Earnings Labs

Main Street Capital Corporation (MAIN)

Q4 2022 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 24, 2023

$54.50

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Main Street Capital Corporation Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Zach Vaughan with Dennard Lascar, Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Zach Vaughan

Analyst

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Main Street Capital Corporation's fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining me today with prepared comments are Dwayne Hyzak, Chief Executive Officer; David Magdol, President and Chief Investment Officer; and Jesse Morris, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Also participating for the Q&A portion of the call is Nick Meserve, Managing Director and Head of the Private Credit Investment Group. Main Street issued a press release yesterday afternoon that details the company's fourth quarter and full year financial and operating results. This document is available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website at mainstcapital.com. A replay of today's call will be available beginning an hour after the completion of the call and will remain available until March 3. Information on how to access the replay was included in yesterday's release. We also advise you that this conference call is being broadcast live through the Internet and can be accessed on the company's home page. Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, February 24, 2023, and therefore, you are advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of any replay listening or transcript reading. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements. Many of these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as anticipates, believes, expects, intends, will, should, may or similar expressions. These statements are based on management's estimates, assumptions and projections as of the date of this call, and there are no guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from the results expressed or implied in these statements as a result of risks, uncertainties and other factors, including, but not limited to, the factors set forth in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be found on the company's website or at sec.gov. Main Street assumes no obligation to update any of these statements unless required by law. During today's call, management will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including distributable net investment income. Please refer to yesterday's press release for a reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. Certain information discussed on this call, including information related to portfolio companies, was derived from third-party sources and has not been independently verified. And now I'll turn the call over to Main Street's CEO, Dwayne Hyzak.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

Thank you, Zach. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your participation on this morning's call. We hope that everyone is doing well. On today's call, I'll provide my usual updates regarding our performance in the quarter, while also providing a few updates on our performance for the full year. I'll also provide updates on our asset management activities, our recent declarations of another supplemental dividend payable in March and our regular monthly dividends for the second quarter of 2023, our expectations for dividends going forward, our recent investment activities and current investment pipeline and several other noteworthy updates. Following my comments, David and Jesse will provide additional comments regarding our investment strategy, investment portfolio, financial results, capital structure and leverage, and our expectations for the first quarter of 2023, after which we will be happy to take your questions. We're very pleased with our fourth quarter results, which closed a record year for Main Street across several key performance indicators, with significant positive momentum for 2023. Our results include new quarterly records for Net Investment Income or NII per share and Distributable Net Investment Income, or DNII, per share, significantly exceeding our records achieved in the third quarter and representing the sixth consecutive quarter in which we set or matched our NII per share record. This consistent strong performance demonstrates the continued and sustainable strength of our overall platform, the benefits of our differentiated and diversified investment strategies and the underlying quality of our portfolio companies. We're also pleased that the positive results included strong contributions from both our lower middle market and private loan investment strategies and our asset management business, providing us confidence about the recurring nature of these positive results in the future. As a result of our strong performance, our…

David Magdol

Analyst

Thanks, Dwayne, and good morning, everyone. Year-end provides a good opportunity to look back at our history and highlight the benefits of our unique and diversified investment strategy and discuss how this has enabled us to deliver attractive returns to our shareholders over an extended period of time. We believe looking back at our history also supports our intent to continue to execute our unique and highly differentiated strategy in the future. Since our IPO in 2007, we have increased our monthly dividends per share by 105%, and we have declared cumulative total dividends to our shareholders of $36.65 per share or over 2.4 times our IPO price of $15 per share. Our total return to shareholders since our IPO calculated using our stock price as of yesterday's close and assuming reinvestment of all dividends received since our IPO was 8.6 times money invested. This compares very favorably to 2.5 times money invested for the S&P 500 over the same period of time and is significantly higher when compared to our BDC peers. As we've previously discussed, we believe that the primary drivers of our long-term success have and will continue to be our focus on making both debt and equity investments in the underserved lower middle market. Growing our private credit activities for the benefit of our balance sheet and for the clients of our Asset Management business, which clearly benefits our shareholders and our industry-leading cost structure, which provides for a strong alignment of interest between our management team and shareholders through our team's meaningful stock ownership and incentive compensation plan, which is tied to our ability to achieve superior financial results for our shareholders. Most notably and uniquely, our lower middle market strategy provides attractive leverage points and yields on our first lien debt investments, while also…

