BCP Investment Corporation - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• BCIC delivered a clean beat: Q3 total investment income (revenue) was $18.94m vs consensus $15.69m*, and diluted EPS (NII/share) was $0.70 vs $0.51*; management cited LRFC merger scale and purchase accounting accretion as key drivers. Values retrieved from S&P Global*.
• Capital return accelerated: base distribution maintained at $0.47/share for Q4; company announced a modified Dutch auction tender up to $9.0m and expects total repurchases (company + management/adviser/affiliates) plus ownership to approximate 10% of shares by year-end.
• Balance sheet actions de‑risk maturities: issued $35m 7.50% notes due 2028 and $75m 7.75% notes due 2030; notified full redemption of $108m 4.875% notes due 2026; asset coverage improved to 171% and net leverage eased to 1.3x.
• Watchlist: non‑accruals rose to 10 positions (3.8% FV/6.3% cost); management outlined case‑by‑case resolutions with 2–3 names targeted for near‑term outcomes; PIK contribution declined to ~14.3% from ~19.5% QoQ.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Revenue and EPS beat consensus on first quarter post‑LRFC close; CFO quantified LRFC’s contribution ($7.4m GAAP income, $3.8m core) and highlighted expense scaling in line with a larger footprint.
  • Capital return and confidence signals: “we anticipate total repurchases when combined with management’s, the Adviser’s and its affiliates’ ownership … could approximate 10% by year-end” (CEO).
  • Funding laddered and diversified: “issuing $75 million of 7.75% notes due October 2030 and $35 million of 7.50% notes due October 2028, while initiating the redemption of our 4.875% notes due 2026” (CEO).

• What Went Wrong

  • Non‑accruals increased to 10 investments (3.8% FV / 6.3% cost) vs 6 in Q2; management noted some were acquired with LRFC; two investments remain cash‑basis.
  • NAV/share declined to $17.55 from $17.89 QoQ; CFO cited core NII not fully covering the dividend and ~ $4m mark‑to‑market loss.
  • Net repayments of ~$29.6m (originations $14.2m vs repayments/sales $43.8m) reduced earning assets; portfolio deployment was selective amid tighter spreads.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to BCP Investment Corporation's third-quarter September 30th, 2025 earnings conference call. An earnings press release was distributed yesterday, November 6th, after market close. A copy of the release along with the earnings presentation is available on the company's website at www.bcpinvestmentcorporation.com in the Investor Relations section and should be reviewed in conjunction with the company's Form 10-Q filed yesterday with the SEC. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. Please note that today's conference call may contain forward-looking statements which are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those described in the company's filings with the SEC. BCP Investment Corporation assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements unless required by law.

Speaking on today's call will be Ted Goldthorpe, Chief Executive Officer, President and Director of BCP Investment Corporation, Brandon Satoren, Chief Financial Officer, and Patrick Schaefer, Chief Investment Officer. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Ted Goldthorpe, Chief Executive Officer of BCP Investment Corporation. Please go ahead, Ted.

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Good morning. Welcome to our third-quarter 2025 earnings call. I'm joined today by our Chief Financial Officer, Brandon Satoren, and our Chief Investment Officer, Patrick Schaefer. Following my opening remarks on the company's performance and activities during the third quarter, Patrick will provide commentary on our investment portfolio and our markets, and Brandon will discuss our operating results and financial condition in greater detail. We are pleased to report strong results for the third quarter, our first earnings as a combined company following the completion of our merger with Logan Ridge Finance Corporation on July 15th, 2025. This milestone marks the beginning of a new chapter for BCP Investment Corporation as we continue to leverage our expanded scale, broader portfolio diversification, and enhanced operating efficiency to drive long-term value for shareholders. I'm pleased to report meaningful progress on the value creation initiatives we announced in June 2025.

