Main Street Capital Corporation (NYSE:MAIN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Dwayne Hyzak: 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: 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: 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: I think you covered it.

Dwayne Hyzak: Okay.

Kenneth Lee: Got you. Great. Very helpful there. Thanks again.

Dwayne Hyzak: Thank you, Ken.

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

Mark Hughes: Yeah. Thanks. Good morning.

Dwayne Hyzak: Good morning, Mark.

Mark Hughes: 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?