Jesse Morris

Analyst

Thank you, David. To echo Dwayne's and David's comments, we are pleased with our operating results for the fourth quarter, which included a number of quarterly records and capped the year with Main Street achieving records for net investment income, distributable net investment income and net asset value, all on a per share basis. Our total investment income for the fourth quarter represented another consecutive quarterly record, increasing by $31.7 million or 38.6% over the same period in 2021 to a total of $113.9 million. The fourth quarter surpassed our most recent quarterly record for total investment income flat in the third quarter of 2022 by $15.5 million or 15.7%, including meaningful increases in interest, dividend and fee income, which demonstrates the continued strength and momentum of our investment and asset management strategies. Interest income increased by $32.5 million from a year ago and $11.3 million over the third quarter. We estimate the continued benefit from increases in benchmark index rates, drove a little over half of the increase over the third quarter, with the remainder driven primarily by the continued growth in our portfolio debt investments. In addition, the combined favorable impact of certain elevated income items in the fourth quarter, including dividends and accelerated prepayment, repricing or other activities that are considered less consistent was approximately $2 million or $0.02 per share by the average of the prior four quarters and was comparable to such income amounts earned in the fourth quarter of 2021. Our operating expenses for the quarter increased by $7 million over the fourth quarter of 2021, largely driven by increases of $7.1 million in interest expense, $1.5 million in general and administrative expenses and $0.7 million in share-based compensation, partially offset by a decline of $1.5 million in cash compensation related expenses and an…

Operator

Operator

At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Robert Dodd with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.

Robert Dodd

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Congratulations on another really good quarter.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

Thanks Robert.

Robert Dodd

Analyst

On dividend income, if I can, I know it's hard to not just predict. But in this quarter, if I take out the dividend from the asset manager out from I-45, it was still a really strong dividend quarter just from the portfolio companies. I mean, 2021 was crazy, but still really strong. Can you give us any color you've given us some color in the past about, how much the concentration of what portion of the portfolio that income comes from? Can you give us any updates on that, or even maybe, how much of that income comes from portfolio companies you've held for five years or more or any breakdown you can give us for kind of the types, age, concentration of the portfolio of companies is coming from?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

Sure, Robert. Thanks for the question. We're happy to give you those details. As you said, and you'll be able to see this when you see the 10-K, the contributions on the dividend income side are pretty broad-based. If you take out MSC Income Fund, it would take another 12 companies, on the lower middle market side before you got to 50% of the remaining dividend income. So we think it's a nice diversity, contributions from a broad base of companies. Once you get past that 12, there's a very large number of other companies that are meaningful contributors. So as you heard us say in our comments, we feel good about how the lower middle market companies are performing. You see that in both the appreciation we recognized in the quarter, but you also see it to the question you raised here to the point, you raised here with the broad-based dividend income that we saw from the portfolio in the fourth quarter.

Robert Dodd

Analyst

Got it. Got it. Thank you for that. I mean, and then, the other question is, the lower middle market pipeline, you said, it's below average. I mean, you also gave a lot more. But can you give me what -- why currently is it below average? Do you think is it a function of the outlook on the economic environment or for it to get to back to average or above average, do we need more certainty in kind the economy because, obviously, sellers are business owners, right? It's not sponsors we got on the middle market deal, right? So they may have different views on the economy. Any color on, what it takes to get a rebound in the pipeline on that side of the business?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

Sure, Robert. So that statement we provide each quarter is always highly judgmental. So you've heard…

Robert Dodd

Analyst

Yeah.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

… us get for a long time. I'd say, it's below average today, largely because, the third quarter and fourth quarter were both very, very active, very robust time periods. As I said in my comments, while it is below average today, it's not a concern. I think we feel very confident, very good about the ability of our platform to consistently generate lower middle market opportunities over the long term. Just as we sit here at this point in time, it's a little bit slower, but it's not a big concern for us. I think, we expect to be active. That's why we've prepared ourselves from a capital structure standpoint to continue to be active and continue to grow in that area. And we just need the market to reset a little bit and see the sellers' expectations go back into being in line with where we need them to be from an execution standpoint. I'll let David add any additional comments he has there.

