Pennantpark Floating Rate Capital - Earnings Call - Q4 2025

Transcript

Speaker 3

Good morning and welcome to the PennantPark Floating Rate Capital's fourth fiscal quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. The call will be open for a Q&A session following the speaker's remarks. If you would like to ask a question at that time, simply press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press Star 2 on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PennantPark Floating Rate Capital. Mr. Penn, you may begin your conference.

Speaker 4

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to PennantPark Floating Rate Capital's fourth fiscal quarter 2025 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Rick Allorto, our Chief Financial Officer. Rick, please start off by disclosing some general conference call information and include a discussion about forward-looking statements.

Speaker 0

Thank you, Art. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call is being recorded and is the property of PennantPark Floating Rate Capital. Any unauthorized broadcast of this call in any form is strictly prohibited. An audio replay of the call will be available on our website. I'd also like to call your attention to the Customer Safe Harbor disclosure in our press release regarding forward-looking information. Our remarks today may also include forward-looking statements and projections. Please refer to our most recent SEC filings for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these projections. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements unless required by law. To obtain copies of our latest SEC filings, please visit our website at pennantpark.com or call us at 212-905-1000. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Art Penn.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Rick. I'll begin today's call with an overview of our fourth quarter results and recent strategic initiatives, including the $250 million portfolio acquisition and our new joint venture, PSSL2. I'll then share our perspective on the current market environment and how PFLT is positioned for continued growth. Rick will conclude with a detailed review of the financials, and then we'll open up the call for Q&A. For the quarter ended September 30th, core net investment income for the quarter was $0.28 per share. We previously announced the acquisition of a $250 million portfolio and the formation of a new joint venture with an initial targeted portfolio of $500 million. These initiatives underscore our focus on enhancing PFLT's earnings power through scale, diversification, and disciplined capital deployment, key pillars of our long-term growth strategy.

The portfolio acquisition adds high-quality, well-known assets that are projected to increase net investment income by $0.01 to $0.02 per share on a quarterly basis. The JV with Hamilton Lane, a respected global investor, enhances our funding sources and provides a scalable platform for future growth. The PSSL2 JV began investing this month and closed a $150 million revolving credit facility, which bears interest at SOFR plus 175 basis points. The credit facility has an accordion feature, allowing total commitments to increase to $350 million. Our run rate NII is projected to approximate our current dividend as we ramp the PSSL2 portfolio. Our game plan is to grow PSSL2 to be in excess of $1 billion in assets, similar to our existing joint ventures. As we achieve this game plan, our NII should be well in excess of our current dividend.

Regarding the current market environment for private middle market lending, we are encouraged by a steady increase in transaction activity, which we expect will translate into higher loan origination volumes in the quarters ahead. Additionally, we continue to provide additional capital to many of our existing portfolio companies as they execute their respective growth initiatives, demonstrating the depth and resilience of our origination platform. We are optimistic that the increase in transaction activity will also result in opportunities to exit some of our equity co-investments and rotate that capital into new current income-producing investments. We believe the current environment will favor lenders with strong private equity sponsor relationships and disciplined underwriting, areas where PFLT has a clear advantage. We continue to see opportunities to deploy capital into core middle market companies where leverage is lower and spreads are higher than in the upper middle market.

In the core middle market, the pricing on high-quality first lien turn loans is SOFR plus 475-525. Leverage is reasonable, and we continue to get meaningful covenant protections, while the upper middle market is primarily characterized as covenant light. Turning to our current portfolio, we continue to maintain what we believe is one of the most conservatively structured portfolios in the direct lending industry. This is evidenced by having among the lowest PIC percentages in the industry at 1.8% for the quarter. As of September 30, our portfolio's median leverage ratio through our debt security was 4.5 times, and the portfolio's median interest coverage was 2 times. For new platform investments made during the quarter, the median debt to EBITDA was 4.4 times, interest coverage was 2.3 times, and the loan-to-value was 44%.

We had three investments on non-accrual status, and total non-accruals represent only 0.4% of the portfolio at cost and 0.2% at market value. These strong credit metrics reflect the rigor of our underwriting process and the discipline of our investment approach. We continue to believe that our focus on core middle market provides us with attractive investment opportunities where we provide important strategic capital to our borrowers. The PennantPark platform has a demonstrated track record of value creation through the successful financing of growing middle market companies across five key sectors. These sectors in which we possess deep domain expertise, enabling us to ask the right questions and consistently deliver strong investment outcomes. They are business services, consumer, government services and defense, healthcare, and software and technology.

