MAIN earnings call for the period ending June 30, 2024.
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Main Street Capital (MAIN -0.74%)
Q2 2024 Earnings Call
Aug 09, 2024, 10:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Greetings and welcome to the Main Street Capital second quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Zach Vaughan. Thank you. Zach, you may begin.
Zach Vaughan — Investor Relations
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Main Street Capital Corporation’s second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me today with prepared comments are Dwayne Hyzak, chief executive officer; David Magdol, president and chief investment officer; and Jesse Morris, chief financial officer and chief operating officer. Also participating for the Q&A portion of the call is Nick Meserve, managing director and head of Main Street’s private credit investment group.
Main Street issued a press release yesterday afternoon that details the company’s second quarter financial and operating results. This document is available on the investor relations section of the company’s website at mainstcapital.com. A replay of today’s call will be available beginning an hour after the completion of the call and will remain available until August 16th. Information on how to access the replay was included in yesterday’s release.
We also advise you that this conference call is being broadcast live through the internet and can be accessed on the company’s homepage. Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, August 9, 2024; and therefore, you are advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of any replay listening or transcript reading. Today’s call will contain forward-looking statements. Many of these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as anticipates, believes, expects, intends, will, should, may, or similar expressions.
These statements are based on management’s estimates, assumptions, and projections as of the date of this call, and there are no guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from the results expressed or implied in these statements as a result of risks, uncertainties, and other factors, including, but not limited to, the factors set forth in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be found on the company’s website or at sec.gov. Main Street assumes no obligation to update any of these statements unless required by law. During today’s call, management will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including distributable net investment income or DNII.
DNII is net investment income, or NII, as determined in accordance with the U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, excluding the impact of noncash compensation expenses. Management believes that presenting DNII and the related per-share amount are useful and appropriate supplemental disclosures for analyzing Main Street’s financial performance since noncash compensation expenses do not result in net cash impact to Main Street upon settlement. Please refer to yesterday’s press release for a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures.
Two additional key performance indicators that management will be discussing on this call are net asset value, or NAV, and return on equity, or ROE. NAV is defined as total assets minus total liabilities and is also reported on a per-share basis. Main Street defines ROE as the net increase in net assets resulting from operations, divided by the average quarterly total net assets. Please note that certain information discussed on this call, including information related to portfolio companies, was derived from third-party sources and has not been independently verified.
And now, I’ll turn the call over to Main Street CEO, Dwayne Hyzak.
Dwayne Louis Hyzak — Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Zach. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We appreciate your participation on this morning’s call, and we hope that everyone is doing well. On today’s call, I will provide my usual updates regarding our performance in the quarter.
We’re also providing updates on our asset management activities, our recent dividend declarations, our expectations for dividends going forward, our recent investment activities and current investment pipeline, and several other noteworthy updates. Following my comments, David and Jesse will provide additional comments regarding our investment strategy, investment portfolio, financial results, capital structure and leverage, and our expectations for the third quarter of 2024. After which, we’ll be happy to take your questions. We are pleased with our second quarter results, which were highlighted by an annualized return on equity of 16.1%, DNII per share that continued to exceed the dividends paid to our shareholders, and a new record for NAV per share for the eighth consecutive quarter.
We believe that these continued strong results demonstrate the sustainable strength of our overall platform, the benefits of our differentiated and diversified investment strategies, the unique contributions of our asset management business, and the continued underlying strength and quality of our portfolio companies. We are also pleased that we generated significant growth in both our lower middle market and private loan investment portfolios and ended the quarter with attractive investment pipelines in both investment strategies, which we expect will be beneficial in the future. We remain encouraged by the continued favorable performance of our diversified lower middle market and private loan investment strategies and remain confident that these strategies, together with the benefits of our asset management business and our cost-efficient operating structure, will allow us to continue to deliver superior results for our shareholders in the future. Additionally, with the continued support of our long-term lender relationships, as evidenced by our recent extension and expansion of our corporate facility, and the benefits of our second investment-grade debt offering of the year in June, we continue to maintain strong liquidity and a conservative leverage profile, which we believe is important in the current economic environment, and we remain excited about the current opportunities in both our lower middle market and private loan investment strategies.