David Magdol

Analyst

Hey Robert. So, when we think about the comment on how we characterize it, the near-term outlook is really mostly impacted by Q1 '23 and how we see our closing is taking place in that period of time. But I'd say, the lower middle market has always been lumpy. The medium term, Q2 and beyond, we have a better visibility towards the pipeline growing. So, I wouldn't be concerned relative to the overall market and taking -- making too many assumptions about it being unattractive or not being able to surface our type of opportunities. We're very confident that the year will play out well relative to the opportunity set. We're still dealing with family-owned businesses, it still need to transact, and we've got a very active kind of medium-term pipeline that's out there.

Robert Dodd

Analyst

Got it. Thank you, and again, congratulations on the quarter.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

Thank you, Robert. We appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Bryce Rowe with B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Bryce Rowe

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks a bunch. Good morning guys.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, Bryce.

Bryce Rowe

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Let's see, I just wanted to kind of dive into the fair value marks here in the quarter. Nice to see NAV up and obviously, contribution from the ATM, but also unrealized or net gain type of activity, you highlight in the press release that some, I guess, 33 lower middle market portfolio companies saw net appreciation and then 27 depreciation. Can you -- kind of similar to Robert's question around dividend breadth, can you talk about -- is there a portfolio company that's having an outsized impact from a mark perspective here in the quarter?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Sure, Bryce. I would say that when you look at our appreciation on the lower middle market side, there's a number of companies that continue to outperform significantly. And we see it to Robert's prior question on the dividend income side. And on your question here, you also see it on the unrealized appreciation. And just looking at schedule here, I would say, there's kind of six or seven companies that contributed significantly to the unrealized appreciation during the quarter. What I'll also tell you, and I won't give you numbers by names, but I would say that those same companies are also a lot of the primary contributors to the dividend income. So we just got some companies that despite the challenges we see in the economy with inflation, supply chain, quality labor, et cetera. These companies, as you've heard us say in the past, are excellent new managers, excellent teams, and they've been able to navigate the challenges, not just navigate them, but continue to excel. And you're seeing that come through in the continued appreciation on the fair value side and on the dividend income contributions.

Bryce Rowe

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And then maybe on the asset management activities and the dividend into the BDC here in the quarter. Obviously, nice uptick in the dividend, it looked like the incentive fee income kind of ticked up pretty meaningfully in the fourth quarter. Is that a sustainable level? Is there anything in that income that wouldn't be considered kind of recurring?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. Bryce, I would say there was one transaction in the quarter that benefited both Main Street directly. It also benefited MSC Income Funds. So that transaction will not be recurring. But even without that transaction, we would have seen some incentive fee income at MSC Income Fund. So it's very, very difficult to predict what happens in the future, even one quarter out. I would say, as we sit here today, we would expect to have some incentive fee contribution from our asset management business, it may just be down a little bit from where it was in the fourth quarter, primarily or directly attributable to that one transaction that I referenced.

Bryce Rowe

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Okay. Okay. And then maybe last one for me. You all highlight where nonaccruals are today. Obviously, not a meaningful piece of the portfolio, but -- can you talk about kind of the puts and takes quarter-on-quarter? I guess you have 12 nonaccruals today versus 11 last quarter. And you did highlight some realized loss activity. Just curious if those nonaccruals generated some of that?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. I'll let Jesse add on any additional detail that he has here. But I'd say that during the quarter, from memory, we had on net add. So not a lot of movement, as you said. I think the portfolio as a whole continues to perform well. We do have some names that have underperformed. And when they underperform, if it's on the private loan or middle market side, the first thing we do is look for the private equity sponsor in terms of what they're going to do in relation to supporting the company. And I'd say that we've seen in most situations, the private equity sponsors continue to be very, very supportive, which obviously is a good thing and a big part of our investment strategy in the private loan segment. But we have had a couple where the performance was such that the private equity firms either were not supportive, but we needed to do a restructure that either caused the nonaccrual or the realized loss activity. But I'll let Jesse give any additional specifics he can add on.

Jesse Morris

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

I think this is -- we have one that came on, that was the movement. And I think you probably heard it in my commentary, but we expect to have another one come off in the first quarter of this year.

