Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fifth Street Finance Corporation First Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Robyn Friedman, Head of Investor Relations. Ma'am, you may begin.

Thank you, Shannon. Good morning and welcome to Fifth Street Finance Corp.'s first quarter 2017 earnings call. I'm joined this morning by Patrick Dalton, Chief Executive Officer; and Steven Noreika, Chief Financial Officer. Replay information for this call is included in our February 9, 2017 press release and is posted on the Investor Relations section of Fifth Street Finance Corp.'s website, which can be found at fsc.fifthstreetfinance.com. Please note that this call is the property of Fifth Street Finance Corp. Any unauthorized rebroadcast of this call in any form is strictly prohibited. Today's conference call may include forward-looking statements and projections that reflect the company's current views with respect to, among other things, future events and financial performance. Forward-looking statements may include statements as to the future operating results, dividends and business prospects of Fifth Street Finance Corp. Words such as "believes," "expects," "seeks," "plans," "should," "will," "estimates," "projects," "anticipates," "intend," and "future" or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements include these words. These forward-looking statements are subject to the inherent risks and uncertainties in predicting future results and conditions. Certain factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied in these forward-looking statements. New risks and uncertainties arise over time and it is not possible for the company to predict those events or how they may affect it. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. We ask that you refer to our most recent filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements and projections. To obtain copies of our latest SEC filings, please visit our website or call Investor Relations at 203-681-3720. FSC undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. The format for today's call is as follows. Patrick will provide an overview of our results and outlook and Steve will summarize the financials. I will now turn the call over to Patrick.

Thank you, Robyn. Welcome to FSC's first quarter 2017 earnings conference call. Before delving into the quarter, let me begin by saying that I'm pleased to be here for my first earnings call as CEO. After officially joining in the beginning of January 2 and assuming responsibility for all aspects of FSC's investment and operating strategies. As you may now, in mid-September, I was engaged as an Advisor to the FSAM Board of Directors based upon on the recommendation of an independent member of FSAM's Board. In that role, I was tasked with evaluating and making recommendations across three key areas; the people, the investment process, and the investment portfolio. While I have been familiar with Fifth Street for many years, conducting this comprehensive analysis provided me with a more in-depth understanding of the business and the team, as well as its many strength and areas for improvement. Additionally since joining I had the privilege of speaking with many of our strong constituents including shareholders, analysts, lenders and other business partners. These conversations have provided me with valuable feedback on the business, to help reformulate our priorities for the future. Now as CEO, I intend to leverage those insights and get right to work leading the team and the business operations with the focus on our strategic plan to turn our performance and create long term value for our shareholders and other constituents, including our bank lenders, bond holders and employees. As for some of my initial impressions, first and foremost I believe the Fifth Street platform is resilient, remains well positioned within the middle market lending community and benefits from having a solid core team in place. Our focus is on enhancing operating and investment performance, generating NAV stability, optimizing our borrowing facilities and reducing leverage to inside our…

Thank you, Patrick. We ended the first quarter of fiscal 2017 with total assets of $2.2 billion as compared to $2.3 billion at September 30, 2016. Portfolio investments totaled just under $2 billion at fair value and were spread across 123 companies at December 31, 2016. At the end of the December quarter, we had $181 million of cash and cash equivalents including restricted cash on our balance sheet. Net asset value per share was $7.31 as of December 31, 2016 as compared to $7.97 in the prior quarter. NAV was primarily impacted this quarter by credit related losses which were partially offset by accretion due to share repurchases and market-driven write-ups as spreads continued to tighten in the December quarter. Since last quarter, six new investments have been moved to nonaccrual status. At December 31, we had 11 investments on nonaccrual comprising 7.3% of our total debt portfolio at fair value. Despite deleveraging on an absolute dollars basis by $75 million during the quarter, we ended the December quarter above our target regulatory leverage range at 0.84 times debt-to-equity driven principally by the effect of credit weakness on our NAV. As Patrick stated earlier, we are extremely focused on bringing leverage back within our target range which is important to our lenders and rating agencies and we'll provide additional operating flexibility. Additionally we are focused on optimizing our balance sheet and over the course of this year we plan to evaluate options regarding our liability structure including debt issuances or refinancing. For the quarter ended December 31, 2016 we generated total investment income of $51.8 million. PIK interest collected in cash was in excess of PIK income accrued for the quarter and net investment income was $23.3 million for the quarter or $0.16 per share. During the first fiscal…

Thank you for joining us on today's call. We appreciate you spending the time to attend as we discussed the comprehensive plan for FSC. Since we have covered a lot of material, we have chosen not to host a live Q&A for this conference call. So I have reached out to schedule time with all of our analysts and we encourage investors that have questions to call Investor Relations at 203-681-3720 or email Investor Relations at ir@fifthstreetfinance.com I will now turn the call back over to Shannon.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thanks for your participation and have a wonderful day. You may now disconnect.