These sectors have been recession resilient, tend to generate strong free cash flow, and have a limited direct impact to the recent tariff increases and uncertainty. Core middle market companies, typically those with $10 to $50 million of EBITDA, operate below the threshold of broadly syndicated loan or high-yield markets. In the core middle market, because we are an important strategic lending partner, the process and package of terms we receive is attractive. We have many weeks to do our diligence with care. We thoughtfully structure transactions with sensible credit statistics, meaningful covenants, substantial equity cushions to protect our capital, attractive spreads, and equity co-investment. Additionally, from a monitoring perspective, we receive monthly financial statements to help us stay on top of the companies. Regarding covenant protections, while the upper middle market has seen significant erosion, our originated first lien loans consistently include meaningful covenants that safeguard our capital.

Our credit quality since our inception over 14 years ago has been excellent. PFLT has invested $8.4 billion in 539 companies, and we have experienced only 25 non-accruals. Since inception, PFLT's loss ratio on invested capital is only 11 basis points annually. As a provider of strategic capital who fuels the growth of our portfolio companies, in many cases, we participate in the upside of the company by making an equity co-investment. Our returns on these equity co-investments have been excellent over time. Overall, for our platform from inception through September 30th, we have invested over $596 million in equity co-investments and have generated an IRR of 25% and a multiple on invested capital of two times. As of September 30th, our portfolio grew to $2.8 billion, up from $2.4 billion in the prior quarter.

During the quarter, we continued to originate attractive investment opportunities and invested $633 million in 11 new and 105 existing portfolio companies at a weighted average yield of 10.5%. As of September 30, the PSSL1 portfolio totaled $1.1 billion, and during the quarter, invested $89 million in four new and 14 existing portfolio companies. We believe that the increase in scale of PSSL's balance sheet will continue to drive attractive mid-teens return on invested capital and enhance PFLT's earnings momentum. From an outlook perspective, our experienced and talented team and our wide origination funnel are well-positioned to generate strong deal flow. Our mission and goal are a steady, stable, and protected dividend stream coupled with the preservation of capital. Everything we do is aligned to that goal. We seek to find investment opportunities in growing middle market companies that have high free cash flow conversion.

We capture that free cash flow primarily in first lien senior secured instruments, and we pay out those contractual cash flows in the form of dividends to our shareholders. With that overview, I'll turn it over to Rick for a more detailed review of our financial results.

Speaker 0

Thank you, Art. For the quarter ended September 30, GAAP net investment income and core net investment income were both $0.28 per share. Operating expenses for the quarter were as follows. Interest and expenses on debt were $25.8 million. Base management and performance-based incentive fees were $13.4 million. General and administrative expenses were $2 million, and provision for taxes was $0.2 million. For the quarter ended September 30, net realized and unrealized change on investments, including provision for taxes, was a loss of $10 million. As of September 30, NAV was $10.83 per share, which is down 1.2% from $10.96 per share last quarter. As of September 30, our debt to equity ratio was 1.6 times, and our capital structure is diversified across multiple funding sources, including both secured and unsecured debt.

Subsequent to quarter end, we sold $118 million of assets to the PSSL1 joint venture and $191 million of assets to the new PSSL2 joint venture. We used the net proceeds from these sales to pay down our revolving credit facility and reduce our debt to equity ratio to 1.4 times, which is at the lower end of our target range of 1.4-1.6 times. As of September 30th, our key portfolio statistics were as follows. The portfolio remains well-diversified, comprising 164 companies across 50 industries. The weighted average yield on our debt investments was 10.2%, and approximately 99% of the debt portfolio is floating rate. PIC income equaled only 1.8% of total interest income. We had three non-accruals, which represent 0.4% of the portfolio at cost and 0.2% at market value.

The portfolio is comprised of 90% first lien senior secured debt, 1% second lien and subordinated debt, 2% in equity of PSSL, and 7% in equity co-investments. The debt to EBITDA on the portfolio is 4.5 times, and interest coverage was two times. Now, let me turn the call back to Art.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Rick. In conclusion, I'd like to thank our exceptional team for the continued dedication and our shareholders for their trust and partnership. We remain committed to delivering strong performance, preserving capital, and creating long-term value for all stakeholders. That concludes our remarks. At this time, I would like to open up the call to questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing Star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow the signal to reach our equipment. Again, press Star 1 to ask a question. We'll pause for a moment to assemble the queue. We will take our first question from Robert Dodd with Raymond James.

Speaker 6

Hi, guys. On the portfolio acquisition, particularly, I mean, how, I guess, how did that come about? Secondly, are there more opportunities like that? In what way do you think that is a, you obviously get a pool of assets there, not you do not get to pick and choose, I presume. I mean, what is the value of an acquisition, which is obviously a big lump, versus deploying the capital into individual investments?

Speaker 4

Thanks, Robert. Just to take a step back, that was another joint venture that we had with a third party with all of the same assets, itself originated assets that we originated. Actually, those were originated a couple of years ago, so the spreads are high. We know the portfolio very well. That was really just an acquisition of more of the same type of assets that we already have in PFLT, and in fact, many of the same assets that we already have in PFLT.