These positive results for the second quarter, combined with our favorable outlook for the third quarter, resulted in our recommendations to our board of directors for our most recent dividend announcements, which I’ll discuss in more detail later. Our NAV per share increased in the quarter, primarily due to the impact of net fair value increases in our investment portfolio and the accretive impact of our equity issuances, which Jesse will discuss in more detail. The continued favorable performance of the majority of our lower middle market portfolio companies resulted in strong dividend income contributions and another quarter of significant net fair value appreciation in the equity investments in the lower middle market portfolio. We are also excited about the follow-on investments we made to finance strategic acquisitions by two of our high-performing lower middle market portfolio companies.
Each of which were funded by follow-on debt investments by Main Street for a total of over $36 million of incremental debt investments in these portfolio companies. We expect that these follow-on investments will help drive additional fair value appreciation in these portfolio companies in future quarters, in addition to the highly attractive interest income provided by these incremental debt investments. In the second quarter, we were also pleased to have recognized a meaningful realized gain upon the combination of one of our lower middle market portfolio companies with a strategic acquirer, which resulted in the full exit of our debt investments and a partial exit of our equity investment in the company while retaining an equity investment in the combined company and the related future upside from the strategic combination. We are excited that we continue to see increased interest from potential buyers in several of our lower middle market portfolio companies that could lead to favorable realizations over the next few quarters and which we believe highlights the strength and quality of our portfolio companies.
We were very pleased with our investment activity in the second quarter. This activity included total lower middle market investments of $155 million, including new investments totaling $88 million, resulting in a net increase in our lower middle market investments of $69 million after repayments and other investment activity. Our private loan investment activities in the quarter included new investments of $324 million, which, after repayments and other investment activity, resulted in a net increase in our private loan investments of $225 million. Given our conservative capital structure and strong liquidity position, we remain very well-positioned to continue the growth of our investment portfolio over the next few quarters.
We’ve also continued to produce positive results in our asset management business. The funds we advised through our external investment manager continued to experience favorable performance in the second quarter, resulting in significant incentive fee income for our asset management business for the seventh consecutive quarter and, together with our recurring base management fees, a significant contribution to our net investment income. We remain excited about our plans for the external funds that we manage as we execute our investment strategies and other strategic initiatives, and we are optimistic about the future performance of the funds and the attractive returns we are providing to the investors of each fund. We remain optimistic of our strategy for growing our asset management business within our internally managed structure and are actively working to increase the contributions from this unique benefit to our Main Street stakeholders.
As a result of these continued efforts, a few weeks ago, MSC Income Fund, a nonlisted BDC that is advised by our external investment manager, filed a preliminary proxy statement that contains certain proposals intended to position the fund to list its shares on a national securities exchange. The preliminary proxy statement also details additional activities and changes at MSC Income Fund, including a transition of the fund’s investment strategy to be solely focused on its private loan investment strategy and a potential amendment to the investment advisory agreement between the external investment advisor and the fund. Both of which would become effective upon a listing of the fund’s shares. We are very excited about these potential changes at MSC Income Fund, which we believe represents a significant catalyst to the future growth of the fund and the opportunity for significant future benefits to both the MSC Income Fund shareholders and our asset management business.
Based upon our results for the second quarter, combined with our favorable outlook in each of our primary investment strategies and for our asset management business, earlier this week, our board declared a supplemental dividend of $0.30 per share, payable in September, representing our 12th consecutive quarterly supplemental dividend, to go with the eight increases to our regular monthly dividends since the fourth quarter of 2021. Our board also declared regular monthly dividends for the fourth quarter of 2024 of 24.5 cents per share, payable in each of October, November, and December, representing a 4% increase from the regular monthly dividends paid in the fourth quarter of 2023. The supplemental dividend for September is a result of our strong performance in the second quarter and will result in total supplemental dividends paid during the trailing 12-month period of $1.175 per share, representing an additional 41% paid to our shareholders in excess of our regular monthly dividends, and total dividends for the trailing 12-month period of over $4 per share and a current total yield we are providing to our shareholders of over 8%. We currently expect to recommend that our board continue to declare future supplemental dividends to the extent DNII significantly exceeds our regular monthly dividends paid in future quarters and we maintain a stable to positive NAV.
Based upon our expectations for the continued favorable performance in the third quarter, we currently anticipate proposing an additional supplemental dividend payable in December 2024. Now, turning to our current investment pipeline. As of today, I’d characterize our lower middle market investment pipeline as well above average. We believe that the unique and flexible financing solutions that we can provide to lower middle market companies and their owners and management teams and our differentiated long-term to permanent holding periods represent an attractive solution to the needs of many lower middle market companies.
