Stellus Capital Investment Q2 2026 Earnings Results & Report

Stellus Capital Investment EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.26
• Consensus EPS: $0.26
• Beat/Miss: Met Expectations
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A
• EPS Beat Rate: 1 of last 8 quarters

Stellus Capital Investment Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $30.98 million
• Expected Revenue: $24.38 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$6.60 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Stellus Capital Investment (NYSE:SCM) is a business development company (BDC) that provides financing to privately owned, middle-market companies. The company seeks to generate income and long-term capital appreciation primarily through investments in debt securities and, to a lesser extent, equity interests.

Its portfolio may include senior secured loans, unitranche debt, subordinated debt and other structured investments. Stellus typically works with companies that require capital for acquisitions, recapitalizations, growth initiatives, refinancings and other corporate purposes. Its investments are generally focused on established businesses across a range of industries rather than a single sector.

Stellus primarily invests in middle-market companies located in the United States. The company is externally managed by Stellus Capital Management, LLC, an investment firm focused on financing middle-market businesses. Stellus Capital Investment Corporation began operations in 2012 and has elected to be regulated as a BDC under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Stellus Capital Investment Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Second-quarter results were strong: GAAP and core net investment income were $0.26 per share, while NAV increased 2% sequentially to gains, portfolio write-ups, and share repurchases.
• Negative Sentiment: Asset quality remains below management’s targets, with 26% of the loan portfolio rated investment grade 3 or below and five nonaccrual companies representing 8.5% of investments at cost and 5.4% at fair value.
• Positive Sentiment: Management set the third-quarter dividend at $0.25 per share and expects current net investment income, short-term rates, and spreads to support earning that dividend or more going forward.
• Positive Sentiment: The Ridgepost Capital combination is expanding access to lower-middle-market private-equity sponsors, while the origination pipeline has improved and could support stronger activity toward year-end.
• Positive Sentiment: Stellus received approval for a third SBIC license, potentially providing up to $250 million of SBA-guaranteed debentures and enabling portfolio growth of up to approximately $100 million; it has also repurchased about $4 million of shares under its $20 million authorization.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Stellus Capital Investment Corporation's conference call to report financial results for its second fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2026. This conference is being recorded today, August 11, 2026. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Robert Ladd, Chief Executive Officer of Stellus Capital Investment Corporation. Mr. Ladd, you may begin your conference.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Okay. Thank you, Jenny, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the call. Welcome to our conference call covering the quarter ended June 30, 2026. We have six topics to cover this morning. First, the financial results for the second quarter, portfolio and asset quality, the outlook for Q3 and beyond, an update on our advisor joining Ridgepost Capital, our $20 million share buyback program, and opportunities for growth. Joining me this morning is Todd Huskinson, our Chief Financial Officer, who will cover important information about forward-looking statements. Todd, I'll turn it over to you.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Thank you, Rob. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call is being recorded. Please note that this call is the property of Stellus Capital Investment Corporation, and that any unauthorized broadcast of this call in any form is strictly prohibited. Audio replay of the call will be available by using the telephone number and PIN provided in our press release announcing this call. I'd also like to call your attention to the customary safe harbor disclosure in our press release regarding forward-looking information.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Today's conference call may also include forward-looking statements and projections, and we ask that you refer to our most recent filing with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these projections. We will not update any forward-looking statements unless required by law.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

To obtain copies of our latest SEC filings, please visit our website at www.stelluscapital.com under the Public Investors link, or call us at 713-292-5400. Now I'll cover our operating results for the quarter, but would like to start with our life-to-date activity. Since our IPO in November of 2012, we've invested approximately $2.9 billion in more than 225 portfolio companies while navigating multiple market and credit cycles.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Over this time, we've received approximately $1.9 billion of repayments while maintaining disciplined credit performance. We believe our track record, our underwriting process, and deep sponsor relationships provide us with meaningful competitive advantages, reflecting more than 20 years of working together as an investment team and nearly 14 years of operating as a public BDC. Our focus remains on preserving capital while generating attractive risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

We think our long-term credit performance, as well as our 14-year track record of return on equity, demonstrates the effectiveness of our underwriting process and our portfolio management approach. To that point, we've generated a life to date return on equity of 9.5%, which includes all realized and unrealized gains and losses across the portfolio to date.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

We've also paid $349 million of dividends to our investors since our IPO, representing $18.83 per share over this period. Turning to operating results. In the second quarter, we generated $0.26 per share of GAAP net investment income and core net investment income, which excludes estimated excise taxes, was also $0.26 per share. Overall, for the quarter, net asset value increased by $0.26 per share or 2% sequentially, driven by three primary factors.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

