Earnings Labs

WhiteHorse Finance, Inc. (WHF)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 3, 2016

$7.58

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Maria, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the WhiteHorse Finance Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2015 Earnings Teleconference. Our hosts for today’s call are Jay Carvell, Chief Executive Officer; and Gerhard Lombard, Chief Financial Officer. Today’s call is being recorded and will be available for replay beginning at 1 PM Eastern. The replay dial-in number is 404-537-3406 and the pin number is 36543898. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be opened for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Brian Schaffer of Prosek Partners.

Brian Schaffer

Analyst

Thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for joining us today to discuss WhiteHorse Finance’s fourth quarter 2015 earnings results. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this call, which are not based on historical facts, including any statements relating to financial guidance, maybe deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Because these forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, these are important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. WhiteHorse Finance assumes no obligation or responsibility to update any forward-looking statements. With that, allow me to introduce WhiteHorse Finance’s CEO, Jay Carvell. Jay, you may begin.

Jay Carvell

Analyst · Baird

Thanks, Brian. Good morning, thank you for joining us today. As you know, our press release was issued this morning before market opened and I hope you have had a chance to review our results, which are also available on our website. I am going to take you through our fourth quarter operating performance and then Gerhard will review our financial results. Afterwards we will take your questions. Turning now to the fourth quarter, from our perspective the highlight was our ability to generate core earnings at or very close to our dividend, despite the pressure on our per share metrics stemming from the additional shares created in our November rights offering. Core NII per share was $0.352 for the quarter, which excludes one-time non-cash credit facility refinancing charges. As you’re aware our distribution to stockholders has been consistent at $0.355 per share for 13 consecutive quarters going back to our IPO. Our ability to drive NII and consistently cover the distributions for calendar 2015 is a result of a few items. The primary driver is our continued focus on sourcing opportunities with attractive risk adjusted returns. We’ve been consistent in pursuing this strategy since our IPO three years ago. Second, we remain focused on risk by primarily participating in senior secured loans at appropriate leverage levels. Then we will continue to explore other opportunities should they complement our portfolio. Third, and as I’ve mentioned in prior quarters, is our emphasis on portfolio optimization, specifically cycling out of certain positions and replacing them with investments that we find more attractive. While we are more active on this front in the first half of 2015, it continues to be an ongoing process as part of overall portfolio management. Our weighted average effective yield was 11.8% at the end of the year.…

Gerhard Lombard

Analyst

Thanks, Jay. Let’s begin with our results for the quarter ended December 31, 2015. There was three items that significantly affected our quarterly and full year results. First, the company completed a public offering of non-transferable subscription rights to purchase shares of common stock at the end of November 2015. The offer was fully subscribed and the company issued 3.3 million shares generating net proceeds of approximately $44 million. With the additional capital, the company is well positioned to take advantage of opportunities in the credit markets. Second, we refinanced our revolving credit facility during the quarter, extending the reinvestment period for capital deployment by three years through December 2018 and increased the facility size from $150 million to $200 million with an additional $20 million of capacity available beyond that through an accordion future. The refinancing triggered the accelerated amortization of $3.2 million of deferred debt acquisition costs, which resulted in $1.4 million of reduction in incentive fees for a net reduction of $1.8 million in net investment income during the quarter. Third, and as Jay mentioned, we recognized $18.7 million or $1.14 per share of unrealized mart-to-market adjustments primarily from our investments in RCS Capital. As a result, NII was $3.9 million for the quarter. Core NII which excludes the net impact of the accelerated amortization is $5.7 million or $0.35 per share. Our investment income continues to consist primarily of recurring cash interest. This translates to core NII of $1.48 per share for 2015, which exceeded our annual distribution of $1.42 per share. We reported a net decrease in net assets from operations of $14.8 million or $0.90 per share for the fourth quarter. As of December 31, 2015, net asset value was $244.1 million or $13.33 per share as compared with $221.4 million or $14.77 per…

Operator

Operator

The floor is now open for questions. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Dan Nicholas of Baird.

Dan Nicholas

Analyst · Baird

Thanks guys, good morning. Just wanted to get a little sense on how you’re thinking about leverage on the balance sheet now with the upsizing and refinancing of the credit facility? As you noted, leverage around 70% debt to equity now, just kind of – trying to figure out where you all might be comfortable taking that going forward?

