with respect to our current portfolio. We are confident that we are on the right path to expand our portfolio over the longer term and remain a leader in the venture lending space. We expect this will lead to increased NII over time and ultimately additional value for shareholders. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Dan Trolio. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:13:04Thanks, Paul. Good morning, everyone. There were a significant number of positive developments in 2025 for Horizon, namely our impending merger with Monroe Capital Corporation, and our continued ability to strengthen our balance sheet despite the challenging environment. Our actions demonstrate our continued ability to opportunistically access the debt and equity markets. In addition, we continue to diligently work with all of our portfolio companies to optimize outcomes for our investments and improve our credit quality. As such, we believe we remain well positioned to grow our portfolio in the coming quarters and create additional value for our shareholders moving forward. To recap, 2025, we further strengthened our capacity in May by increasing the commitment under our senior secured credit facility with Nuveen to $200 million. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:13:57In September, we raised $40 million of debt capital through the issuance of our 5.5% unsecured convertible notes due 2030, and used the proceeds to retire our Horizon Funding Trust Asset-Backed Notes, which had an interest rate of just over 7.5%. In December, we raised $57.5 million of debt capital through the issuance of our 7% unsecured notes due 2028 and used the proceeds in January 2026 to redeem our 26 public notes. Finally, we successfully and accretively raised over $14 million through our ATM program during the year, further demonstrating our continued ability to opportunistically access the equity markets. As of December 31st, we had $189 million in available liquidity consisting of $143 million in cash and $46 million in funds available to be drawn under our existing credit facilities. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:14:56We currently have no borrowings outstanding under our $150 million KeyBank credit facility, $181 million outstanding on our $250 million New York Life credit facility, and $90 million outstanding on our $200 million Nuveen credit facility, leaving us with ample capacity to grow our portfolio of debt investments. Our debt-to-equity ratio stood at 1.5 to 1 as of December 31st, and netting out cash on our balance sheet, our net leverage was 1.05 to 1 below our target leverage. Based on our cash position and our borrowing capacity on our credit facilities, our potential new investment capacity as of December 31st was $472 million. Turning to our operating results. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:15:44For the Q4, we earned investment income of $21 million compared to $24 million in the prior year period, primarily due to lower interest income on our debt investment portfolio. Our debt investment portfolio on a net cost basis stood at $602 million as of December 31st, up 3% compared to $585 million as of September 30th, 2025. For the Q4 of 2025, we achieved onboarding yields of 12% compared to 12.2% achieved in the Q3 of 2025. Our loan portfolio yield was 14.3% for the Q4 compared to 14.9% for last year's Q4. Total expenses for the quarter were $12.5 million compared to $12.8 million in the Q4 of 2024. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:16:37Our interest expense of $8 million was $0.2 million lower than last year's Q4, while our base management fee was $2.9 million, $0.2 million lower than the prior year period due to our smaller portfolio. We received no performance-based incentive fees in the Q4 as we continue to defer incentive fees otherwise earned by our advisor under our incentive fee cap and deferral mechanism. We expect that the advisor will return to earning incentive fees as a reminder, our advisor has agreed to waive up to $4 million of fees or $1 million a quarter if the merger is completed. Net investment income for the Q4 of 2025 was $0.18 per share compared to $0.32 per share in the Q3 of 2025 and $0.27 per share for the Q4 of 2024. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:17:27Prepayment activity and the income that is typically associated with prepayments was lower than our historical experience. We continue to expect prepayment activity will remain modest in the near term. For the full year of 2025, we generated NII of $1.05 per share. The company's undistributed spillover income as of December 31st was $0.65 per share. Based upon our outlook, undistributed spillover income and the anticipated completion of our merger with MRCC, our board declared monthly distributions of $0.06 per share for April, May and June 2026. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:18:07We anticipate that the size of our portfolio, our expectations for growth, and our predictive pricing strategy will enable us to generate NII that covers our distribution over time.To summarize our portfolio activities for the Q4, new originations totaled $103 million, which were offset by $13 million in scheduled principal payments and $15 million in principal prepayments, refinancings, and partial pay downs. We ended the year with a total investment portfolio of $647 million. At December 31st, the portfolio consisted of debt investments in 38 companies with an aggregate fair value of $596 million and a portfolio of warrant, equity and other investments in 97 companies with an aggregate fair value of $51 million. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:18:57Our NAV as of December 31st was $6.98 per share, compared to $7.12 as of September 30th, 2025, and $8.43 as of December 31st, 2024. The $0.14 reduction in NAV on a quarterly basis was primarily due to our paid distributions exceeding our NII. As we've consistently noted, nearly 100% of the outstanding principal amount of our debt investments bear interest at floating rates. Of those investments, approximately 71% are already at their interest rate floors, which should mitigate the impact of decreasing interest rates. This concludes our opening remarks. We'll be happy to take questions you may have at this time. Operator00:19:45Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press * 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press * 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants that are using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the * keys. Thank you. Our 1st question is from the line of Michael Brown with UBS. Please proceed with your questions. Cory JohnsonSenior Wealth Strategy Associate at UBS00:20:15Hi, this is Cory Johnson on for Mike. I was just wondering, can you maybe go into a little bit more about, like, how you decided on the new dividend level? You know, kind of what was the decision making around that? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:20:32Good morning, Corey. You know, as we say, every quarter, we review our distribution level with the board. We look at the, you know, current portfolio and the run rate. We look at the spillover. We look at our, you know, pipeline and our growth opportunities and determine based on that a level that we think is sustainable and 1 we can cover over time. Cory JohnsonSenior Wealth Strategy Associate at UBS00:21:00Great. Thanks. Also just a quick follow-up. See if I heard this correctly. Did you say the percent at contractual floor is 71%, was it? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:21:13That is correct. Yep. Cory JohnsonSenior Wealth Strategy Associate at UBS00:21:15Okay, great. Thank you. Operator00:21:19As a reminder, to ask a question, you may press * 1 on your telephone keypad. At this time, the next question's from the line of Paul Johnson with KBW. Please proceed with your questions. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:21:30Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I was just wondering if you could just kind of help me understand here a little bit more just the earnings slide here quarter-over-quarter, 'cause, you know, a portfolio yield of 14% with a, you know, roughly 10% ROE, just something doesn't really fit there. I'm just wondering, you know, aside from, I guess, the lower prepayment income, I mean, what kind of drove, I guess, the lower interest income? I guess, was if that was the driver during the quarter, because you're not earning incentive fees. You know, there was net portfolio growth in the quarter. You know, the portfolio was roughly flat in terms of losses, so it doesn't seem like there was much depreciation in there. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:22:18I was just wondering if we can just kind of understand maybe the earnings bridge a little bit and if maybe we could expect, you know, that this is maybe a somewhat of a trough and we could potentially see a little bit more. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:22:32Paul, you know, all those things you stated were correct. You know, quarter-over-quarter, we, you know, grew the portfolio. You're right. The net realized, unrealized for the quarter was flat. There's, you know, positive movement in the quarter. Most of the fundings were towards the end of the quarter, that had some impact. Really the major impact when you're looking quarter-over-quarter was the prepayment and the activity that occurred each quarter. We had some significant prepayments, refinancing on a couple of names in Q3. In Q4 we really had 1 prepayment, a couple of opportunistic refinancing that we did with our own portfolio companies that had a lower income level than we typically receive on prepayments. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:23:26When you add up the timing and the lower prepayment rates and the income related to that kinda connects the difference between the NII. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:23:40Okay. Got it. If I'm just thinking about the $102 million of originations this quarter, that includes a number of refinancing within the portfolio where I guess the return is structurally lower somehow? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:23:57Yes, it included a couple refinancing. They're positive in the event where we accelerate fee income on the previous already outstanding debt investments, and we're able to re-up with a full new, fully loaded fee, new debt investment. It's just lower income related to a prepayment where we'll receive a prepayment fee. With refinancing, that's one of the fees that we don't get. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:24:30Okay, got it. Thank you for that. My other question was just on the opportunity for public company financing. Are those opportunities where you're refinancing or taking out existing debt, or is this more of an opportunity where providing new capital to those companies? Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:24:51Hey, Paul, thanks for the question. It can be a combination of all of the above, but I think the opportunities we're seeing in the market, and they're a significant number, is that many of these companies don't even realize there's an opportunity to use debt capital like ours, where they can't go to a bank because maybe they're not profitable today or what have you. In many cases, they will issue equity, which is much more dilutive. What we are offering out to these companies is a more flexible capital structure that's less dilutive and gives the company an opportunity to have some growth capital here. We believe this is a very fertile market for us. Again, the opportunity set is fairly wide. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:25:50Okay, that's great. Thank you very much. That's all for me. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:25:55You bet. Operator00:25:57Our next question is in the line of Sean-Paul Adams with B. Riley. Please proceed with your questions. Sean-Paul AdamsResearch Analyst at B. Riley00:26:03Hey, guys. Good morning. It looks like you guys had an aggregate decline in non-accruals quarter-over-quarter. Can you just provide a little bit more color on the status of those 3 remaining portfolio companies on non-accrual? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:26:18You know, what we say each quarter, we're working each one of those non-accruals, and they're all at various levels. We're trying to maximize the recoveries, with each one of them. As you pointed out, we're able to improve the percentage of non-accruals quarter-over-quarter. Besides that, we can't really get into too much detail as these are private companies. Sean-Paul AdamsResearch Analyst at B. Riley00:26:45Got it. Appreciate it. On the actual decline from the 4 to the 3, can you provide a little bit more detail on that 1 that came off? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:26:58again, it's a private company, where we, you know, can't besides giving names, it was just a deal that we were working on, an acquisition, last quarter that was completed this quarter, and we received the amount of our fair value, and so there's no NAV impact. Sean-Paul AdamsResearch Analyst at B. Riley00:27:24Got it. Appreciate it. Operator00:27:27Thank you. The next question is in the line of Christopher Nolan with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please proceed with your question. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:27:34Hi. Was the driver of the realized loss net from Tallac Therapeutics? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:27:41Tallac was a percentage of that. Tallac was a small position. Again, the realized loss were realized this quarter at the fair value that we had them going into the quarter. As you can see, Q4 net realized, unrealized was slightly positive. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:28:02No, totally understand that. I'm just trying to understand what was the drivers of the realized loss. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:28:10No, Tallac was a small piece of that. We usually don't give you know, detail on these private companies and how we've worked out each one of them. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:28:22Okay. in the earnings release, it highlighted in subsequent events you guys are redeeming some of your 4.875% 2026 notes. How much of that has been redeemed, please? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:28:36The full amount was redeemed in January. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:28:43Great. I guess on the new dividend, am I correct that when the deal is announced, management is indicating that they're going to try to support the $0.33 dividend through 2026, or am I mistaken there? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:28:59Support it in which way? We've agreed to have the advisor agreed to waive $4 million of fees for the 4 quarters following the close, at $1 million a quarter. Outside of that, and then we have the repurchase program that we have in place that will support the shares. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:29:21Great. final question. should we look at the new dividend as a reasonable earnings run rate for the company? Does that assume elevated non-accruals? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:29:36As we say, you know, we review the distribution level with our board. We set it at a level that we believe we're going to cover over time. That's what we did. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:29:48Okay, thank you. Operator00:29:52Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from the line of Paul Johnson of KBW. Please proceed with your question. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:29:59Thanks. Just 1 more. Can I just clarify, on the convertible conversion this quarter, what was the conversion rate there? I guess, is there any kind of diluted impact in the Q1 from that? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:30:16The conversions for the converts that we have done are all at NAV. They're required to be converted at NAV. In the Q4, the 8.5 that has been converted, and anytime it does convert, it will be at the stated NAV at that time, so there's no dilution. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:30:38Okay. Got it. Thank you very much. Operator00:30:42Thank you. At this time, we've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'll hand the floor back to Mike for closing remarks. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:30:49Thank you. Thank you all for joining us this morning. We appreciate your continued interest and support in Horizon, and we look forward to speaking with you again soon. This will conclude our call. Operator00:31:03Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesDan TrolioCFOMegan BaconDirector of Investor Relations and MarketingMike BalkinCEOPaul SeitzChief Investment OfficerAnalystsChristopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg ThalmannCory JohnsonSenior Wealth Strategy Associate at UBSPaul JohnsonVP at KBWSean-Paul AdamsResearch Analyst at B. RileyPowered by Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress Release(8-K)Annual report(10-K) Horizon Technology Finance Earnings HeadlinesHorizon Technology Announces Q3 2026 Dividend DistributionsMay 5 at 5:51 PM | tipranks.comHorizon Technology Finance Announces Regular Monthly Distributions for July, August and September 2026 Totaling $0.18 per Share and Special Distributions for July, August and September 2026 Totaling $0.09 per ShareMay 5 at 4:20 PM | businesswire.comSMX: Where Physical Energy Meets Digital TruthSMX (Security Matters) PLC is embedding invisible, tamper-proof molecular signatures into crude oil, refined fuels, and petrochemical products — turning every barrel into a verifiable, traceable digital asset. In volatile energy markets where margins can vanish overnight, SMX gives producers, refiners, and traders real-time visibility across the supply chain while delivering instant emissions and compliance data to regulators.May 6 at 1:00 AM | Smallcaps Daily (Ad)Horizon Technology Finance Corp (HRZN) Q1 2026: Everything You Need To Know Ahead Of EarningsMay 4 at 2:27 PM | finance.yahoo.comMonroe Merger Closes, but Dividend Cut Signals Deeper Trouble AheadMay 4 at 8:10 AM | 247wallst.comMonroe Merger Closes, but Dividend Cut Signals Deeper Trouble AheadMay 4 at 8:04 AM | 247wallst.comSee More Horizon Technology Finance Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Horizon Technology Finance? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Horizon Technology Finance and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Horizon Technology FinanceHorizon Technology Finance (NASDAQ:HRZN) is a specialty finance company organized as a business development company (BDC) that provides private credit solutions to venture capital and private equity-backed technology, life science and healthcare companies. The firm targets companies at various stages of development, offering secured debt financing structures such as first‐lien and second‐lien loans, as well as equity co‐investment opportunities in select portfolio companies. Horizon Technology Finance’s investment strategy emphasizes deployment of capital in U.S.‐based enterprises with proven technology, strong management teams and clear paths to growth. The company typically partners with established venture investors to structure financings that support research and development, product commercialization and working capital needs. Its product suite includes senior secured loans, revenue‐based financing and other bespoke credit solutions designed to complement traditional equity financing rounds. Headquartered in Irvine, California, Horizon Technology Finance was formed in May 2006 and commenced operations in June 2007. Since its inception, the firm has cultivated relationships with a network of venture firms and strategic investors across North America, enabling it to source and underwrite differentiated investment opportunities in high-growth sectors. As a BDC, Horizon Technology Finance adheres to regulatory standards intended to provide transparency and liquidity to its investors while striving to deliver attractive risk‐adjusted returns through its targeted financing activities.View Horizon Technology Finance ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Latest Articles Years in the Making, AMD’s Upside Movement Has Just BegunPinterest Pins a Profit Play To Its Mood BoardJust How Big a Problem Could Amazon’s Cash Burn Rate Be?BlackBerry Rewrites Its Own Operating SystemGrab Holdings Faces Hurdles, But Upside Potential Is Hard to IgnorePalantir Drops After a Blowout Q1—What Investors Should KnowShopify’s Valuation Crisis Creates Opportunity in 2026 Upcoming Earnings Coinbase Global (5/7/2026)Airbnb (5/7/2026)Datadog (5/7/2026)Ferrovial (5/7/2026)Gilead Sciences (5/7/2026)Microchip Technology (5/7/2026)MercadoLibre (5/7/2026)Monster Beverage (5/7/2026)Canadian Natural Resources (5/7/2026)W.W. 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PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Greetings. Welcome to the Horizon Technology Finance Q4 2025 conference call. At this time, all participants will be in listen-only mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press * 0 on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to Megan Bacon, Director of Investor Relations and Marketing. Megan, you may begin. Megan BaconDirector of Investor Relations and Marketing at Horizon Technology Finance00:00:28Thank you, and welcome to Horizon Technology Finance Corporation's Q4 2025 conference call. Representing the company today are Mike Balkin, Chief Executive Officer, Paul Seitz, Chief Investment Officer, and Dan Trolio, Chief Financial Officer. I would like to point out that the Q4 earnings press release and Form 10-K are available on the company's website at horizontechfinance.com. Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that during this conference call, the company will make certain forward-looking statements, including statements with regard to the future performance of the company. Words such as believes, expects, anticipates, intends, or similar expressions are used to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to the inherent uncertainties in predicting future results and conditions. Megan BaconDirector of Investor Relations and Marketing at Horizon Technology Finance00:01:24Certain factors could cause actual results to differ on a material basis from those projected in these forward-looking statements, and some of these factors are detailed in the risk factor discussion in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2025. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Horizon Technology Finance's CEO, Mike Balkin. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:02:02Welcome, everyone, and thank you for your interest in Horizon. Today, we will update you on our quarterly performance in the current operating environment. Paul Seitz, our Chief Investment Officer, will take us through recent business and portfolio developments as well as the current status of the venture lending market. Dan Trolio, our Chief Financial Officer, will detail our operating performance financial condition. We will then take questions. 2025 was a year of transformation for Horizon in many respects. While we navigated a number of micro and macro challenges throughout the year, we believe we began to successfully lay the groundwork for Horizon to succeed over the longer term. While the government shutdown in the Q4 led to our merger with MRCC being delayed into 2026, we are excited to be holding our special meeting shortly and hopefully closing the merger in the weeks ahead. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:03:04As a reminder, closing the merger will significantly increase Horizon's equity capital available for investment in earning assets and allow it to take advantage of greater economies of scale in the combined vehicle. Additionally, Monroe Capital, which is the parent company of Horizon Technology Finance Management, will be continuing to provide ongoing support to the post-merger company. As a result, we expect you will see an even more coordinated and synergistic effort between Monroe and Horizon in 2026, which is already evidenced by Horizon's Q1 co-investment with Monroe in a venture loan to OSSIO. With Horizon's larger capital base and Monroe's ability to co-invest, we expect to originate larger venture loans to cutting-edge early and later-stage venture capital and institutional-backed companies, as well as small cap public companies. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:04:04The merger, working with Monroe and increasing our ability to fund larger transactions, will allow us to bring the Horizon platform to the next level. I cannot be more excited for Horizon's future. Turning to our specific results for the quarter, we generated net investment income of $0.18 per share, while our NAV per share ended the year at $6.98. Based on our outlook, our undistributed spillover income, and the anticipated completion of our merger with MRCC, our board declared regular monthly distributions of $0.06 per share payable in April, May, and June of 2026. As we grow our portfolio in future quarters, it remains our goal to deliver NII at or above our declared distributions over time. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:04:59We achieved a portfolio yield on debt investments of over 14% for the Q4 and nearly 16% for the full year 2025, once again at or near the top of the BDC industry. We redeemed our notes due in 2026 with the proceeds of our issuance of 7% notes due 2028. We finished the year with a committed and approved backlog of $154 million, and our portfolio returned to growth in the Q4. Finally, we are closing attractive venture debt investments while our pipeline of venture debt opportunities continues to grow. As we begin 2026, we remain excited for our long-term future growth given our numerous strengths, including our portfolio yield remains among the industry's highest, which we expect will lead to increased NII over time. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:05:58Our liquidity and balance sheet are strong and will further strengthen post-merger. We maintain a strong, committed backlog, a robust pipeline, and with the backing of Monroe Capital, we are able to compete for larger, higher quality opportunities to make debt investments to growing companies, which will grow our loan portfolio. Finally, the demand for venture debt capital remains high, and we expect to be a key supplier of such capital in the coming year and beyond. Again, we appreciate your continued interest and support in the Horizon Technology Finance platform. I will now turn the call over to our Chief Investment Officer, Paul Seitz, to give you the details of our Q4 results and progress. Paul? Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:06:49Thanks, Mike. Good morning to everyone. As Mike noted, we are preparing for next week's special meeting, which, if shareholders approve the proposal to issue more shares, will allow us to close the merger with MRCC. If approved and closed, Horizon will have the additional size and scale to originate larger venture loans to growing public and private small companies, which will enable us to grow our portfolio and NII over time. We remain very excited to do so. At the end of the year, our current portfolio stood at $647 million as we return to growth. In the Q4, we funded 9 debt investments totaling $103 million, including 2 refinancings of our existing investments. We also continued to make progress in building our pipeline, including larger venture loan opportunities in our target sectors. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:07:412 of our pipeline opportunities, Pelthos and OSSIO, have already closed in 2026. In Q4, we increased our committed backlog by $35 million from the end of Q3, which positions us well to further grow our portfolio in the quarters ahead. In Q1, we expect to further grow our portfolio driven by our current pipeline. Along with the venture loans, which have already closed since the end of the year, we have been awarded 2 new venture loans transactions, representing $82.5 million in total commitments. It goes without saying that we will always be disciplined in originating and underwriting new loans. During the Q4, we experienced 1 loan prepayment and 2 refinancings totaling $43 million in prepaid principal and collected approximately $1 million in warrant proceeds. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:08:32Our onboarding debt investment yield of 12% during the Q4 remained consistent with our historic levels. We expect to continue to generate strong onboarding yields with our current pipeline of opportunities, which we believe will generate strong net investment income over time. Our debt portfolio yield of 14.3% for the quarter was once again among the highest-yielding debt portfolios in the BDC industry, despite the lower level of prepayments in the quarter. Our ability to generate industry-leading yields continues to be a testament to our venture lending strategy and our execution of such strategy across various market cycles and interest rate environments. As of December 31st, we held warrants, equity, and other investments in 97 portfolio companies with a fair value of $51 million. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:09:19Structuring investments with warrants and equity rights is a key component of our venture debt strategy and potential generator of shareholder value. As mentioned, we ended the year with a committed and approved backlog of $154 million compared to $119 million at the end of the Q3. We believe our pipeline of investment opportunities, combined with our committed backlog with most of our funding commitments subject to companies achieving certain key milestones, provides a solid base to prudently grow our portfolio over time. As of year-end, 87% of the fair value of our debt portfolio consisted of 3 and 4 rated debt investments, while 13% of the fair value of our portfolio was rated 2 or 1, consistent with our levels at the end of the Q3. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:10:04We continue to collaborate with all of our portfolio companies in utilizing a variety of strategies to optimize returns and create future value. Turning to the venture capital environment. According to PitchBook, approximately $92 billion was invested in VC-backed companies in the Q4, driven again in significant part by continued large investments in AI. At $339 billion of investment, 2025 was the largest year of investment since the record year of 2021 and a positive sign that investment activity has sufficiently recovered from 2023 and 2024. Exit markets remained opened, though slow in the Q4, with approximately $100 billion of exit value driven primarily by tech IPOs. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:10:48While the M&A market appears to be healthy and the IPO market is open, given the performance of many H2 2025 IPOs, investors and bankers may be more circumspect in bringing companies public in 2026. The life science IPO market remains limited, creating more opportunities for ventured loan originations, as evidenced by our loans to Pelthos and OSSIO. In terms of tech, there remains considerable optimism, and we continue to be doing deep due diligence, particularly in AI and defense technology, to determine the best types of opportunities for future investments. We want to take a moment to make a few comments about AI. First, note Monroe Capital published a white paper on AI on February 6 of this year, which we believe summarizes our current view on AI in the tech sector. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:11:35It's obvious to us that AI is changing the game, and AI-related risk has been a central focus in our underwriting process. We believe the claim that the days of enterprise software are over are inflating the risk, and at the same time, those who claim it's business as usual are underestimating the risk. Given Horizon and Monroe's track record in software investing, we are confident we can navigate this changing environment. As we progress through 2026, we believe venture debt remains a compelling option for companies to access capital with lower dilution to their investors as companies continue to grow and prepare for exits. This compelling option provides significant opportunities for Horizon to seek high quality, well-sponsored tech and life science companies to add to its portfolio. Paul SeitzChief Investment Officer at Horizon Technology Finance00:12:20To sum up, while 2025 was a challenging year, we have made significant strides to succeed in both 2026 and for the long term. If and when we close the merger, we will have an even greater capacity to target larger venture loan opportunities for both private and small cap public companies. We will continue to work diligently on optimizing outcomes with respect to our current portfolio. We are confident that we are on the right path to expand our portfolio over the longer term and remain a leader in the venture lending space. We expect this will lead to increased NII over time and ultimately additional value for shareholders. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Dan Trolio. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:13:04Thanks, Paul. Good morning, everyone. There were a significant number of positive developments in 2025 for Horizon, namely our impending merger with Monroe Capital Corporation, and our continued ability to strengthen our balance sheet despite the challenging environment. Our actions demonstrate our continued ability to opportunistically access the debt and equity markets. In addition, we continue to diligently work with all of our portfolio companies to optimize outcomes for our investments and improve our credit quality. As such, we believe we remain well positioned to grow our portfolio in the coming quarters and create additional value for our shareholders moving forward. To recap, 2025, we further strengthened our capacity in May by increasing the commitment under our senior secured credit facility with Nuveen to $200 million. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:13:57In September, we raised $40 million of debt capital through the issuance of our 5.5% unsecured convertible notes due 2030, and used the proceeds to retire our Horizon Funding Trust Asset-Backed Notes, which had an interest rate of just over 7.5%. In December, we raised $57.5 million of debt capital through the issuance of our 7% unsecured notes due 2028 and used the proceeds in January 2026 to redeem our 26 public notes. Finally, we successfully and accretively raised over $14 million through our ATM program during the year, further demonstrating our continued ability to opportunistically access the equity markets. As of December 31st, we had $189 million in available liquidity consisting of $143 million in cash and $46 million in funds available to be drawn under our existing credit facilities. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:14:56We currently have no borrowings outstanding under our $150 million KeyBank credit facility, $181 million outstanding on our $250 million New York Life credit facility, and $90 million outstanding on our $200 million Nuveen credit facility, leaving us with ample capacity to grow our portfolio of debt investments. Our debt-to-equity ratio stood at 1.5 to 1 as of December 31st, and netting out cash on our balance sheet, our net leverage was 1.05 to 1 below our target leverage. Based on our cash position and our borrowing capacity on our credit facilities, our potential new investment capacity as of December 31st was $472 million. Turning to our operating results. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:15:44For the Q4, we earned investment income of $21 million compared to $24 million in the prior year period, primarily due to lower interest income on our debt investment portfolio. Our debt investment portfolio on a net cost basis stood at $602 million as of December 31st, up 3% compared to $585 million as of September 30th, 2025. For the Q4 of 2025, we achieved onboarding yields of 12% compared to 12.2% achieved in the Q3 of 2025. Our loan portfolio yield was 14.3% for the Q4 compared to 14.9% for last year's Q4. Total expenses for the quarter were $12.5 million compared to $12.8 million in the Q4 of 2024. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:16:37Our interest expense of $8 million was $0.2 million lower than last year's Q4, while our base management fee was $2.9 million, $0.2 million lower than the prior year period due to our smaller portfolio. We received no performance-based incentive fees in the Q4 as we continue to defer incentive fees otherwise earned by our advisor under our incentive fee cap and deferral mechanism. We expect that the advisor will return to earning incentive fees as a reminder, our advisor has agreed to waive up to $4 million of fees or $1 million a quarter if the merger is completed. Net investment income for the Q4 of 2025 was $0.18 per share compared to $0.32 per share in the Q3 of 2025 and $0.27 per share for the Q4 of 2024. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:17:27Prepayment activity and the income that is typically associated with prepayments was lower than our historical experience. We continue to expect prepayment activity will remain modest in the near term. For the full year of 2025, we generated NII of $1.05 per share. The company's undistributed spillover income as of December 31st was $0.65 per share. Based upon our outlook, undistributed spillover income and the anticipated completion of our merger with MRCC, our board declared monthly distributions of $0.06 per share for April, May and June 2026. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:18:07We anticipate that the size of our portfolio, our expectations for growth, and our predictive pricing strategy will enable us to generate NII that covers our distribution over time.To summarize our portfolio activities for the Q4, new originations totaled $103 million, which were offset by $13 million in scheduled principal payments and $15 million in principal prepayments, refinancings, and partial pay downs. We ended the year with a total investment portfolio of $647 million. At December 31st, the portfolio consisted of debt investments in 38 companies with an aggregate fair value of $596 million and a portfolio of warrant, equity and other investments in 97 companies with an aggregate fair value of $51 million. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:18:57Our NAV as of December 31st was $6.98 per share, compared to $7.12 as of September 30th, 2025, and $8.43 as of December 31st, 2024. The $0.14 reduction in NAV on a quarterly basis was primarily due to our paid distributions exceeding our NII. As we've consistently noted, nearly 100% of the outstanding principal amount of our debt investments bear interest at floating rates. Of those investments, approximately 71% are already at their interest rate floors, which should mitigate the impact of decreasing interest rates. This concludes our opening remarks. We'll be happy to take questions you may have at this time. Operator00:19:45Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press * 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press * 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants that are using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the * keys. Thank you. Our 1st question is from the line of Michael Brown with UBS. Please proceed with your questions. Cory JohnsonSenior Wealth Strategy Associate at UBS00:20:15Hi, this is Cory Johnson on for Mike. I was just wondering, can you maybe go into a little bit more about, like, how you decided on the new dividend level? You know, kind of what was the decision making around that? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:20:32Good morning, Corey. You know, as we say, every quarter, we review our distribution level with the board. We look at the, you know, current portfolio and the run rate. We look at the spillover. We look at our, you know, pipeline and our growth opportunities and determine based on that a level that we think is sustainable and 1 we can cover over time. Cory JohnsonSenior Wealth Strategy Associate at UBS00:21:00Great. Thanks. Also just a quick follow-up. See if I heard this correctly. Did you say the percent at contractual floor is 71%, was it? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:21:13That is correct. Yep. Cory JohnsonSenior Wealth Strategy Associate at UBS00:21:15Okay, great. Thank you. Operator00:21:19As a reminder, to ask a question, you may press * 1 on your telephone keypad. At this time, the next question's from the line of Paul Johnson with KBW. Please proceed with your questions. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:21:30Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I was just wondering if you could just kind of help me understand here a little bit more just the earnings slide here quarter-over-quarter, 'cause, you know, a portfolio yield of 14% with a, you know, roughly 10% ROE, just something doesn't really fit there. I'm just wondering, you know, aside from, I guess, the lower prepayment income, I mean, what kind of drove, I guess, the lower interest income? I guess, was if that was the driver during the quarter, because you're not earning incentive fees. You know, there was net portfolio growth in the quarter. You know, the portfolio was roughly flat in terms of losses, so it doesn't seem like there was much depreciation in there. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:22:18I was just wondering if we can just kind of understand maybe the earnings bridge a little bit and if maybe we could expect, you know, that this is maybe a somewhat of a trough and we could potentially see a little bit more. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:22:32Paul, you know, all those things you stated were correct. You know, quarter-over-quarter, we, you know, grew the portfolio. You're right. The net realized, unrealized for the quarter was flat. There's, you know, positive movement in the quarter. Most of the fundings were towards the end of the quarter, that had some impact. Really the major impact when you're looking quarter-over-quarter was the prepayment and the activity that occurred each quarter. We had some significant prepayments, refinancing on a couple of names in Q3. In Q4 we really had 1 prepayment, a couple of opportunistic refinancing that we did with our own portfolio companies that had a lower income level than we typically receive on prepayments. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:23:26When you add up the timing and the lower prepayment rates and the income related to that kinda connects the difference between the NII. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:23:40Okay. Got it. If I'm just thinking about the $102 million of originations this quarter, that includes a number of refinancing within the portfolio where I guess the return is structurally lower somehow? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:23:57Yes, it included a couple refinancing. They're positive in the event where we accelerate fee income on the previous already outstanding debt investments, and we're able to re-up with a full new, fully loaded fee, new debt investment. It's just lower income related to a prepayment where we'll receive a prepayment fee. With refinancing, that's one of the fees that we don't get. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:24:30Okay, got it. Thank you for that. My other question was just on the opportunity for public company financing. Are those opportunities where you're refinancing or taking out existing debt, or is this more of an opportunity where providing new capital to those companies? Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:24:51Hey, Paul, thanks for the question. It can be a combination of all of the above, but I think the opportunities we're seeing in the market, and they're a significant number, is that many of these companies don't even realize there's an opportunity to use debt capital like ours, where they can't go to a bank because maybe they're not profitable today or what have you. In many cases, they will issue equity, which is much more dilutive. What we are offering out to these companies is a more flexible capital structure that's less dilutive and gives the company an opportunity to have some growth capital here. We believe this is a very fertile market for us. Again, the opportunity set is fairly wide. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:25:50Okay, that's great. Thank you very much. That's all for me. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:25:55You bet. Operator00:25:57Our next question is in the line of Sean-Paul Adams with B. Riley. Please proceed with your questions. Sean-Paul AdamsResearch Analyst at B. Riley00:26:03Hey, guys. Good morning. It looks like you guys had an aggregate decline in non-accruals quarter-over-quarter. Can you just provide a little bit more color on the status of those 3 remaining portfolio companies on non-accrual? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:26:18You know, what we say each quarter, we're working each one of those non-accruals, and they're all at various levels. We're trying to maximize the recoveries, with each one of them. As you pointed out, we're able to improve the percentage of non-accruals quarter-over-quarter. Besides that, we can't really get into too much detail as these are private companies. Sean-Paul AdamsResearch Analyst at B. Riley00:26:45Got it. Appreciate it. On the actual decline from the 4 to the 3, can you provide a little bit more detail on that 1 that came off? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:26:58again, it's a private company, where we, you know, can't besides giving names, it was just a deal that we were working on, an acquisition, last quarter that was completed this quarter, and we received the amount of our fair value, and so there's no NAV impact. Sean-Paul AdamsResearch Analyst at B. Riley00:27:24Got it. Appreciate it. Operator00:27:27Thank you. The next question is in the line of Christopher Nolan with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please proceed with your question. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:27:34Hi. Was the driver of the realized loss net from Tallac Therapeutics? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:27:41Tallac was a percentage of that. Tallac was a small position. Again, the realized loss were realized this quarter at the fair value that we had them going into the quarter. As you can see, Q4 net realized, unrealized was slightly positive. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:28:02No, totally understand that. I'm just trying to understand what was the drivers of the realized loss. Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:28:10No, Tallac was a small piece of that. We usually don't give you know, detail on these private companies and how we've worked out each one of them. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:28:22Okay. in the earnings release, it highlighted in subsequent events you guys are redeeming some of your 4.875% 2026 notes. How much of that has been redeemed, please? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:28:36The full amount was redeemed in January. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:28:43Great. I guess on the new dividend, am I correct that when the deal is announced, management is indicating that they're going to try to support the $0.33 dividend through 2026, or am I mistaken there? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:28:59Support it in which way? We've agreed to have the advisor agreed to waive $4 million of fees for the 4 quarters following the close, at $1 million a quarter. Outside of that, and then we have the repurchase program that we have in place that will support the shares. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:29:21Great. final question. should we look at the new dividend as a reasonable earnings run rate for the company? Does that assume elevated non-accruals? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:29:36As we say, you know, we review the distribution level with our board. We set it at a level that we believe we're going to cover over time. That's what we did. Christopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg Thalmann00:29:48Okay, thank you. Operator00:29:52Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from the line of Paul Johnson of KBW. Please proceed with your question. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:29:59Thanks. Just 1 more. Can I just clarify, on the convertible conversion this quarter, what was the conversion rate there? I guess, is there any kind of diluted impact in the Q1 from that? Dan TrolioCFO at Horizon Technology Finance00:30:16The conversions for the converts that we have done are all at NAV. They're required to be converted at NAV. In the Q4, the 8.5 that has been converted, and anytime it does convert, it will be at the stated NAV at that time, so there's no dilution. Paul JohnsonVP at KBW00:30:38Okay. Got it. Thank you very much. Operator00:30:42Thank you. At this time, we've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'll hand the floor back to Mike for closing remarks. Mike BalkinCEO at Horizon Technology Finance00:30:49Thank you. Thank you all for joining us this morning. We appreciate your continued interest and support in Horizon, and we look forward to speaking with you again soon. This will conclude our call. Operator00:31:03Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesDan TrolioCFOMegan BaconDirector of Investor Relations and MarketingMike BalkinCEOPaul SeitzChief Investment OfficerAnalystsChristopher NolanManaging Director of Equity Research at Ladenburg ThalmannCory JohnsonSenior Wealth Strategy Associate at UBSPaul JohnsonVP at KBWSean-Paul AdamsResearch Analyst at B. RileyPowered by