And we are confident in our expectations for strong new lower middle market investment activity over the next few months. We also continue to be very pleased with the performance of our private credit team and the significant growth that they have provided for our private loan portfolio and our asset management business. And as of today, I’d characterize our private loan investment pipeline as average. My last update relates to our activities to expand and improve our finance, accounting, and treasury functions to match the growth and best-in-class performance of our investment team’s investment portfolio and asset management business.
As part of these activities, yesterday, we announced several promotions and changes in these areas, including a change in Main Street CFO position. We are excited about these changes and what they mean for our company and for these specific individuals in the future. In conjunction with these changes, personally and on behalf of our executive management team and our board of directors, I want to thank Jesse for his significant contributions over the last few years as our CFO while also serving as our chief operating officer and managing the lower middle market investment portfolio. We are very excited to have his focus back solely on our investment and operations activities where we know that he will continue to add significant value to our firm, and we appreciate his significant contributions over the last few years as our CFO.
With that, I will turn the call over to David.
David L. Magdol — President and Chief Investment Officer
Thanks, Dwayne, and good morning, everyone. As Dwayne highlighted in his remarks, we believe our strong second quarter financial results continue to demonstrate the strength of Main Street’s platform, our differentiated investment approach, and our unique operating model. We are pleased to report that the overall operating performance for most of our portfolio companies continued to be positive, which contributed to our attractive second quarter financial results. However, we did experience some continued softness in certain portfolio companies with consumer discretionary-focused products or services, which we have been monitoring for several quarters, and we are actively working to maximize our recoveries on those specific investments.
As we have discussed in the past, the largest portion of our investment portfolio and the primary driver of our long-term success has been and continues to be our focus on the underserved lower middle market and specifically our strategy of investing in both the debt and equity in lower middle market companies. Our view on the relative attractiveness of investing in the lower middle market remains unchanged, and we expect that this will continue to be our primary area of focus in the future. And as Dwayne noted, we are excited about our current lower middle market investment pipeline. Each quarter, we try to highlight key aspects of our investment strategy and differentiated approach.
For today’s call, I’m going to spend some time discussing our private loan investment strategy, which is the second largest part of our investment portfolio and is the primary driver of our asset management business. We have grown our private loan strategy significantly over the last several years, both on Main Street’s balance sheet and for the third-party client funds that we manage through the external investment manager. As a reminder, our private loan strategy principally represents investments in the senior secured debt of private equity-sponsored businesses. These investments are primarily originated by our internal investment professionals through strategic relationships they cultivate and maintain with a select group of private equity firms and their capital market intermediaries.
Our private loan investments are typically first-lien debt investments with attractive yield profiles and favorable terms. As of quarter-end, 99% of our private loans secured debt investments were first-lien loans and 97% had floating rate interest rates, which had an attractive weighted average yield of 12.8%. Over seven years ago, we announced our strategic decision to dedicate significant resources toward growing our private loan strategy while de-emphasizing our middle market strategy. Our desire to make this significant shift was driven by our intention to focus on investing in companies that were smaller than those typically accessing the traditional syndicated loan market.
We believe that the opportunity existed to lead or co-lead the vast majority of our private loan investments, whereby we were able to directly manage the due diligence, the loan documentation, and the post-investment process. We believe this approach allows us to maximize our net returns on capital invested in private loans for Main Street and the investment portfolios we manage in our asset management business. While the overall market competition for private credit products has increased over the last few years, we believe our niche focus on the smaller end of the market is less competitive and allows us to earn more attractive risk-adjusted returns for Main Street’s investors and the investors in the funds we manage. During the time of our intentional and purposeful repositioning in the market from 2016 year-end through the second quarter of this year, we increased the total fair value of our private loan portfolio at Main Street from 17% of our total portfolio at fair value to 37%.
Based on the capabilities and relationships of our private credit team, the overall growth of our private loan platform, and the strength of our investment pipeline, Main Street has also benefited from our ability to utilize our private loan investment strategy to grow our asset management business. Through our external investment manager, our private loan strategy effectively allows Main Street to leverage our investment professionals’ time and our platform to benefit from the attractive fee-based income we receive from third-party clients while, at the same time, providing highly attractive investment opportunities and returns for those clients. We look forward to the continued future benefits to our overall platform as we pursue additional ways to grow our private loan platform and third-party asset management business in the future. Now, turning to the overall composition and operating results from our investment portfolio.