Notably, consistent with our previously stated intentions, the company plans to commence a modified Dutch auction tender of approximately $9 million, combined with the daily shareholder purchases executed by the company under the buyback program, as well as open market purchases by management, the advisor, and its affiliates. We anticipate total repurchases when combined with management, the advisor's, and its affiliates' ownership of BCIC's outstanding stock can approximate 10% by year-end. These actions underscore our continued focus on driving shareholder value and narrowing the discount to NAV. During the quarter, we generated net investment income of $8.8 million, or $0.71 per share, compared with $4.6 million, or $0.50 per share, in the prior quarter. We expect to realize further benefits of our expanded scale and broader investment platform.

For the fourth quarter of 2025, the board of directors approved a base distribution of $0.47 per share, which, when annualized based on the November 6th, 2025, closing price of $12.13 per share, represents a yield of 15.5%. Before handing over the call, I'd like to take a moment to address recent commentary in the broader private credit markets. While recent high-profile collapses of certain borrowers have understandably drawn market attention, we firmly believe the full scale of concern for the overall private credit market is unwarranted. Echoing sentiment from other leaders in our industry, in the case of First Brands, for example, only 2% of its nearly $12 billion balance sheet was linked to private credit, highlighting that events like this aren't signs of systemic weakness if the sector has been subject to disproportionately heightened scrutiny despite its limited involvement in these high-profile bankruptcies.

Looking ahead, our focus remains on disciplined capital allocation, maintaining a high-quality portfolio, and delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders. With a larger, more diversified platform and a stronger balance sheet, we believe we are well-positioned to drive continuing earnings growth and long-term value creation. With that, I will turn the call over to Patrick Schaefer, our Chief Investment Officer, for a review of our investment activity.

Patrick Schaefer (CIO)

Thanks, Ted. Overall M&A activity in our core markets continued to increase during the quarter as a combination of easing benchmark rates and a more settled tariff framework gave sponsors more confidence in the macro environment. To illustrate this, over 80% of our new funding during the quarter were in new borrowers, a significantly higher percentage than what it has historically been over the last several quarters. With the renewed activity has also come renewed competition on deals and overall tightening of spreads. As we've noted in the past, our focus on companies with less than $50 million of EBITDA and our sourcing of non-sponsored-backed companies provides some insulation to these trends. We continue to be selective from a credit quality perspective and are focused on maximizing risk-adjusted return for our shareholders.

Turning to slide 10, originations for the third quarter were $14.2 million, and repayments and sales were $43.8 million, resulting in net repayments and sales of approximately $29.6 million. Overall yield on par of the new debt investments during the quarter was 12.5%. This compares to a 13.8% weighted average annualized yield, excluding income from non-accruals and collateralized loan obligations, as of September 30th, 2025. Excluding the impact of purchase discount accounting, the weighted average annualized yield, excluding income from non-accruals and collateralized loan obligations, was approximately 10.3% as of September 30th, 2025. Our investment portfolio at year-end remained highly diversified. We ended the third quarter with a debt investment portfolio, when excluding our investments in CLO funds, equities, and joint ventures, spread across 79 different portfolio companies and 28 different industries, with an average par balance of $3.2 million per entity.

Turning to slide 11, at the end of the third quarter of 2025, we had 10 investments on non-accrual status, representing 3.8% and 6.3% of the portfolio at fair value and cost, respectively. This compares to six investments on non-accrual status as of June 30, 2025, representing 2.1% and 4.8% of the portfolio at fair value and cost, respectively. I would note that the quarter-over-quarter increase does include investments acquired through the Logan Ridge transaction that were on non-accrual at the time of that transaction. It is further worth noting that two of the investments currently on non-accrual status, we continue to recognize interest income on a cash basis, that is, only when payments are actually received.