Speaker 6

Got it. Got it. Just to the point on the market, I mean, it does seem like it's ramping up. Are you seeing any kind of bifurcation? I mean, I think obviously logistics companies have been an issue post-COVID for not just you, right? I mean, are you seeing any kind of bifurcation about what you would like to do or what is coming to market in terms of still some things having COVID hangovers or late hangovers or any thoughts there?

Speaker 4

Yeah. Look, logistics, as you mentioned, is an area that's still dealing with post-COVID. There is a general reversion to the mean that we're seeing throughout the economy where we're seeing softness, and this has been broadly reported in the media. The consumer, the average consumer, is relatively soft. Inflation has remained high. Tariffs did not help that. The average consumer in America is a little soft, which is kind of in the back of our mind as we underwrite credit. We have very little amounts in consumer brands. We do have consumer services. The consumer services we tend to have are more related to the home, which generally is hanging in there pretty well. That's what we think about. The other areas that we focus on, government services, defense, healthcare, those remain pretty strong.

Speaker 6

Got it. You do have some good exposure to the government and contracting, etc. Did the shutdown, which obviously went on a while, have any impact on any of the portfolio companies?

Speaker 4

We have very little exposure to so-called civilian government activities. It's more defense, intelligence, things of that nature where the shutdown did not really have an impact. No pun intended, we were well defended there.

Speaker 6

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 3

We will take our next question from Brian McKenna with Citizens.

Speaker 1

Thanks. Good morning, Art and Rick. I appreciate the disclosure around the $310 million of assets that were sold to both JVs post-quarter end. I'm curious, when were these loans initially originated? I'm just trying to figure out the NII contribution from these assets in fiscal 4Q and then really the starting point for NII in fiscal 1Q, given these sales, the scaling of the second JV, as well as the full quarter run rate from the portfolio acquisition.

Speaker 4

Yeah. I think we sent out a press release when we did the portfolio acquisition. I think it was kind of mid-quarter, so we did not get a full quarter of ramp from those assets that we bought, the $250 million portfolio. In our comments when we said full quarter, it should add about 1-2 cents per share of NII for a full quarter of those assets. The JV starts to become much more accretive as it scales. Day one, it is not really accretive, but as it gets to $500 million, $750 million, $1.2 billion, like the other JVs, that is when you start to see the benefit of the scale of it, the financing that you get. You can see the returns that our other two JVs are generating, the JV we have in PFLT and then the JV we have in PNNT.

If you model a 15% return on that junior capital and you deploy a reasonable amount in that, in the Hamilton Lane JV, where 75% of the junior capital, it starts to become a very attractive addition to the NII. It probably takes a year or two before you start to get the benefits of that ramp. We certainly want to ramp it, but we also want to be careful and conservative along the way and make sure we're putting really solid assets into that joint venture. The NII contribution for that is probably over, call it a year or two, depending on deal flow and all of that. I do not know if I answered your question with that, Brian, but please continue to ask if I did not.

Speaker 1

Yeah. No, that's helpful. Appreciate it. I guess just to follow up on the dividend, I think in the prepared remarks, you said as the second JV scales, NII should be well in excess of the dividend. I appreciate your prior comments, it's going to take a year or two to fully ramp, but thinking about that comment in excess or well in excess of the dividend, I mean, is that contemplating the forward curve? Is that contemplating any other kind of credit quality changes? What other kind of core assumptions are in that?

Speaker 4

Yeah. Look, we can run models with each other. Certainly well in excess with the existing SOFR curve. Certainly, the market indicates we have some room to head downward with SOFR. I think even if you take the market's assumption of where SOFR is going to be a year out, I think we should, based on our numbers and we can compare models, I think we're still covering the dividend reasonably well.

Speaker 1

Okay. I'll leave it there. Thanks so much.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 3

We will take our next question from Doug Harter with UBS.

Speaker 5

Thanks. Just talk about kind of where you're seeing new loan spreads and sort of kind of any stabilization there, and then how that compares to what you're seeing on new financing costs.

Speaker 4

Yeah. I think we talked about our new JV got a credit facility at the SOFR plus 175. That's kind of our most recent comparable kind of loan that we can access. I think we said in our stated remarks that we've seen it in the 475-525 range on average in our world. Now, our world's a little bit lower risk, i.e., our average debt to EBITDA is in the mid-4s. We're not stretching for yield. Our loan-to-values are kind of 40% ish. In our box, we're okay taking a little lower yield if the credit is really, really solid. We will do a 475 or 500 if we really feel good about the credit, the loan-to-value, and the low leverage. Again, that shows up in the PIC percentage.

1.8%, we're probably among the lowest in the industry in terms of the amount of PIC. Obviously, if you have higher leverage in your book, whether it's six times, seven times, ARR loans, whatever you want to call them, PIC is more of a requirement because of the higher leverage.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 3

We will take our next question from Aaron Seganovich with Truist Securities.

