SWK Holdings - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• SWK delivered non-GAAP adjusted EPS of $0.38, materially above Wall Street’s Primary EPS consensus of $0.18, while GAAP diluted EPS was $0.29; the beat reflected lower provision expense and stable portfolio yields. Management said Q2’s $4.6M adjusted net income is a “reasonable run rate” going forward. (EPS consensus value from S&P Global)*
• Total revenue was $10.052M, down 6.5% year over year and down ~15% sequentially, primarily due to monetizing most of the royalty portfolio; this was partly offset by higher Pharmaceutical Development revenue.
• Strategic actions: sold most royalty assets at approximately book value and, post-quarter, sold most MOD3 assets; returned $49.1M to shareholders via a $4.00 special dividend and bought back ~59K shares in Q2 (198K YTD by Aug 8). These actions simplify the business and refocus on the core finance receivables strategy.
• Portfolio yields edged lower (effective yield 14.1%, realized yield 14.3%), with three nonaccrual receivables and modest Q2 impairments; management emphasized conservative deployment amid heightened private credit competition.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Non-GAAP finance segment earnings strength: Finance Receivables segment adjusted non-GAAP net income rose to $4.6M from $2.6M in Q2 2024, evidencing improved core profitability.
• Strategic simplification and capital return: “During the second quarter, we sold the majority of our royalty portfolio for approximately book value and paid a $4.00 per share dividend…After the quarter closed, we sold the majority of the assets at our MOD3 subsidiary…These actions have simplified the business and allow the team to focus on our core life science loan strategy.” — CEO Jody Staggs.
• Lower credit costs: Finance receivables operating expenses fell YoY, driven by a ~$3.3M decrease in provision for credit losses; CFO noted impairments were $0.5M in Q2 2025 vs $4.3M in Q2 2024.

What Went Wrong

• Revenue decline: Q2 revenue fell 6.5% YoY to $10.052M and ~15% sequentially, mainly due to the royalty portfolio sale reducing Finance Receivables revenue.
• Yield compression: Portfolio effective yield declined 50 bps YoY to 14.1% and realized yield fell 110 bps YoY to 14.3%, reflecting asset mix shifts and lower fee realization.
• Credit watch items: Three receivables in nonaccrual (Flowonix $7.1M; Best $2.3M; Ideal $2.8M) and Q2 impairments totaling $0.5M; later $0.5M received from Flowonix estate post-quarter.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Welcome to the SWK Holdings' second quarter 2025 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Susan Zhou, Investor Relations. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining SWK Holdings' second quarter 2025 financial and corporate results call. Yesterday, SWK Holdings issued a press release detailing its financial results for the three months ended June 30, 2025. The press release can be found in the Investor Relations section of swkhold.com under News Releases. Today, we will be making certain forward-looking statements about future expectations, plans, events, and circumstances, including statements about our strategy, future operations, and our expectations regarding our capital allocation and cash resources. These statements are based on our current expectations, and you should not place undue reliance on these statements. Actual results may differ materially due to our risks and uncertainties, including those detailed in the Risk Factors section of SWK Holdings' 10-K filed with the SEC and other filings we make with the SEC from time to time.

SWK Holdings disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Joining me from SWK Holdings on today's call is Jody Staggs, President and CEO, and Adam Rice, CFO, who will provide an update on SWK's second quarter 2025 corporate and financial results. Over to you, Jody.

Speaker 0

Thank you, Susan, and thank you, everyone, for joining our second quarter conference call. Since we last spoke, SWK has worked to reconcile the gap between how the market prices our assets and our view of the underlying value. During the second quarter, we completed a sale of the majority of our royalty assets, and after quarter close, we completed a sale of the majority of the assets at our Mod III subsidiary. The sale of these assets was completed for approximately book value, a premium to where SWK has historically traded. During the quarter, SWK returned $49 million of the proceeds of these sales to shareholders through a $4 per share dividend. Additionally, year to date, SWK has returned an additional $3 million of capital to shareholders through the repurchase of approximately 200,000 shares of our common stock.

We believe these steps demonstrate the organization's focus on realizing the underlying value of our assets and ensuring that shareholders benefit from these realizations. These actions have simplified our business, and SWK's remaining financial assets are cash, $234 million of gross performing first-lien term loans with an effective yield of 14.1%, $12 million of gross non-performing reorganization royalties, $5 million of public equity warrants, and approximately 11 private warrants and earnouts, which are carried at $0 for GAAP purposes. Against these assets, we carry an $8.8 million general loan loss reserve. For the second quarter, both our non-GAAP adjusted net income and finance segment adjusted non-GAAP net income totaled $4.6 million. We believe this level is a reasonable run rate for the business going forward.