On slide 12, excluding our non-accrual investments, we have an aggregate debt investment portfolio of $429.5 million at fair value, which represents a blended price of 93.1% of par value and is 84.4% comprised of first-lien loans at par value. Assuming a par recovery, our September 30th, 2025, fair values reflect a potential of $31.2 million of incremental NAV value, or a 13.7% increase to NAV. When applying an elective 10% default rate and 70% recovery rate, our debt portfolio would generate an incremental $1.36 per share of NAV, or a 7.8% increase as it rotates. I'll now turn the call over to Brandon to further discuss our financial results for the quarter.

Brandon Satoren (CFO)

Thanks, Patrick. For the quarter ended September 30th, 2025, the company generated $18.9 million in investment income, an increase of $6.3 million compared to $12.6 million reported for the quarter ended June 30th, 2025. Core income for the same period was $15.3 million and $12.6 million, respectively. The increase in investment income from the prior quarter was primarily driven by the Logan Ridge acquisition, which contributed $7.4 million of GAAP income and $3.8 million of core. For the quarter ended September 30th, 2025, gross expenses were $10.3 million, and net expenses were $10.1 million, which includes the $0.2 million performance-based incentive fee waiver. This represents a $2 million increase compared to $8.1 million for the prior quarter. The increase in expenses compared to the prior quarter reflects the larger combined company.

Accordingly, our net investment income for the quarter ended September for the third quarter of 2025 was $8.8 million, or $0.71 per share, which constitutes an increase of $4.3 million, or $0.21 per share, from $4.6 million, or $0.50 per share for the second quarter of 2025. Core net investment income for the third quarter of 2025 was $5.3 million, or $0.42 per share, compared to $4.6 million, or $0.50 per share for the second quarter of 2025. As of September 30th, 2025, our net asset value totaled $231.3 million, an increase of $66.6 million from the prior quarter's NAV of $164.7 million.

The increase in total NAV on a gross dollar basis was primarily driven by net realized and unrealized gains of $14.8 million, the $49.6 million impact on a GAAP basis of the Logan Ridge acquisition, partially offset by the third quarter distribution exceeding core net investment income for the prior compared to the prior quarter's distribution of $1.1 million. On a per-share basis, NAV was $17.55 per share as of September 30th, 2025, representing a $0.34 decrease compared to $17.89 as of June 30th, 2025. The decline in NAV per share was primarily due to core net investment income, which excludes purchase discount accretion, not fully covering the dividend for the quarter, and approximately $4 million of mark-to-market loss across the portfolio.

As of September 30th, 2025, our gross and net leverage ratios were 1.4x and 1.3x, respectively, compared to 1.6x and 1.4x, respectively, in the prior quarter. Specifically, as of September 30th, 2025, we had a total of $324.6 million of borrowings outstanding, with a current weighted average contractual interest rate of 6.1%. This compares to $255.4 million of borrowings outstanding as of the prior quarter, with a weighted average contractual interest rate of 6%. The company finished the quarter with $110 million of available borrowing capacity under the senior secured revolving credit facilities, subject to borrowing-based restrictions.

Consistent with our long-term capital approach, we proactively extended and laddered our unsecured debt maturities, issuing a $75 million 7.75% note that is due in October 2030 and a $35 million 7.5% note due October 2028, while at the same time initiating the redemption of our 4 and 7/8 notes due in April 2026, expected to be completed on or about November 13th. These actions diversify funding, reduce near-term refinancing risk, and enhance financial flexibility. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Ted.

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Thanks, Brandon. I had a question. I'd like to re-emphasize how excited we are about the opportunities the newly combined company is already creating. As we move forward, our focus remains on disciplined capital allocation, maintaining a high-quality portfolio, and delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders. With a more diversified platform and a strengthened balance sheet, we believe we are well-positioned to drive the continued earnings growth and value creation in the quarters ahead. Thank you once again to all of our shareholders for your ongoing support. This concludes our prepared remarks, and I'll turn on the call for any questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Erik Zwick with Lucid Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Erik Zwick (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Thank you. Good morning, guys. I wanted to start first. Yeah. I wanted to start first in terms of with your kind of pronouncement of potentially repurchasing 10% of the shares. Just want to make sure, is that relative to the 930 outstanding balance of about $13.96?