First, net realized and unrealized gains contributed $0.30 per share, primarily driven by write-ups related to company-specific performance. Second, our share repurchase program was accretive to NAV, adding approximately $0.05 per share. Finally, dividend payments exceeded earnings by $0.08 per share as we continued distributing the remaining spillover income from 2025. I'd like to note that these figures are in line with the preliminary results we previously reported.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

With respect to portfolio and asset quality, we ended the quarter with an investment portfolio at fair value of $968 million across 116 portfolio companies, a decrease from $990 million across 116 portfolio companies as of March 31st, 2026. During the second quarter, we invested a total of $18 million, of which $8.7 million was in three new portfolio companies and $9.3 million were add-ons to existing portfolio companies.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

We also received five full repayments totaling $38.7 million, $500,000 from one equity realization, which resulted in a realized loss of $200,000 and received $10 million of other repayments at par. At June 30th, 100% of our loans were secured and 92% were priced at floating rates. The average loan per company is $8.9 million, and the largest overall investment is $26 million, both at fair value. For the 98 companies that comprise our loan portfolio, the weighted average EBITDA level was $15.6 million at quarter end, and the weighted average normalized leverage quotient was 4.2x for the performing loans.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Substantially all of our portfolio companies are backed by a private equity firm. Overall, our asset quality is slightly below plan. At fair value, 74% of our portfolio is rated a one or two or on or ahead of plan, and 26% of the loan portfolio is marked at an investment category of three or below, meaning not meeting plan or expectations. We removed one loan from nonaccrual status during the quarter and did not add any new loans.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Currently, we have loans to five portfolio companies on nonaccrual, which comprise 8.5% of the total cost and 5.4% of the fair value of the total investment portfolio, respectively, which represent a decrease from the prior quarter at cost and a slight increase at fair value. While the level of nonaccruals and risk grade three loans remains higher than we would like, reducing both that number of these investments and exposure to them remains a key priority. We're actively working each position and continue to make progress, either exiting these investments or returning them to accrual status. I'd like to turn the call back over to Rob to cover a number of the additional topics.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Okay. Thank you, Todd. As we look ahead to the third quarter of 2026, I'll cover four topics: the outlook for the quarter and beyond, an update on our advisor joining Ridgepost Capital, our $20 million share buyback program, and opportunities for growth. In terms of outlook, as of today, our portfolio is approximately $960 million across 117 portfolio companies. For the balance of the quarter, we expect repayments to slightly outpace new fundings, thus ending the quarter slightly down from where we are today. However, we have seen a meaningful improvement in the origination pipeline across the Stellus platform since beginning the quarter.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

While market conditions remain fluid and the timing around future deal closings is never certain, we're hopeful gross origination activity is set to increase toward the end of the year, which should have positive implications on net portfolio growth for the company over the next several quarters. As mentioned on previous calls, we have been reducing the amount of spillover income and have expected that over time our dividend would approximate our net investment income. We have now reached that point, and we have set our dividend to $0.25 per quarter per share for the third quarter.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

To that point, based on the current trajectory of NII, as well as our outlook for short-term rates and spreads, we expect to be well-positioned to earn our $0.25 quarterly dividend or more moving forward. Next, about Ridgepost. On June 22nd, our external advisor, Stellus Capital Management, officially joined the Ridgepost Capital platform. As a reminder, Ridgepost Capital is a leading alternative investment manager in the middle and lower middle market, currently managing more than $50 billion of AUM across private equity, private credit, and venture.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

We're very pleased with how the transition is going and early integration is well underway. We're coordinating in many areas, including investment origination and management, investor relations, fundraising, and operations. Since joining Ridgepost Capital, one of the most promising opportunities has been the ability to leverage the firm's broader sponsor relationships, specifically Ridgepost Capital lower middle market private equity fund to funds business, which is RCP Advisors. RCP has been investing in the lower middle market GPs for 25 years, and the team has relationships with more than 200 lower middle market private equity firms.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

This aligns well with our direct lending strategy, which is exclusively to lower middle market private equity-backed companies, and believe our business is set to benefit from this meaningfully over time. We've been collaborating with the RCP team to identify financing opportunities with these sponsor relationships. While still early, we believe the long-term opportunity could represent significant incremental originations annually across the Stellus platform. Importantly, this incremental deployment opportunity is additive to the strong origination pipeline we've been building over 20 years.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Now to share repurchases. Regarding capital allocation, we continue to view share repurchases as an attractive use of capital today, specifically as our stock continues to trade at a significant discount to NAV. Repurchasing shares is immediately accretive to net asset value and earnings per share, creating value for our shareholders. On March 3rd of this year, our Board of Directors approved a common stock repurchase program of up to $20 million. I'm pleased to share that since that date, we have repurchased 467,000 shares for approximately $4 million.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Given our outlook for the business as well as our remaining future authorization, we continue to view buybacks as accretive and efficient way to improve the return to our shareholders. Now for opportunities for growth. We're pleased to announce that we received approval from the SBA for a third SBIC license. With this new license, we expect to meaningfully increase the size of our investment portfolio. The license will allow us to contribute up to $125 million of equity and access up to $250 million of long-term, low-cost SBA-guaranteed debentures.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