Bryce Rowe

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Got it. Okay. I think I’ll leave it there. Appreciate it.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks a lot, Bryce

Bryce Rowe

Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Kenneth Lee with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Kenneth Lee

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just one on the Asset Management business. You mentioned briefly, in the prepared remarks about actively working on growing the business. I realize that's still a little early days, but I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about what sort of activity you're working on? And also maybe I could wonder if you could just comment upon what you're seeing in terms of either fundraising or investor demand for the product there? Thanks.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Sure. Thanks for the question, Ken. While it is early because we haven't launched anything. I'd say consistent with our messaging for the last year or longer, our desire is to grow the asset management business. I think it would be natural that our next step there would be another private fund or a private vehicle similar to MS Private Loan Fund I. I think the good news for us, and you could see it in my comments, you can also see it in the incentive fees we earned during the quarter. That fund has performed really well. So I think the LPs or the investors there are very pleased or excited about that performance. So we are somewhat confident that once we launch another vehicle, there will be a significant amount of interest from those existing LPs and the outcome, the eventual outcome to how much success we have there will be how successful we are at bringing new LPs in, specifically on the institutional side. So I'd say that's the big question in terms of how large would that next vehicle be, but I think we've got a high level of confidence that we'll have a new vehicle in the near term and that, that new vehicle will have strong reception at least from the existing LPs in our first private vehicle.

Kenneth Lee

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Got you. Very helpful there. And just one follow-on, if I may. Just on the liquidity position, wondering if you're comfortable with the liquidity position as it is, or do you see a further boost in the liquidity position over the near term there? Thanks.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks, Ken. I think you probably heard us say over a long period of time that one of the big things that we value is liquidity. We always want to be in a position where we can not only be defensive, but we can be on offense. So we always want to be in a position to support our lower middle market companies, whether that's in good times or bad. We also want to make sure that when the market is most attractive, which is when no one else has capital that we can be on offense. You've seen us do that through each of the big step backs in the economy, whether it was the great recession or more recently here during COVID. And if you look at some of the best performing companies, specifically on the low middle market side that we touched on earlier, in response to some of the other questions. Several of those investments were made right in the middle COVID, and we wouldn't have been able to do that. Have we not had our very conservative capital structure and significant liquidity position? So we're always focused on maintaining significant liquidity. I think we've done a great job over the last two or three months of really enhancing our liquidity and our capital structure. But you're going to see us always focus on being in a conservative position, so we can do what I just touched on. But I'll let Jesse, add any additional comments he wants to add.

Jesse Morris

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

I think you covered it.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Okay.

Kenneth Lee

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Got you. Great. Very helpful there. Thanks again.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you, Ken.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Mark Hughes with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Mark Hughes

Analyst

Yeah. Thanks. Good morning.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

Good morning, Mark.

Mark Hughes

Analyst

Why is the private loan pipeline average? This is kind of a slow deal environment. You seem pretty optimistic about that. Just interested in your thoughts on what's driving that?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

Sure. I do think, overall, for the last couple of months, you have seen a slowdown in the overall market. From my standpoint, there's purely my personal opinion. I think that's because the private equity firms have been, needing to reset their expectations, given the significantly higher cost of capital that exists in today's marketplace. I think to some extent, that's happening. So I do think that you'll see that part of the marketplace from an activity standpoint starting to improve. And I think we've already seen that here more recently, but I'll give credit to our private credit team over the last couple of years, including during COVID, largely because of what we just talked about, us having liquidity and having a capital structure that allowed us to continue to be active. We did a great job, and we built some what we think are some really good high-quality relationships with private equity firms that we want to be doing business with. So we continue to see good deal flow. I do think we, just like everybody else, is being very prudent in how we approach the market. But from our standpoint, when a private equity firm is transacting in this marketplace, we think the quality of that transaction is likely better, because it survived what's going on in the broader economy. And that private equity firm is excited about moving forward with that investment despite the fact that they're going to pay a higher cost of capital, at least on the debt capital side. So we think it's a good environment to be investing for those reasons. And obviously, as we touched on earlier, you have the ability to continue to be active and be selective where it makes sense given our conservative capital structure and our liquidity position. But I'll see if Nick wants to add any additional comments on that point.

Nick Meserve

Analyst

I think, Dwayne got nailed the overall theme. I think the other one is repayments are down, specifically, across the industry. And so with lower repayments, our need to respin that money is lower. And so our total transactions might be down, but the dollar amount was spent in total on a net basis will be where we target for the year.