Brandon Satoren (CFO)

It's relative to the transaction closing date shares, which was about $13.2 million off the top of my head. Let me hold on. I have that right here.

Patrick Schaefer (CIO)

Yeah. When we announced that when we closed the transaction, we committed to shareholders that we'd buy back a bunch of stock as soon as practically possible. Obviously, we were in our blackout period until today. The intention is to buy back 10% of the closing amount of shares.

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Erik, the short answer is there were not a lot of days in Q3 that we could do anything because of some of the rules around six-day cooling-off period and things like that. It is off of a slightly higher number than September 30th, but that is going to be a decent approximation.

Brandon Satoren (CFO)

That's right. If you recall, we had—I was going to say, Erik, we had to wait 60 days until after closing before we could turn the buyback back on. We did provide some color on post-quarter-end daily repurchases in our subsequent events, which was about $1.2 million.

Erik Zwick (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Actually, yep, I did see that too. Great. Yep. Nope. That's helpful. Secondly, looking at slide 11 and just noticing the quarter-over-quarter improvement in your internal ratings, performing versus underperforming, was the majority of that change from June 30th-September 30th a result of the combination as well, or was there any additional kind of upgrades going on within the combined portfolio?

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Yeah. I mean, the short answer is both. I mean, there were certainly upgrades going on in the portfolio, but the reality is we added a significant chunk through the Logan, and kind of using those internal ratings kind of gets you that. Again, it's a little bit of both, but my hunch is without giving the specifics, it's probably the assets from Logan coming onto the balance sheet and those ratings as opposed to a broad swath of increases.

Patrick Schaefer (CIO)

Yeah. Probably the biggest surprise for us over the last six months is we really haven't had a lot of negative portfolio surprises, and we've had a bunch of positive portfolio surprises. Again, our RLPs and our shareholders are a little rattled by some of the recent headlines out there around First Brands, Tricolor, this telecom name last week. The reality is a lot of those are really idiosyncratic. I mean, a lot of them are related to fraud, number one. Number two is a lot of the underperformance has been in their asset-based parts of their business as opposed to their cash flow-based parts of their business. This BDC selloff, we think, is probably overdone. It's beginning to correct a little bit, but we're not seeing broad-based weakness in our portfolio.

Erik Zwick (Managing Director of Equity Research)

No, I appreciate the commentary there, and I would echo that sentiment just from the number of portfolios I've reviewed so far this earnings season. Just with respect to the 10 credits that are on non-accrual at this point, could you just kind of maybe walk through your strategy and methodology for resolving those, if there's any potential for restructurings or sales or resolutions in the near term for any of those?

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Yeah, Erik, I mean, the short answer is they're all very company-specific. There is one name that we're in the process of restructuring, and that hopefully is going to get resolved in Q4. Maybe it slips into Q1, but that's a kind of relatively near-term thing that will get resolved out. There is one of them that is sort of for sale on the market, and hopefully, they have a couple of divisions, and hopefully, some or all of that gets resolved in Q4. Other than that, the rest of them, it's again, continuing to optimize what's the best return, whether that is putting in a little bit more capital, growing the businesses, whether it's looking for restructuring of the balance sheet or just kind of an outright sale. Each of the opportunities are sort of one-off and have their own kind of pros and cons.

There are, again, probably two or three companies that we would hope to have a near-term resolution on.

Brandon Satoren (CFO)

Erik, I think for the update there—oh, go ahead.

Patrick Schaefer (CIO)

Erik, it's worth highlighting. Last quarter, you may have noticed there were two assets we put on cash-basis income recognition. That's generally a good indicator when you start recognizing some income on the assets and, again, when those assets are current on the debt and paying their coupon interest.

Erik Zwick (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Yep. That makes sense. Thanks for taking my questions, Smith, this morning.

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Thanks. Have a good weekend.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Steven Martin with Slater Capital. Please go ahead.