As of June 30th, we continue to maintain a highly diversified portfolio with investments in 194 companies spanning across numerous industries and end markets. Our largest portfolio company, excluding our external investment manager, represented only 3.7% of our total investment income for the trailing 12-month period and 3.3% of our total investment portfolio fair value at quarter-end. The majority of our portfolio investments represented less than 1% of our income and our assets. Our investment activity in the second quarter included total investments in our lower middle market portfolio of $155 million, which, after aggregate repayments on debt investments, return of invested equity capital, and realized losses, resulted in a net increase in our lower middle market portfolio of $69 million.
We completed $324 million in total private loan investments, which, after aggregate repayments of debt investments, resulted in a net increase in our private loan portfolio of $225 million. Finally, during the quarter, we had a net decrease in our middle market portfolio of $66 million as we continued to de-emphasize this strategy, resulting in a remaining middle market investment portfolio of less than 4% of the total fair value of our investment portfolio. At the end of the first quarter, our lower middle market portfolio included investments in 83 companies, representing over $2.4 billion of fair value, which is over 27% above our cost basis. We had investments in 92 companies in our private loan portfolio, representing $1.7 billion of fair value.
In our middle market portfolio, we had investments in 19 companies, representing $184 million of fair value. The total investment portfolio at fair value at quarter-end was 115% of the related cost basis. In summary, Main Street’s investment portfolio continues to perform at a high level and deliver on our long-term results and goals. Additional details on our investment portfolio at quarter-end are included in the press release that we issued yesterday.
With that, I will turn the call over to Jesse to cover our financial results, capital structure, and liquidity position.
Jesse Morris — Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer
Thank you, David. To echo Dwayne’s and David’s comments, we are pleased with our operating results for the second quarter. Our total investment income for the second quarter was 132.2 million, increasing by 4.6 million, or 3.6%, over the second quarter of 2023 and by 0.5 million, or 0.4%, from the first quarter of 2024. Our results for the second quarter of 2024 included strong performance across our lower middle market and private loan investment portfolios and our asset management business, resulting in strong levels of investment income, which, as Dwayne and David touched on, demonstrates the continued strength of our differentiated investment and asset management strategies.
Interest income increased by $2.8 million from a year ago and was comparable to the first quarter. The increase from the prior year was driven primarily by the impact of increased net investment activity over the last year and increases in benchmark index rates, partially offset by the impact of an increase in investments on nonaccrual. When compared to the first quarter, the second quarter benefited from the increased net investment activity during the first and second quarter, offset by an increase in investments on nonaccrual. Dividend income increased by 1.1 million, or 4.3%, when compared to a year ago, with this increase after the impact of a 1.6 million decrease in unusual or nonrecurring dividends, and increased by 3.9 million, or 17.1%, from the first quarter, including a comparable level of unusual or nonrecurring dividends between the quarters.
The continued underlying strength of the majority of our lower middle market portfolio companies, together with the unique benefits of our asset management business, drove the strong level of dividend income in the quarter. Fee income increased by 0.7 million from a year ago and decreased by 3.3 million from the first quarter. The first quarter of this year included elevated levels of refinancing and prepayment fees considered nonrecurring. The aggregate amount of these items for the second quarter decreased by 2.7 million from the first quarter and were comparable to the prior year.
For the second quarter, the impact of certain income considered less consistent and nonrecurring in nature, including dividends from our equity investments and accelerated prepayment, repricing, and other activity related to our debt investments, as I mentioned earlier, totaled 5.1 million. In the aggregate, these items were consistent with the average of the prior four quarters and 1.6 million lower than the prior year and 2.5 million lower than the first quarter. Our operating expenses increased by 3 million from a year ago, largely driven by increases in interest expense, share-based compensation expense, and general and administrative-related expenses. The ratio of our total operating expenses, excluding interest expense, as a percentage of our average total assets was 1.3% for the quarter on an annualized basis and continues to be among the lowest in our industry.
Our external investment manager contributed 9.2 million to our net investment income during the second quarter, an increase of 0.7 million from a year ago and 0.6 million from the first quarter. The manager earned 4.1 million in incentive fees during the quarter, increasing by 0.5 million from the prior year and 0.3 million from the first quarter, primarily as a result of the positive performance of the assets under management. The manager ended the quarter with total assets under management of 1.6 billion. During the quarter, we recorded net fair value appreciation, including net realized gains and net unrealized appreciation, on the investment portfolio of 26.5 million.