Our non-GAAP tangible financing book value per share totaled $18.47, a year-over-year increase of 11.7% after considering the $4 per share special dividend and achieving our stated goal of 10% plus book value per share growth. On July 15, the Aptar Group exercised its option to acquire the majority of the Mod III assets for a predetermined purchase price totaling $6.9 million, which includes the $3.3 million of payments SWK had already received. We view this as a successful outcome and in the best interest of SWK shareholders, our former Mod III colleagues, and Aptar. We wish Paul and the team the best and look forward to following their success under the Aptar banner. With that, I will turn the call to our CFO, Adam Rice, to review the quarter's financial results.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jody, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday, we reported earnings for the second quarter of 2025. We reported GAAP pre-tax net income of $4.6 million, or $0.37 per diluted share. Our reported second quarter 2025 net income is $3.5 million after income tax expense of just over $1 million. This includes a $1.2 million decrease in year-over-year finance receivables segment revenue and a $500,000 increase in year-over-year pharmaceutical development segment revenue. The $1.2 million decrease in year-over-year finance receivables segment revenue was primarily due to a $3.4 million decrease in interest and fees due to paydowns, payoffs, and the sale of the majority of our royalty portfolio. The decrease was partially offset by a $2.2 million increase in interest and fees earned due to add-on funding and newly funded finance receivables.

The previously mentioned paydown funding activity is typical as SWK continually manages return of capital as well as capital deployment. As of June 30, 2025, our GAAP book value per share was $20.23, an 11% decrease compared to $22.72 as of June 30, 2024. When adjusting for the $4 per share dividend paid during the quarter, the GAAP book value per share was $24.46, a 6.8% increase year over year. Overall operating expenses, which include interest, pharmaceutical manufacturing, research and development expense, general and administrative expense, and provision for credit losses, were $5.4 million during the second quarter of 2025, compared to $9.9 million in the second quarter of 2024. Mod III operating expenses were $1.2 million in the second quarter of 2025, compared to $2.5 million in the second quarter of 2024.

The finance receivables segment operating expenses were $4.2 million in the second quarter of 2025, compared to $7.4 million in the second quarter of 2024. The finance receivables operating expenses further break down for the second quarter of 2025 to general and administrative expense of $2.2 million, provision for credit losses of $800,000, and interest expense of $1.2 million. For the second quarter of 2024, general and administrative expenses were $2.2 million, provision for credit losses was $4.1 million, and interest expense was $1.1 million. The decrease in finance receivables segment operating expenses was mainly due to a $3.3 million decrease in provision for credit losses. The decrease in provision for credit losses is most notably attributable to $500,000 of asset impairments in the second quarter of 2025 versus $4.3 million of asset impairments in the second quarter of 2024.

Turning to our share repurchase program, we bought back just under 60,000 shares for a total of $900,000 during the quarter. Since quarter close, we have repurchased an additional 88,000 shares for a total cost of $1.3 million. With that, I'll turn it back over to Jody.

Speaker 0

Thank you, Adam. The management team and Board focused on achieving value for our shareholders, as demonstrated by our actions year to date. Our remaining loan book is healthy, and we believe the second quarter's results are a reasonable proxy for the earnings power of the business going forward. With that, let's open the line to questions.

Speaker 1

Certainly. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Your first question for today is from Scott Jensen, a private investor.

Speaker 3

Hey, good morning, Jody and Adam. Congratulations on a nice quarter. With the Mod III sale, obviously, we'll see a bump in revenue in the third quarter. What about the costs associated with that business going on to Aptar? Do you have any recurring costs that remain on your side of the ledger? What would that maybe SG&A impact be now that Aptar owns it?

Speaker 0

Let me take the first stab at that. I wanted Adam maybe to speak a little bit to this as well and some of the accounting around it. Third quarter will be a little bit messy because we did agree to a transition services agreement, which runs through mid-September. We are getting those costs reimbursed. All the cost of the business went to Aptar on the close. There's no ongoing cost at Mod III. It was an asset sale. We still own the Mod III shell, and there is some IP in there that we'll try to monetize. All the costs have gone. There may be a little bit of challenges or sort of some lingering costs in the third quarter.