Mark Hughes

Analyst

Yes. Thank you for that. And then just to kind of step back, the lower middle market, if we do run into a slower economy, is that going to perform from a credit perspective, refresh me on the kind of the dynamics there?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

Sure. So I'll provide a couple of comments, and then if David wants to add on, he can. But I'd say the key points we look at. One is most of our lower middle market portfolio is fixed rate debt as opposed to floating. So they're not being impacted by the rising rate environment. That's one of the big positives we see in that part of our strategy. The management team is there, they obviously are dealing with inflation, supply chain, labor, et cetera, but they are not worried about their capital structure because they've got a very well-capitalized, strong investor in Main Street in the capital structure, and they are not seeing, at least for the majority of that portfolio are not seeing their interest expense changes as market rates have improved. So we think that's a big positive today, and we think it will be -- continue to be a big positive going forward. The reason we've always valued are kind of really favored our lower middle market investment strategy is our primary strategy is that we are directly aligned with the people that run that business day to day. The individuals that are the management teams that are typically the majority owners of these businesses, they're living with that company day-to-day with the customers, vendors, employees’. So when we've seen them execute in times of stress, again, whether it's COVID, great recession, whatever time period you want to pick, clearly, they're dealing with challenges just like everybody else is. But in our opinion, and just our opinion, our experience long-term over the last 20 years, is that they will outperform the market just because they are making changes on a real-time basis. These businesses are not large. So when they make a strategic decision to pivot to address what's going on in the marketplace, it has an impact almost immediately. So that's something that we've always viewed as a big positive, and they're doing that one because it's the right thing to do, but they're also doing it because they're the majority owner of the business in most situations. So those are the two biggest things I'd highlight, but I'll let David add any additional color.

David Magdol

Analyst

I think, Dwayne covered most, but just a couple of additional points. One is that for the most part, we're backing existing managers that have been in the business for a lengthy period of time have seen cycles up and down in the past, and they know what to do. They're proactively looking at their operating expenses, looking where they can cut. They're very nimble as small businesses and look ahead very proactively. They also have leverage on the front end that we'd see in a normal private equity type of transaction, just total leverage, so their coverage is better. And the overall portfolio is very seasoned at this point. So if you look at the 75 companies we have, many of them have been in the portfolio for an extended period of time and have naturally deleveraged. So they're really well-situated for a tougher economic climate if we happen to be there in their individual industry segment.

Mark Hughes

Analyst

Appreciate that. Thank you.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

Thanks, Mark.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Vilas Abraham with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Vilas Abraham

Analyst · UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for the question. Just a bit of finer point on some of the capital structure commentary. So leverage regulatory -- leverage dropped down to $0.79 in I believe. So is the message here that you guys are comfortable running at the bottom or below the range? And how are you thinking about timing on when that could go up? And also, just how do you couple that with the equity issuance that you're able to do here?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks for the question, and thanks for joining us this morning on the call. Yeah, I'd say we're very comfortable being above or below the range. Obviously, we're a little bit more on the conservative side today. I'd say that is very much intentional just given the current economic environment, kind of the overall backdrop that we're dealing with. In terms of when will it move the other direction, it will all be driven primarily by the pace of opportunities in our lower middle market strategy and then secondarily, our private loan strategy. But we're comfortable, and you can see it in our quarterly results. We're comfortable that we can deliver best-in-class returns, not just from an industry standpoint, but compared to other public companies without running it at higher levels of leverage. And we think that's a huge part of the benefit that a shareholder or an investor gets from investing in Main Street. You're getting a very, very good return, and we think you're getting it on a very positive or favorable risk-adjusted basis.