Jay Carvell

Analyst · Baird

Thanks, and I appreciate the time this morning. We have traditionally run somewhere between 0.7 and 0.9, it really is driven a little bit by market and what we see in terms of opportunities. We’re comfortable taking leverage higher than where we are today once we get in the 0.85 range, we start to be more cautious and circumspect about it, but we certainly run it in that range, if we feel like we’ve got a good risk and return opportunities. So I think it will fluctuate. You have – like you mentioned we have a little bit more capital coming, reduced leverage a little bit this quarter, but we will run it like we have for the last three years.

Dan Nicholas

Analyst · Baird

Okay. That’s helpful, thanks Jay. And just kind of bigger picture, looking at the portfolio, noted in your prepared remarks kind of a search for additional diversity in the portfolio and just thinking about a few concentrated type positions you have in the portfolio now. Just kind of wondering, how you think about some of those larger positions you have and kind of comfort with that and how you view portfolio concentration and diversity moving forward?

Jay Carvell

Analyst · Baird

That’s a good question. We look at diversity as we’re generating new ideas and looking at the different opportunities and the [White] [ph] credit markets were at sometimes as you see in kind of the same industry pop-up two or three times and you’d just have to decide whether that means you want to do three small positions within the industry if you are going to concentrate on one name that you like the best out of those as those opportunities arrive. From the standpoint of where we are today, we’re comfortable with our positions and the size. As you noted there, it can be slightly lumpy, I don’t think we have anything that’s particularly outsize as of toady. Although, we do take opportunities to sell down positions whether that’s because of a lower yield and we have the chance to cycle out or if it’s a larger position like you mentioned here maybe something that we sell down part of to a partner or someone we’re doing other work with. That’s something that we’re confident looking at, but there is nothing that is urgent in my mind on that front, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see some of that activity going into 2016.

Dan Nicholas

Analyst · Baird

Okay, great. That’s helpful. Thanks, Jay.

Jay Carvell

Analyst · Baird

You bet. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Rick Shane of JPMorgan.

Rick Shane

Analyst · Rick Shane of JPMorgan

Guys, thanks for taking my question this morning. I’m just curious given where we are in the cycle, in the investment opportunities, and with your own position where you have some liquidity and they are attractive yields are out there. Do you see deploying capital more sort of follow-on investments with your existing companies to shore up their positions or do you see actually deploying capital into a lot of new – not a lot, but a number of new investments?

Jay Carvell

Analyst · Rick Shane of JPMorgan

We’ll skew towards newer investment, Rick. The opportunity set, seems to be growing right now, and as I mentioned some of the other things are going in broader capital markets will push opportunities our way we feel. The addition of Stuart Aronson and his team will generate more ideas as well, and I expect that a lot of those will be appropriate for WhiteHorse Finance. So I think we’ll skew much more towards newer deals and the things that we’re seeing right now are very attractive from risk and return both in terms of what you are getting on yield, but also how we’re able to structure. I think that’s probably a theme you are hearing from a lot of guys if you have capital right now and can deploy and be judicious about it. I think there is a lot of opportunities coming our way in kind of middle-market and smaller cap names.

Rick Shane

Analyst · Rick Shane of JPMorgan

Got it. That makes sense. And I don’t want to dwell too much on Stuart’s addition, but historically your differentiating factor has been sourcing deals that are – I would describe off the market, a little bit niche here, really leveraging the network that you guys have. It strikes me that – and again, I don’t know Stuart at all, it strikes me that he comes from a more traditional background. Is this going to suggest that you guys are going to change what you’re originating a little bit, move up a little more in terms of size or market?

Jay Carvell

Analyst · Rick Shane of JPMorgan

Now that’s a good catch on the story. Look I think overall, Stuart’s background has been kind of both, kind of what you described as our traditional market of sponsor et cetera and also sponsor coverage. And there’s other pockets of money at H.I.G. that he’s going to be deploying for as well. And so when I said, I think there’s a lot of things he’s going to see that would be appropriate for us. I think there’s going to be some things that don’t work for us, but that work in other areas for H.I.G. So it’s an augmentation to the team. I think we’ll see things that fall out of that practice that work for us that we may not have seen before. And I think that the current team at WhiteHorse Finance certainly sees a lot of things that wouldn’t have crossed their desk at GE. So, it’s an exciting opportunity to add someone, a seasoned market pro who will be bringing a lot of new deals in, some of those will work for us and some won’t.

Rick Shane

Analyst · Rick Shane of JPMorgan

Terrific. Thank you very much.

Jay Carvell

Analyst · Rick Shane of JPMorgan

You bet. Thanks for calling.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions. That does conclude today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. All participants may now disconnect at this time.