In addition, the SBA recently increased the maximum amount of debentures that a family of funds may have outstanding from $350 million-$475 million, providing us with additional long-term financing capacity as we continue to grow the platform. We believe these developments and changes will ultimately result in the ability to expand the investment portfolio by up to $100 million over time or 10% of the current portfolio at fair value today. Before opening the line for questions, I'd like to conclude with a few final remarks. First, we've aligned our $0.25 per share quarterly dividend with the current trajectory of NII.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Second, while we still have work to do with several underperforming investments, we are actively managing these positions and remain focused on continuing to improve overall portfolio quality. Third, the origination backdrop is improving, and we're seeing encouraging signs across our pipeline as sponsor activity begins to accelerate. Taken together, we believe these factors position Stellus to create meaningful long-term value for shareholders, while continue to generate attractive income through the cycles. Jenny, with that, we'd now be happy to open up for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. At this time, we will be conducting our question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your phone keypad now. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For anyone using speaker equipment, it might be necessary to pick up your handset before you press the keys. Please wait a moment whilst we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Erik Zwick of Lucid Capital Markets. Erik, your line is live.

[Erik Zwick, Analyst at Lucid Capital Markets]

Thank you. Good morning, guys.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Good morning.

[Erik Zwick, Analyst at Lucid Capital Markets]

I wanted to start with a follow-up on your commentary regarding the pipeline and the outlook for the back half of the year improving and curious, what is driving that optimism. Is it the partnership with Ridgepost and broadening the funnel, and potentially improved market activity, a combination of those or maybe some other factors? Wondering if you could comment there.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah, sure will, Erik. I'd say one thing, it's generally true that the deal activity tends to be somewhat seasonal and therefore second half of the year is typically busier than the first, and the fourth quarter is typically the busiest of the four quarters. I think that's part of it. I think a little bit slower activity earlier in the year, and I think things have just generally picked up for us. We are seeing pricing in that regard, relatively stable. As an example, if we were less disciplined on pricing, we'd probably be closing more deals. But we try to be disciplined on pricing, of course.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

In terms of the RCP Advisors and Ridgepost combination, still early days there, but we think this will take a few quarters or so, but we're starting to see some commonality of opportunities or sponsors really at a transaction and it turns out that the sponsor is part of the RCP portfolio, if you will. That's starting, but at this point it's coming more from our existing origination capabilities.

[Erik Zwick, Analyst at Lucid Capital Markets]

Thank you. I appreciate the color there. Just looking at the income statement, the other income line, was a little bit lower this quarter or in the second quarter relative to the past three or four. Curious if there was anything kind of noteworthy or specific in the most recent quarter and whether you would expect, the 2Q rate to be a good go forward rate or return to the more historical level there.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah. Todd, we'll turn that over to you.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah, I would say there's nothing particularly unusual. One thing is that we didn't carry quite as much cash as we historically have, so our sweep income is not as high. So that's probably the primary difference. It kind of moves up and down, but I'd say that's probably the only thing that's unique for this quarter.

[Erik Zwick, Analyst at Lucid Capital Markets]

Got it. Last one from me, just on the unrealized appreciation in the quarter. What drove the positive marks in the portfolio?

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah, Todd.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah. It related to two of the positions that were kind of working of a unit, a division. That improved the mark there. The other one was in restructuring and taking out another lender at a low price and a low value of the other lenders. It increased enterprise value for both of those businesses and resulted in kind of uplifts for both of those.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

I would say that was probably half of it. The other half of it is simply a reversal for the realized loss that we had on one of our positions which as you know, Erik, we have a realized loss if we have marked it and we typically, we have marked it in roughly the same amount that the realized loss is. It is a reversal that shows up as a realized gain.

[Erik Zwick, Analyst at Lucid Capital Markets]

Got it. Thank you for taking my questions today.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah. Thank you, Erik.

[Todd Huskinson, CFO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah. Thank you, Erik.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. Our next question is coming from Christopher Nolan of Ladenburg Thalmann. Christopher, your line is live.

[Christopher Nolan, Analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann]

Hey, guys. The hookup with Ridgepost, do you anticipate you're just going to have a much larger pipeline of deals that you're going to be reviewing?

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

I think, Chris, I think that's definitely right over time. I would say that it starts with where we've been calling on someone and for a while maybe doing business with them and Ridgepost is already an LP in their funds, so this is very helpful. The next would be in situations where RCP is with them, and this will take time, but a nice warm introduction from RCP to that private equity firm.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

That's how it will progress from here. We definitely think this will make a real difference as time passes. Again, we've already had good interaction with the RCP team. Again, long-time 20+ year history of investing in this market on the PE side. Although they also have great insight into the quality of these private equity firms having invested with them or observing them for over two decades.