Vilas Abraham

Analyst · UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Got it. Okay. And then just maybe on the dividend. Just how are you guys thinking about the base versus the supplemental dividend? And what would it take to get a bump up in the base at some point?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Sure. So I think we've been trying to be fairly consistent for the last year or so in terms of setting our policy. And I'd say that we're not planning on making changes there. So our long-term goals, when we say long-term goals, three to five years, not kind of two to three quarters, is to deliver a consistent, recurring and growing monthly dividend. Historically, it's been kind of 3% plus or minus. I think in this environment, most recently, we've been above that, closer to 5%. And I think near term, we would expect that to continue to be the case. On the supplemental, that's going to be directly attributable to how much distributable net investment income, or DNII, are we able to generate in a quarter in relation to the monthly. So our dividend for March is based upon the fourth quarter's results were as I think I may have touched on in the prepared comments, but we exceeded the monthly dividend by a very wide margin. I think it was $0.37 off the top of my head, and we paid out about half of that, a little bit less than half of that in the supplemental. So that's the approach we've taken in the last couple of quarters. I think we'll continue to take that conservative approach. And the reason we're not paying out more is though, even though we feel really good about the portfolio and it's performing at a super, super high level, there is additional risk in the economy, and we think it's prudent to reserve some of that just in case things take a step back. We would not think it would be prudent to be paying out 100% of your dividend, 100% of your earnings and dividends today because there's a number of factors that would say there's risk in the economy that would support not doing that. So that's why you see us taking a fairly conservative approach in how we're paying that supplemental dividend.

Vilas Abraham

Analyst · UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Got it. Makes sense. And maybe one last quick one. You mentioned that six or seven companies contributed materially to the appreciation this quarter. Were those in any specific sector or was that kind of cross sector?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · UBS. Please proceed with your question.

When you say sector, you mean industry or you mean by investment strategy?

Vilas Abraham

Analyst · UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, yeah, industry. Yeah.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, I would not say that they're specific to an individual industry or sector. I think if you look at it, our portfolio in the lower middle market continues to be very, very diverse. And when you look at the top contributors there, I'd say that they are across a wide range of different industries.

Vilas Abraham

Analyst · UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Got it. Thank you.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Eric Zwick with Hovde Group. Please proceed with your question.

Eric Zwick

Analyst · Hovde Group. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you. Good morning. There have been a number of comments this morning with regard to credit quality and still some excess risk in the economy and the outlook. And I'm curious, from what you track and the data that you have. Are you seeing any early signs of deterioration or concerns about credit quality, either in heightened amendment requests or internal watch list growing or any companies that are maybe getting close to the covenant which is anything along those lines at this point?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · Hovde Group. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah. Erik, I would say that when you look at changes there, I wouldn't say that we've seen a huge change. I think when we look at underperformance at a specific portfolio company level or more broad-based, I think it continues to be very company-specific and not something that is driven by the broader economy. And David, Nick, Jesse, you guys jump in here, but we're not seeing a systematic or thematic kind of issue across the portfolio. Just like any environment, some companies perform better, some companies underperform, but I would say that the relative over performance, underperformance has not changed dramatically here in the most recent months. But you guys add on if you have a different view or a different opinion on it.

David Magdol

Analyst · Hovde Group. Please proceed with your question.

The only thing I'd add is that if you look at our diversification, we're very purposefully and intentionally diverse across a lot of different industry segments, some of which are countercyclical. So we do feel like, we're well positioned, as well positioned as we can be. Obviously, if you have a major change in the overall economy, we'll feel that impact. But right now, we're pretty comfortable with where we sit.

Eric Zwick

Analyst · Hovde Group. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks. I appreciate the commentary there. Just one more for me, just with regard to the strategy to deemphasize the middle market portfolio, I think you mentioned it's about 8% at fair value of the total portfolio now. Is the goal to bring that down to zero, or do you still occasionally see attractive opportunities to invest within that portion of the portfolio?

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · Hovde Group. Please proceed with your question.

Sure, Erik. We've been trying to emphasize, we're not trying. We have been deemphasizing the middle market strategy for a number of years. So five, six years ago, we said publicly that we were going to be working to deemphasize that and pivot to the private loan strategy. And I think we've been highly successful in doing that. And I think it's been a significant contributor to our success over the last couple of years, and you'll see us continue to do that. We don't expect it to go to zero. We do want to maintain that capability because there could be stuff that comes up from time-to-time where it makes sense to continue to be active there. But I think you'll see us continue to minimize those activities going forward.

Eric Zwick

Analyst · Hovde Group. Please proceed with your question.

Got it. Thanks for taking my questions today.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst · Hovde Group. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you, Eric. We appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Dwayne Hyzak, for closing comments.

Dwayne Hyzak

Analyst

Thank you, Maria. Thank you again to everybody for joining us this morning for our call. We really appreciate your interest in and support of Main Street. And we look forward to talking to you again in early May.

Operator

Operator

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