Steven Martin (President)

Morning, guys, and congratulations on getting the deal done and starting the cleanup process. With respect to the buyback, which we applaud, how is that going to affect your ability to continue to do deals going forward? Can you also talk about what the Q4 activity level looks like?

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Yeah. I'll answer the first comment. I mean, if you look this quarter, we obviously came into the quarter with a lot of cash because we were just kind of gearing up for this. Again, when you take a two-step back, if you look at where spreads are in the middle market versus where our stock trades, it's still accretive for us to buy back stock. We aren't seeing—there's a massive pipeline that I should really defer to Patrick on this, but we have a massive pipeline of what I would call genErik sponsor finance. The ability to get premium pricing, I would say, or wider spreads, our pipeline in that area is probably not as robust. We have an unlimited amount of supply at L475-L500 kind of thing. We're not seeing a lot of much wider spread and stuff that we like right now.

I don't know, Patrick, I don't know if you agree with that.

Patrick Schaefer (CIO)

No, I thought it was right. I've kind of said this several times on our calls, but from our perspective, it's around getting the right pipeline in the portfolio as opposed to, as Ted said, we could load up on S475, S500 unit tranches. I'm not sure that that ultimately spits out the right ROE for our shareholders. We are being careful and judicious with how we actually deploy our capital, but we do have a very, very large pipeline of opportunity to the extent that sort of we feel like the credit and the pricing align with each other.

Steven Martin (President)

On a quick question. If you are investing in your own stock at where your own stock trades.

Patrick Schaefer (CIO)

Yeah. That's right. Again, we run the math every single quarter for our board, and we show the math of doing a new investment versus the buyback. Buybacks generally, they're kind of fairly similar, to be honest, depending on what you see on pricing, but buybacks are a guaranteed return. We feel like it's pretty shareholder-friendly, and we're supportive of making the right capital allocation decisions for our shareholders.

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Yeah. I think it's worth noting, Steve, just to sort of reinforce the point that we think it's important to do for shareholders at these prices, especially because of the day-one NAV impact. However, it is hard to buy back large swaths of our equity and maintain prudent leverage ratios. You'll note the fund is going to buy back $7.5 million. Management is going to come in and fill out the rest of the order flow for the buyback. Recognizing exactly what you're getting at.

Steven Martin (President)

Yeah. No, and look, we applaud both, and we have been a proponent of management increasing its stake as well. Just out of curiosity, has there been any further realizations? I assume most of what's in the legacy LRFC portfolio is still a lot of equity?

Patrick Schaefer (CIO)

No, I don't think that's a—I don't think that's a fair statement. I don't have the number off the top of my head, to be honest, Steve. It's probably disproportionate relative to the rest of our book. I would have to run the math. I'd be—I mean, maybe it's a third to a half of it, $20 million or so of equity. I would not say it's the majority of it.

Steven Martin (President)

Okay. On that same page, just out of curiosity, on page 10, the weighted average yield on debt investments at par is 13.8%. Does that have something to do with the purchase accounting? Because it jumped up from 10.7% to 13.8%.

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Yep. That's exactly right. On a core basis, it's about 10.3%, Steve. That is the impact of purchase accounting accretion. You may note when you do an asset acquisition, the board negotiates everything on a NAV-for-NAV basis. The actual accounting for it, when you issue the equity, it actually is issued at the market price or closing stock price on the issuance date. Because of the discount NAV on the issuance date, that creates a large disconnect between the NAV you're bringing on and the dollar value of the purchase reflected in your financials, which creates an unrealized gain that's allocated to the cost basis of your investment portfolio, which is accreted into income over time.

Steven Martin (President)

Got it. Yeah. I got that. You might want to consider either footnoting that or putting a second number there.

