Earnings Labs

Great Elm Group, Inc. (GEG)

Q2 2024 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 14, 2024

$2.05

-0.49%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello, and welcome to the Great Elm Group Fiscal Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the conference over to Adam Yates, Managing Director. Please go ahead.

Adam Yates

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Great Elm Group's fiscal second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded on Wednesday, February 14, 2024. If you would like to be added to our distribution list, you can e-mail geginvestorrelations@greatelmcap.com or you can sign up for alerts directly on our website, www.greatelmgroup.com. The slide presentation accompanying today's conference call and webcast can be found on our website under Events and Presentations. A link to the webcast is also available on our website as well as in the press release that was disseminated to announce the quarterly results. Today's conference call includes forward-looking statements, and we ask that you refer to Great Elm Group's filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. Great Elm Group does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements unless required by law. In addition, during today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable financial measures are included in our earnings release. To obtain copies of our SEC filings, please visit Great Elm Group's website under Financial Information and select SEC filings. On the call today, we have Jason Reese, CEO; Adam Kleinman, President, and General Counsel; Nichole Milz, COO; and Keri Davis, CFO. I will now turn the call over to Jason Reese, CEO.

Jason Reese

Analyst

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Before diving into second quarter earnings, I want to highlight a pivotal transaction for our alternative credit platform that closed last week. On Thursday, GEG announced a $24 million equity capital raise at our BDC, Great Elm Capital Corporation. GEG provided significant support in this capital raise by investing $6 million alongside an institutional investor in a special purpose vehicle that acquired $24 million of common stock in GECC at net asset value. The institutional investor aims to establish a strategic relationship with Great Elm. This transaction is a step change for GEG. It increases GEG's basis for earning fees from GECC, giving the company the ability to add significant recurring asset management fee revenue and the potential to earn incentive fee revenue on this incremental capital. Most importantly, the investment structure embedded in this transaction provides a template for future capital raising and investment opportunities. Great Elm Group also launched the Great Elm Credit Income Fund during the fiscal second quarter with $13 million of total capital. GEG ceded this private fund with a $6 million investment alongside several additional investors. The credit income fund will focus on direct lending, syndicated credit and special situations and will leverage our existing operational and origination platforms to manage and source investments. Management is focused on raising third-party capital in the fund, providing another opportunity to grow our AUM and enhance recurring fee revenue. These investments made alongside other capital partners serve as a testament to GEG utilizing its strong liquid balance sheet to scale existing businesses, launch new fund products and deploy capital into new platform opportunities. Along with growing our recurring revenue, we believe that GEG's investments in these vehicles will deliver a strong return. In addition to these key strategic developments,…

Keri Davis

Analyst

Thank you, Jason. I'll provide a brief overview of the quarter, and of course, welcome all of you to review our filings in greater detail or reach out to our team with any questions. In review of continuing operations, quarter-to-date revenues grew 50% year-over-year to $2.8 million, driven by increased fee-paying assets under management related to GECC and Monomoy and the recognition of incentive fees from GECC for the third consecutive quarter, generating approximately $0.7 million during the fiscal second quarter. AUM of $655 million as of December 31, 2023, was up 2% from the prior quarter-end and up 6% from the prior year quarter-end, while fee-paying AUM grew to $461 million, up 2% quarter-to-date and up 5% from prior year quarter-end. For the quarter, Great Elm Group generated a net loss from continuing operations of $0.2 million compared to net income from continuing operations of $29.7 million in the prior year period. Net income from continuing operations in the prior year period was inclusive of $22.2 million in net realized and unrealized gain on investments and $10.5 million gain related to the Forest transaction. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $0.6 million, up from $0.1 million generated in the prior year period. As of December 31, Great Elm Group had approximately $69 million of combined cash and marketable securities on our balance sheet to deploy across growing alternative asset management platform. Please refer to Slide 6 that provides an overview of our financial position and highlights our book value per share of approximately $2.25, which remains steady compared to September 30. This concludes my financial review of the quarter. With that, we will turn the call over to the operator to open for questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] :

Operator

Operator

There are no questions at this time. I will turn the call to Jason Reese.

Jason Reese

Analyst

Thank you again for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you in the future.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.