[Christopher Nolan, Analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann]

Thank you, Rob. Also, the non-accruals have been elevated for some time. If and when those come down, is the anticipation to keep the leverage ratios at the current levels or to, if the non-accruals come down and stay down, to increase leverage going forward? What are the thoughts around that?

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah. I think that we're operating less than 1:1 leverage. Our target leverage is 1:1 on a regulatory basis and 2:1 or so on a GAAP basis. I think you certainly could see our leverage increase. As the third license, SBIC license gets up and running, that will be helpful. Of course, that will be total GAAP leverage, which again, we view as safe. It's long-dated. I think you will see leverage increase. I think, too, your question's a good reminder that if you think about our portfolio today, we have roughly $50 million of non-accruing assets at fair value and roughly $90 million of equity co-invests at fair value, neither of which have a return to them.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

The equity portfolio is appreciating, and we get a return from it over time. But imagine being able to recycle what is, in total, $140 million into earning assets. Some will be equity, new equity co-invest, but others will be performing loans. This should help with earnings capacity. This will take time as they get recycled. Then back to your original question is that we would expect leverage to get closer to 1:1 and 2:1 on a GAAP basis than it is today.

[Christopher Nolan, Analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann]

Great. Thanks, Rob.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Thank you, Chris.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. Our next question is coming from Robert Dodd of Raymond James. Robert, your line is live.

[Robert Dodd, Analyst at Raymond James]

Hi, guys. Just going back to RCP for a second, if I can, Rob. In the relationships and the preliminary discussions you've had with them and the PE funds that they have a relation. Are there any niches where the funds maybe have particularly strong industry expertise where you haven't historically been a significant participant? I mean, is that one of the ways as well? Because obviously you can expand the pipeline, but can it expand industry and sector diversification as well?

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

That's a really interesting point. I would say in the lower middle market, what we found is that many of the firms cover a variety of areas. Some are more specialized. As an example, industrial services would be a category. Some would be in technology. Some are digital marketing. But I think our history of investing really transcends all industries except for the two that we've not been active in at all, which is real estate and the pure oil and gas industry. I think what we found is, one, we have touched probably most every industry sector.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Two, I would say, and haven't studied it carefully, but they would therefore, in their portfolio of experiences, 200+ funds would cover a variety. I think together we'll have touched everything. But it could certainly provide access to some areas where we don't have as much exposure to or that would be new and that we would find attractive. I think it's a really good illuminating point that not only should it be in volume, but it could be interesting in terms of industry sector, given the breadth of what they operate.

[Robert Dodd, Analyst at Raymond James]

Yes. Thanks for that. On the remaining non-accruals, can you give us any qualitative kind of? Do you think those non-accruals can come back to performing? Are the primary factors operational that can be fixed over time, or are there other issues where it may need a material restructuring and the sponsor may have to approve of that? Or is this just operational improvements to get them back?

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah.

[Robert Dodd, Analyst at Raymond James]

Or something is needed in order to deal with those remaining assets?

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah. On the non-performing situations, I'm trying to think here. All but one of them. Let me say this, that most of them, we and the other lenders now control them. We're no longer relying upon a private equity firm to do something. We're now working with the managements, many other lenders with the management teams to affect, one, we've probably already done a restructuring. And two, now how to improve the business operationally. In some cases, we have to provide a little bit more capital. From here, it's a matter of getting the companies in a position for an exit.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

If it's helpful, we would be glad to convert that fair value today into cash and reinvest it. We're not trying to achieve two times our money from here, but rather position the companies where they can be sold, and all do as well as possible. And you're working closely with the management teams. I think it's that category. We're basically at that point where we don't have any obstacles. They've been restructured. With the lenders restructured the capital stack, providing capital if needed, and we try to be very limited in that way. But also try to be smart in that way, too. That's the status of the non-accruals.

[Robert Dodd, Analyst at Raymond James]

Yeah. Appreciate that color. Thank you.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Yeah. Thank you, Rob.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. Well, we appear to have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I will now hand back over to Mr. Ladd for any closing comments.

[Robert Ladd, CEO at Stellus Capital Investment Corporation]

Okay. Thank you, Jenny, very much, and we thank everyone for joining the call and for the support from our shareholders. We look forward to giving you a further update as we review the third quarter in early November. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you, everybody. This does conclude today's conference, and you may disconnect your phone lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Robert Ladd, CEO
• Todd Huskinson, CFO

Analysts

• Erik Zwick, Analyst at Lucid Capital Markets
• Christopher Nolan, Analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann
• Robert Dodd, Analyst at Raymond James