Dave Dullum
Analyst · Ladenburg
Well, thank you David, and good morning all shareholders. As you know Gladstone Investment provides capital where businesses are being purchased by management team and other equity investors and these are used in companies with annual sales between $20 million to $100 million. And we provide a subordinated debt and the equity and occasionally some senior debt in these transactions. So this combination really produces a mix of assets for Gladstone Investment, your company, which is the basis of this strategy.
Our debt investments provide income to pay our dividends while we expect the equity to appreciate, build shareholder value, provide capital gains and overtime collectively grow our dividend. This is a bit different from other public BDCs that are predominately debt focused. So please keep in mind that the equity portions of our assets are important to the overall value of your company.
For example, in August we sold Venyu Solutions, Inc. a company that we purchased with its management team in late 2010. The equity portion of this investment generated cash proceeds of approximately $32.2 million resulting in a realized capital gain of approximately $24.8 million and the dividend income along the way of about $1.4 million. So in addition, we received a full repayment of our debt investment of $19 million and an additional $1.9 million in success fee income. Therefore our original $6 million equity investment, generated approximately a 5.5x return on that equity and this is including the dividends that we have received. So it’s representative of what we try to do here and hopefully we can continue making these types of investments.
So state of Venyu is actually the fourth exit of our management supported buyout investments since June of 2010. These 4 investment events over the years have generated about $54.5 million in realized gains and about $13.1 million in other income so total increase to net assets of about $67.6 million. So it is important to note that these transactions have helped to put us in an accumulated net realized gain position over the life of the fund.
So, we have been able to preserve shareholder capital on a realized basis, since inception and through a major recession. So from a strategic tax standpoint, we have also been able to utilize all remaining past tax losses and increased shareholder capital. Now as a reminder these tax losses we remember incurred in 2008 and 2009, when a former lender had required us to sell a number of performing syndicated loans at a substantial realized loss and then to pay off their loan and this was during the recession period.
So, with a continuing growth in operating income and these recent gains, this has allowed our Board yesterday actually to declare a special onetime dividend of $0.05 per common share, which is payable in late November to shareholders and to increase our monthly dividend amount by 20% to $0.06 per share and this occurred of course and has been announced at our recent Board meeting which was in the October.
So, turning the balance of the portfolio; at September 30 on a cost basis, 74% of our assets consisted of debt investments of approximately $263 million and 26% or roughly $92 million were equity type securities, which we hope and look forward to of course producing these capital gains. And as I have mentioned in previous calls, there are a number of factors at any time that could effect this ratio of debt to equity which includes loan payoffs and if whether or not we have converted a loan to equity or vice versa.
For this September quarter, our total interest-bearing debt portfolio produced a 12.6% cash yield which is up slightly from 12.5% in the prior quarter. Interest-bearing debt is our primary source of cash to pay our dividends. Additionally we often have success fees of the component of our debt instruments. Success fees I have mentioned before are contractually due upon a sale of a portfolio company although the portfolio company may pay it early. During this quarter we recognized $2.2 million in success fees and as mentioned earlier in this call $1.9 million was from the Venyu sale.
So as of September 30, approximately 72% of our interest-bearing debt has associated success fees, which has it roughly at average contractual rate of about 3.2% per annum. Currently the success fees owed to us aggregate approximately $15.1 million which is roughly $0.57 per share. So generally we do not accrue these success fees on our balance sheet though we do report on them in the written part of our report to shareholders and there is no guarantee of course that we will be able to collect all the success fees or have any control over their timing.
Now one of the equity securities we own are generally not producing current cash income on a regular basis. We do expect that equity to appreciate over time and therefore add to the shareholder value. As noted earlier our 4 portfolio companies sales have generated about $54.5 million in realized gains and $13.1 million in other income for total increase to our net assets of about $67.6 million.
So as our portfolio builds, our goal is to continue increasing the interest and the dividend income from our investments and increase the dividend payout to our shareholders. At the same time we hope that our assets will appreciate through growth in the equity value of the stocks that we own. So into this end we do continue to actively monitor and manage our portfolio which helps us keep the companies operationally sound and preserve and increase shareholder capital.
Just turning to how we go about finding of course these opportunities and generally we obtain these opportunities by partnering with the management teams, other sponsors in the purchase of a business. Our ability to provide this combination of debt and equity is a competitive advantage and gives the seller a high degree of comfort that the purchase will happen. The sources we do concentrate on for these buyout opportunities are generally independent sponsors, middle market investment bankers and middle market private equity firms. In addition, we may find opportunities from time-to-time, where we provide capital to a business owner, who is not seeking to sale the company outright, but may sell a portion of the company and then use additional capital to grow the business.
In terms of the actual fund for the quarter ending September 30th, we've closed an one new investment, this was in August, when we invested $20 million in Schilling, Inc. through a combination again of the debt and equity securities. Schilling which is originated about 30 years ago as a premier provider of high quality specialty toys and this indeed is a company we purchased with an independent sponsor.
Subsequent to the quarter end though we invested $16.3 million and the company called Alloy Die Casting, again through a combination of debt and equity. Alloy Die Casting is a manufacturer of high quality, finished aluminum and zinc castings for aerospace, defense, aftermarket automotive and industrial applications. In this case, our affiliated fund Gladstone Capital Corporation participated as a co-investor by providing $7 million of the same debt and equity financing and on the same terms as Gladstone Investment.
Further we receive full repayment of our debt investments in Channel Technologies Group, LLC in an aggregate amount of $16.2 million. This triggered a success fee payment, which was in the amount of roughly $800,000. Simultaneously we invested $1.3 million in additional preferred and common equities securities in Channel. So at this point our investment in Channel is represented as equity and our debt has been paid down.
In addition we sold the stock in a one portfolio company, Auto Safety House, otherwise known as ASH to certain members of its management team. This sale resulted in a realized loss of approximately $11.4 million and we received a modest cash amount in the transaction, however we did retain a $5 million accruing revolving credit facility which indeed paying currently.
So at the end of the quarter with all of this activity we had, we were left with $354 million invested in portfolio companies at cost. The pipeline for new transactions is very good and that we are active with our marketing and our deal generating activity. We are finding many opportunities that will fit our investment parameters and these are where valuations relative to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization are at multiples of roughly 6x to 6.5x. We obviously do see higher multiple valuations but we try to tend to avoid these and we do believe that our marketing efforts and our presence in the marketplace will allow us to continue on the growth trend that we have been exhibiting over the last few years.
So in summary, our goal for this fund is to maximize distribution to shareholders while achieving the solid growth of both equity values and the income producing assets in the portfolio through investments in the lower middle market company buyout arena.
And David that concludes my part of the presentation.