In terms of the costs going forward, if I just look at our finance segment financials, which is everything but Mod III, so that includes all the corporate costs, we had $2.3 million of G&A in the quarter. I think when we looked through that, there were a few transactions going on in the quarter. Of course, we had legal spend. Normalized SG&A was in the ballpark of $2 million, which is our goal, to be at that level. I think that that's a reasonable level, obviously assuming no sort of one-off legal spend.

Speaker 3

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and I would just add to that. Jody's really nailed it. There will be some third-quarter noise related to ins and outs as we sort of see Mod III out of our ecosystem. The ongoing costs are pretty minimal, especially when you consider, if you look at the guaranteed revenue agreement we had in place and how Mod III was carried over the last several quarters, it was relatively neutral on a net basis. I think that's really what you'll see. I don't think you should see any big surprises one way or another.

Speaker 3

Okay, great. I've got some kind of higher-level questions. The first is, do you see or what's your read on changes at the FDA affecting underlying portfolio companies and some of the companies that you invest in? Do you see any impact, risk, things like that due to some of the changes that seem to be going on?

Speaker 0

Yeah, you know, we've spent a fair amount of time talking about regulatory changes and risks in the portfolio. Initially, it was tariffs. We reviewed all of our companies and had them do an analysis and felt that we had sort of minimal exposure there. I think there's maybe like three or four different regulatory things going on. One is sort of FDA. I mean, it's a little hard to hypothesize on where this leads out. Near term, I guess the current thought is that there could be fewer drugs approved. That doesn't really impact our portfolio. We don't have any drug companies or device companies that are pending some type of approved product, so not a big concern there. The second, broadly speaking, our call is like pricing risk, pharma pricing risk, and this takes all kinds of different forms.

We don't think anything we have is any of our borrowers are too at risk. If you look at the specialty pharma companies we have, Eton is a rare disease situation, and that's kind of a whole unique pricing structure, but nothing we've seen thus far really scares us there. A couple of our companies are not that, but are fairly low-priced. If you look at Ocufer, the shield product, it's a low-priced product. I don't worry too much about rebates or negotiations there. Journey is dermatology, and a lot of that's cash pay, so I'm not too worried about that. The area that probably we've had a little more concern about has been NIH, sort of scientific funding cuts. We've got a couple of companies that are vendors into that channel.

We've got one CDMO, and then there's a company we have that sells life science tools, and they definitely have seen some impact from these cuts. I don't think it's drastic or material to the ongoing business, particularly as a lender, but I know they've lost some orders along the way. It's probably worth saying that that whole space has really had a tough go the last couple of years. If you look at the biotech, their customer base went through kind of a classic boom-bust cycle, and we're potentially kind of in the bottom of that bust cycle. It's been a tough go for all those folks for really a couple of years.

Speaker 3

Understandable. My other kind of global question is, we've just seen so many, and it's the talk of the town, private credit, and everybody coming in and raising funds and people who probably have no business coming into the space. That doesn't prevent them if they've got access to capital. How do you see that affecting, you know, deal flow, people willing to, you know, take more risks than you'd be willing to? Are you comfortable just sitting back, buying back stock, waiting for a better pitch? How do you see that development in the marketplace?

Speaker 0

Yeah, you know, and thanks, you've sent me a bunch of articles. I know we've traded notes on that. There definitely is more capital that's come in over the last couple of years. I know we've talked a bit about some of these retail products, general funds, and private BDCs, and the need to deploy capital. We're aware of that. I think if you look here to date, we've been fairly tempered on the deployment side. We've been able to add some onto existing performing borrowers, which is always great. I think we've made one new loan to an Australian company that was a little bit off the run, and we felt good and fine about that one, kind of a core deal for us. We've been pretty disciplined. I think there's still the ability to put money to work in a small fund setting like SWK Holdings.

The fact of the matter is it's capitalism. Money comes in, returns come down. We've got to just be a bit more careful given our cost of capital in particular. That probably explains some of the, I think, measured pace we've had on deployments this year.

Speaker 3

Thank you. I'll get online and see if anybody else has a question. Congratulations. Thanks.

Speaker 0

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session, and I will now turn the call over to Jody for closing remarks.

Speaker 0

Great. Thanks everyone for joining the call. Thanks for continued support of SWK Holdings. Hope everyone has a wonderful day and a fantastic weekend. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.