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WhiteHorse Finance, Inc. 7.875% Notes due 2028 (WHFCL)

Q3 2013 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 12, 2013

$25.47

+0.00%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Laurie and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the WhiteHorse Finance Third Quarter 2013 Earnings Teleconference. Our hosts for today’s call are Jay Carvell, Chief Executive Officer; Ethan Underwood, Chief Operating Officer; and Alastair Merrick, Chief Financial Officer. Today’s call is being recorded and will be available for replay beginning at 1 PM Eastern Standard Time. The replay dial-in number is 404-537-3406 and the pin number is 779-70231. 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 - Prosek Partners

Management

Thank you, operator and thank you everyone for joining us today to discuss WhiteHorse Finance’s third quarter 2013 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 - Chief Executive Officer

Management

Thank you, Brian. Thanks everyone for joining us today. As you saw in our press release we issued before the market opened, we had a busy quarter on a number of fronts. I am going to take you to the highlights before turning the call over to Alastair to walk you through the financial results. We had a strong quarter as evidenced by the amount of capital deployed and NII being up 30% over the second quarter. We also continued our focus on protecting shareholder capital by keeping 100% of the portfolio in senior secured loans. And similar to our comments on our second quarter call our pipeline remains healthy, which contributed to a strong third quarter of investment activity. The third quarter continued many of the trends we have witnessed in the previous six months. Our results year-to-date reflect the intra and inter-quarter lumpiness that we have seen throughout 2013 and that we expect to continue. Indicative of this lumpiness was the announcement we made in September that our position in Acella was repaid. This was the primary contributor to our investment portfolio declining by $23 million in the third quarter despite a significant amount of new investments. Let’s focus for a moment on the change in our investment portfolio. The $23 million decrease is comprised of new investments of $31 million offset by net repayments of $54 million. Starting with new investments, during the third quarter, we continued our focus on middle market loans to high-quality borrowers at attractive risk adjusted rates of return. In this regard, leveraging the platform of our investment manager to source and underwrite, we invested $31 million in the quarter, $28.5 million of investments in four new borrowers and approximately $2.5 million in additions to existing positions. The new investments are in the…

Alastair Merrick - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thank you, Jay. I will now take you through the financial highlights of our earnings which we released this morning before the market opened. As I have mentioned in previous quarters due to our conversion to a BDC in December 2012, we do not have comparable year-over-year results. Looking at our results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2013, we reported net investment income of $6.3 million or $0.419 per share. This was an increase of $1.4 million or 29.5% from the previous quarter. This includes one-time fee income primarily from the Acella repayment of $1.9 million, fee income in the second quarter was $400,000. Net realized and unrealized losses on investments were $300,000. These losses were primarily attributable to positions that paid down during the quarter. For the third quarter 2013 there was an increase in net assets from operations of $6 million. Expenses for the quarter totaled $4.9 million primarily consisting of interest expense on our credit facilities of $1.4 million and base management fees and performance based incentive fees of approximately $2.8 million. Net asset value was $226 million as of September 30, 2013 resulting in NAV per share of $15.09, up slightly from $225.1 million and NAV per share of $15.04 at June 30, 2013. Switching over to portfolio and investment activity, at September 30, the fair value of WhiteHorse Finance’s investment portfolio was $214.7 million, principally invested in 17 positions across 15 portfolio companies and is comprised of 100% senior secured debt investments. At September 30, the weighted average current cash yield on the portfolio was 12.2%. There were no changes in the ratings of the portfolio this quarter and there were no non-accrual loans at September 30, 2013. Turning to our balance sheet, as of September 30, 2013, we had cash resources inclusive of restricted cash of approximately $132.4 million, compared with $103.3 million as reported in the previous quarter. Our cash position and credit lines continue to provide us with sufficient resources to meet our origination goals for the foreseeable future. At September 30, 2013, the company had three credit facilities that on a combined basis were drawn by approximately $85 million. The company’s asset coverage ratio for borrowed amounts as defined by the 40 Act was 366% at September 30 well above the statutes requirement of 200%. Let me touch briefly on our distributions. On August 22, we declared a distribution for the quarter ended September 30 of $0.355 per share for a total distribution of $5.3 million. This distribution was paid to stockholders on October 3. This marks the company’s fourth distribution since our IPO in December with all distributions at the rate of $0.355 per share per quarter. Given our current cash position and historical performance of our portfolio, we would expect to be in a position to continue our regular distributions. This concludes my formal remarks. I will now turn the call over to the operator. And we look forward to your questions. Operator?

Operator

Operator

The floor is now open for questions. (Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Greg Mason of KBW.

Greg Mason - KBW

Analyst

Hey, good morning gentlemen. First, could you talk about you mentioned some loans that you reinvested in the quarter that were existing, I know prepaid legal smile, what were the other I believe two more?

Jay Carvell

Analyst

Hi Greg. You have got Securus and (indiscernible).

Greg Mason - KBW

Analyst

And then as you view diversification, obviously the Acella investment was great, but it was huge, as you are redeploying that capital, what are you thinking about average hold sizes that you are focused on as you redeploy that capital in new investments going forward?

Jay Carvell

Analyst

Right. So the 5% would take us to about between $17 million and $18 million, Greg and so that would be kind of at the upper end of the range. You would – so we would expect to try to be somewhere between say $5 million in that. That’s not to say that if we saw an opportunity that made sense from a portfolio standpoint and risk return standpoint for something larger that we wouldn’t do that, but in general, that’s probably where we are targeting right now.

Greg Mason - KBW

Analyst

Great. And then could you talk a little bit about since we don’t have the queue, you couldn’t look at this, GMT Holdings last quarter had a slight decline to 95% of par, could you talk about where that’s held right and if there are any changes with that business this quarter?

Jay Carvell

Analyst

Yes, Greg. That is at 90% this quarter. That’s where the market is. And that’s reflective mostly of and we have discussed this before kind of our conservative view on the industry as a whole. So you have got different valuation methods going on there, but that’s the driving factor for that. We mentioned last quarter that we extended that loan through June of next year and that we had some hurdles that we wanted management to meet including a pay down, we have made that and they have met the other hurdles so far.

Greg Mason - KBW

Analyst

Right. Since that was written down a little bit given that portfolio depreciation was essentially flat, did you have some positive marks elsewhere in the portfolio?

Jay Carvell

Analyst

We did. AGS moved up slightly as well, which essentially offset that. I mean, it’s not exact, but that’s close.

Greg Mason - KBW

Analyst

And then finally last question, you are sitting on a lot of cash, could you talk about the pipeline you talk about the pipeline you are seeing, what the deals look like and opportunities here for deployment in the fourth quarter?

Jay Carvell

Analyst

Yes, we are – as I had said we are pretty happy with where the pipeline is. Its compared to a year ago you are probably slightly smaller and I think that’s across the entire market, things are little bit tighter. But we are seeing good opportunities and the things that are in there now at various stages are kind of what I just described in terms of size and they look a lot like the portfolio now you are a bit smaller companies in the middle market at the yields that we are looking at in the portfolio today across the handful of different industries. So that’s the general view on where the pipeline is.

Greg Mason - KBW

Analyst

And then are there any other kind of expected repayments in the fourth quarter that you know about right now?

Jay Carvell

Analyst

Nothing we know about right now.

Greg Mason - KBW

Analyst

Alright, great, thanks guys.

Jay Carvell

Analyst

Thanks Greg.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) At this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the call to Jay Carvell for any additional or closing remarks. Jay Carvell – Chief Executive Officer: Alright, thanks everyone for joining us today. We look forward to speaking to you next quarter. Operator, back to you.