Patrick Schaefer (CIO)

Yeah. Good call, Steve. Yeah. Again, putting the two portfolios together was slightly dilutive on a yield-at-par basis. But as I mentioned in my call, our new origination was about a 12.5% yield. So obviously, we're being thoughtful and selective about our new investments to kind of work on increasing that yield despite sort of where kind of spreads are going in the market in general.

Steven Martin (President)

Okay. Can you talk about PIK this quarter? It didn't move too much. And what's going on on the PIK side of the portfolio?

Brandon Satoren (CFO)

Steve, it actually did come down quite a bit as a percentage of the book. It's down to about 14.3%. I was pulling up what it was last quarter, but it was quite a bit higher, north of 20%, I believe. Yeah. 19.5%.

Steven Martin (President)

That's a percentage of the current quarter's income.

Brandon Satoren (CFO)

Yes. That's right.

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Yeah, I mean, it's come down quite materially, Steve. It's come down on a combined basis by a quarter.

Patrick Schaefer (CIO)

Yeah. By five points. And again, as I said, not as I said, but part of our strategy is a good amount—not a good amount, but we have securities on our book that have a mix of cash and PIK. We have investments that we do that we look at a first lien and a preferred equity investment together for the same company, and that preferred is PIK, and the first lien is cash. Again, as we've kind of noted before, not all PIK is bad PIK. We are certainly actively working to reduce that number and are conscious of market perception of that and are being careful as we think about new deals and how we think about allocating to kind of make sure that we are overweighting cash opportunities versus things that have a blend of cash and PIK. Okay.

Steven Martin (President)

Brandon, overhead expenses and the expense side of the income statement, is this quarter exemplary, or is there, does this quarter still have merger-related costs that are going to come out?

Brandon Satoren (CFO)

This is actually a pretty decent run rate. Most of the transaction costs do not flow through the income statement here. They hit NAV on the closing date. There were some elevated expenses, obviously, for time spent integrating the portfolios, etc. However, we closed on July 15th, so next quarter will have 15 days of extra expenses. However, we think that $1.8 million number is a reasonable run rate for the combined portfolio.

Steven Martin (President)

Got it. Professional fees were elevated. Is that still residual?

Brandon Satoren (CFO)

Yes. Exactly.

Steven Martin (President)

Okay. Thanks a lot, guys.

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Yeah. Thanks, Steve.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Nolan with Ladenburg. Please go ahead.

Christopher Nolan (Equity Research Analyst)

Steve, just asked all my questions. Thanks.

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Thanks, Chris.

Operator (participant)

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Erik Zwick with Lucid Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Erik Zwick (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Thanks. Just a quick follow-up on the topic of the purchase accounting accretion. Was all of the discount recorded in 3Q, or I suspect there may still be potentially more? If so, what does that balance, and over what kind of time period will the remaining amount be recognized?

Brandon Satoren (CFO)

Yeah. I do not know to Brandon on the amount, but it is generally recognized over the duration of the underlying assets themselves. It is tough to tell you exactly what that would be. The climb curve, if you will, is going to be based on how those assets get monetized and what their maturity dates are, etc.

Erik Zwick (Managing Director of Equity Research)

That's right. There's. Thanks. In terms of—yeah. Go ahead.

Brandon Satoren (CFO)

I was just going to say, Erik, there was about just north of $21 million of purchase accounting accretion. There's about $18 million left. I would just say, generally speaking, a lot of the purchase accounting accretion tends to work its way through the book in the first couple of quarters after closing. It is recognized over time, but obviously, you have assets with shorter maturities, things like that, and natural portfolio rotation as a result of the integration that, again, this quarter, we had $3.6 million on effectively a stub quarter, so.

Erik Zwick (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Yeah. Okay. Greater amounts up front, and then it'll kind of trail off as that portfolio kind of matures and pays down over time. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Ted Goldthorpe for closing remarks.

Ted Goldthorpe (CEO)

Thank you all for attending our call. As always, please reach out to us with any questions, which we're happy to discuss. We look forward to speaking to you again in March when we announce our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. Have a good weekend, and thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.