Michael S. Gross
Management
Thank you, Rich. The first quarter of 2014 marked the anniversary of Solar Senior’s third year as a public company. As you may recall, we launched Solar Senior to provide investors with what we believed would be a lower risk, floating rate, senior secured alternative to the traditional junior capital BDCs. Immediately, we were able to leverage our investment and credit experience at Solar Capital. Since our inception, we have now invested approximately $660 million in over 60 portfolio companies. The track record of Solar Senior speaks to our conservative approach to portfolio management. The main investment objective of this fund is preservation of principal and in the continued heated market environment, we take that mandate very seriously. As owners of 6% of our common stock, we are investing alongside our fellow public shareholders. During the first quarter, we had modest portfolio growth, which was slowed by continued significant redemptions. Our net debt to equity ratio at March 31 was 0.23 times. Our target leverage remains 0.8 times and given that leverage target, we have approximately $150 million of available capacity for new investment opportunities subject to borrowing base limitations. However, we are not willing to compromise our credit standards in order to achieve our target leverage. We remain focused on increasing the efficiency of our capital structure by increasing our leverage, be it portfolio growth and highly attractive investments. Given this focus on funding and prudent portfolio growth with our existing credit capacity, we do not anticipate raising additional equity capital until we approach our target leverage level. At March 31, our net asset value was $18.04 per share consistent with our net asset value at year-end. For this first quarter, net investment income was $0.33 per share versus $0.32 per share in the fourth quarter of 2013. The weighted average yield of the portfolio based on fair value was 7.7% at March 31. In comparison, the implied yield of the LTDX, which represents the liquid loan market was just 4.8% at March 31, 2014. Our strategic investment in Gemino Secured Healthcare Finance at the end of the third quarter 2013 is proving out our original investment thesis with 100% performing senior secured floating rate portfolio. During the first quarter, Gemino upsized its credit facility to $105 million and added two new lenders. Not only is Gemino providing us with an attractive recurring cash dividend, but during the first quarter 2014, it demonstrated both growth and strategic value for our franchise. The credit quality of our diversified portfolio remains strong and was 100% performing at March 31, 2014. Bruce will provide additional information on our first-quarter investment activity. Lastly, our Board of Directors declared a monthly dividend for May 2014 of $0.1175 per share payable on May 30 to stockholders of record on May 22, 2014. At this time, I will turn the call back over to our Chief Financial Officer, Rich Peteka.