We recorded net fair value appreciation in our lower middle market portfolio, our other portfolio, our middle market portfolio, and in our external investment manager, partially offset by net fair value depreciation in our private loan portfolio. The net fair value appreciation in our lower middle market portfolio was largely driven by the continued positive performance of certain of our portfolio companies. The net fair value appreciation in our other portfolio was driven by positive performance in certain investments. The net fair value appreciation in our middle market portfolio was driven by the exit of a portfolio company at a favorable value compared to its fair value at the end of the first quarter.
The fair value appreciation of our external investment manager was a result of an increase in the fees generated by the external investment manager, driven by the continued strong performance of our asset management business, partially offset by a decrease in the valuation multiples of publicly traded peers, which we use as one of the benchmarks for valuation purposes. The net fair value depreciation in our private loan portfolio was driven by the net impact of specific portfolio company underperformance, partially offset by the impact of decreases in market spreads. We ended the second quarter with investments on nonaccrual comprising approximately 1.2% of the total investment portfolio at fair value and approximately 3.6% of costs. As David indicated, the new investments on nonaccrual for the second quarter largely relate to underperforming companies with significant exposure to consumer end markets.
Net asset value, or NAV, increased by $0.26 per share over the first quarter and $2.11, or 7.6%, when compared to a year ago to a record NAV per share of $29.80 at the end of the second quarter. Our regulatory debt to equity leverage, calculated as total debt excluding our SBIC debentures, divided by net asset value, was 0.74, and our regulatory asset coverage ratio was 2.33. And these ratios continue to be slightly more conservative than our long-term target ranges of 0.8 to 0.9 times and 2.1 to 2.25 times, respectively. We continue to be active this quarter on capital activities, aided by our strong relationships.
In May, we repaid the $450 million due on our May 2024 notes at maturity. In June, we issued 300 million of unsecured notes maturing in June 2027, with a coupon rate of 6.5%. We also amended our corporate credit facility in June, increasing commitments by 115 million to 1.1 billion, with a diversified group of 19 lenders, and extended the maturity to June 2029 for 1.035 billion of the commitments. We were also active in our at-the-market, or ATM, program, raising net proceeds of 42.2 million during the quarter.
After giving effect to the investment and capital activities in the first and second quarter of this year, we continue to maintain strong liquidity, including cash and availability under our credit facilities and one of our SBIC funds of approximately 1 billion. We continue to believe that our conservative leverage, strong liquidity, and continued access to capital are significant strengths that have proven to benefit us historically and have us well-positioned for the future, allowing us to continue to execute our attractive investment strategy. As we discussed last quarter, with this current level of liquidity, we currently expect to fund our net new investment activity in 2024 through a greater proportion of debt financing. And as such, we would expect leverage to continue to increase during the course of the year to be more in line with our long-term stated targets.
Coming back to our operating results. As a result of our strong performance for the quarter, our return on equity for the second quarter and the first six months of the year was 16.1% and 16.6% on an annualized basis, respectively. DNII share — per share for the quarter of $1.07 was $0.05, or 4.5%, lower than the record DNII per share for the second quarter last year and was $0.04, or 3.6%, lower than the DNII per share for the first quarter. The combined impact of certain investment income considered less consistent or nonrecurring in nature on a per-share basis was in line with the average of the last four quarters, $0.02 per share lower than the same quarter a year ago, and $0.03 per share lower than the first quarter, accounting for most of the declines in DNII.
Total dividends paid in the second quarter were $1.02 per share, including a supplemental dividend of $0.30 per share, an increase of 13% over our total dividends paid during the same period in the prior year. Given the strength of our operating results and the outlook for the rest of the year, our board approved a supplemental dividend of $0.30 per share, payable in September 2024. With this supplemental dividend, total declared dividends for the third quarter of 2024 were — are $1.035 per share, representing a 7.3% increase over the total dividends paid in the third quarter of last year. Our board also approved recurring monthly dividends of 24.5 cents per share, for a total of 73.5 cents per share for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Looking forward, given the strength of our underlying portfolio, we expect another strong top line in earnings quarter in the third quarter, with expected DNII of at least $1.07 per share, with the potential for upside, driven by the actual level of dividend income and portfolio investment activities during the quarter. With that, I will now turn the call back over to the operator so we can take any questions.