Speaker 2

Thanks. Following up on some of the prior questions, the portfolio acquisition boosted leverage to around 1.6 times and then subsequently sold some of that, so went back down to 1.4. Does that 1.4, does that run rate cover the dividend? And how much, if you were just to exclude PSSL2, does that cover the dividend? I'm just trying to kind of have the puts and takes and foot those to your comments.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Look, and we're happy to go through model inputs and such. Our general leverage range is 1.4-1.6. As you saw, sometimes we'll take it up to 1.6, we'll move assets into our two JVs, we'll get down to 1.4. I guess if you wanted to model 1.5 as kind of middle of that range. Yes, if you kind of model, our belief is if you model 1.5, if you grow the JV over time, we should be able to easily cover our dividend. Even if you took a SOFR reduction and put that in, we believe so. We can go through the models with you and go through scenarios with you, but as we look at the scenarios of ramping the second JV, we do hope we do get some equity rotation.

As M&A happens, we believe we should be able to get some equity rotation, which can help out a lot. If you take this joint venture and you model it out similar to our other two joint ventures, that's kind of where we land.

Speaker 2

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you. Credit quality has been solid really for the industry. You have some small one-offs here and there. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the strength of your underlying portfolio companies and what you're seeing in terms of trends and average EBITDAs and revenues for your portfolios.

Speaker 4

Yeah. I do not know if we put it in prepared remarks. We are seeing kind of double-digit growth in revenues and probably single-digit growth in mid-single-digit growth in EBITDA. Again, kind of what we chatted about earlier, it is industry and company specific, of course. Logistics we talked about, there is a couple choppier credits there. We are focused a lot on the consumer and kind of how the consumer is faring in this environment. We are focused on that. By and large, the portfolio is healthy. To have all the names that we have, well over 100, and have a handful of choppier names is totally expected. It is what we model. Of course, any of these portfolios are going to have a handful of names that are in one way, shape, or form experiencing issues. Sometimes they rebound, sometimes they do not.

We think the number of choppier credits is relatively minor at this point. The watch list of things that we're kind of looking at is, there's nothing really unusual about what's going on right now. We're not seeing any systemic issues with credit at this point in the economy or direct lending at this point in the economy. It's kind of the same old story here.

Speaker 2

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Aaron.

Speaker 3

We will take our next question from Paul Johnson with KBW.

Speaker 7

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Hey, what happened with your investment in Bylight quarter over quarter? It looked like maybe there was a little bit of a payoff there or some sort of realization, but just curious what happened in that company.

Speaker 4

Yeah. There was a dividend recapitalization, and we are in the equity. That's one where we have an equity co-invest. So there was a realized gain of about $0.04 a share.

Speaker 2

Got it. That is $0.04 in terms of dividend income this quarter, or is that just the realized gain that was taken?

Speaker 4

That was not an income element. That was an NAV element. We had some realized gains. We had some realized losses. Walker Edison was the big realized loss that was already written down. That was unrealized. It became realized. A company called LAV Gear was realized and went through a restructuring. That was a realized $0.05. Walker Edison was realized $0.12 per share. LAV Gear was realized $0.05 per share. This Bylight was a realized positive of $0.04 a share.

Speaker 2

Got it. Okay. Appreciate it. That's all for me. Thank you very much.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Paul.

Speaker 3

We will take our next question from Christopher Nolan with Ladenburg Thalmann.

Speaker 5

Hey, guys. I correct to hear that the EBITDA coverage was four and a half times, 4.4 times?

Speaker 2

4.4 would be the debt to EBITDA, yes. Not the interest coverage.

Speaker 5

Am I correct that that sort of seems like either the leverage is going down on these portfolio companies or the EBITDA is going up? I presume the EBITDA is going up. Is that a fair assumption?

Speaker 4

It could be both. It depends on the company. As we just said, EBITDA is going up a bit in the portfolio. Also, if we're underwriting correctly, the companies are deleveraging and paying debt down, which, of course, is our goal. We'd love to see debt pay down. On the new deals, the new deals that come in are, again, relatively low leverage and kind of in the low to mid-4s.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then on the stock price is trading 17% below book. Any consideration in terms of buybacks, or does all the joint ventures sort of restrict your abilities to do that given the leverage ratios?

Speaker 4

The board of directors always considers all options, including buybacks, insiders, or continual buyers of our portfolios, both public funds and private funds. It does appear to be a good value right now.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 3

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back to Mr. Penn for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 4

Thanks, everybody, for your participation in this Thanksgiving season. We are certainly grateful for the trust that our shareholders have given us. We wish everyone a terrific Thanksgiving and holiday season, and we'll speak to you in early February.

Speaker 3

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.