Stellus Capital Investment Corporation (NYSE:SCM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Robert Dodd : Congrats on the quarter. And back to that point — I mean, to your point, Todd and Rob, you’ve talked in the past about earning the dividend from realized income, and you can earn it from pure NII in the near term. You said, Rob, that I think equity gains are likely to slow this year. I mean in — that’s probably part of the cycle. Do you hypothetically expect them to be slow for the year? Or have you tapped — is there an age vintage component in that in terms of like they’re going to be slow for more than a year and then come back sometime down the road? Any color you can give on that? And then also, I’ll lap it all up for you —

Robert Ladd: Sure. Yes. No, no, it’s a good clarifying question, Robert. So this is just to share as we tried each quarter kind of the cadence of activity — level of activity that we’re experiencing and whereas in previous quarters, we could tell, and there were things on the horizon. And just at this point, there’s nothing on the horizon. But we’ve learned over time that will change. But it’s not a vintage issue, I think it’s just probably a state overall of the M&A market and just expect it to be slower. And I would couple that with what maybe more importantly is that repayment seemed to have slowed for the moment. But again, I wouldn’t call this a long-term phenomenon, and it may could very well pick up as we get into the middle of the year.

Robert Dodd : Got it. And on kind of just conceptually long term, what would you — this is a qualitative than quantitative question probably, how much of your total realized earnings would you expect to come from NII versus realized gains on average ?

Robert Ladd: And sorry, Robert, on average and over what period of time?

Robert Dodd : Going forward, just long term, how much should we expect to roughly to come from NII versus the realized gains. Obviously, they both generate value, and they both contribute for dividend funding, but I’m just trying to —

Robert Ladd: Sure. I’d say for the foreseeable future, again, based on the forward curve, which has now risen up that we would expect to have robust NII out into the future and not need realized gains to support the dividend, which I know is not exactly what you’ve asked, but just to clarify that. And then with respect to realized gains, as a percentage, it probably could be something like 10-ish percent or so of our earnings. As a nominal percentage, it’s typically 5% of the portfolio. But because of the magnitude of what it can generate could be outsized. But we would still expect it to be a modest percentage but overall meaningful. And then in a conservative way that we look at it is that it would cover realized potential losses and credit losses. But in any event, we would expect to be positive and put it in the 10% range, I think.

Todd Huskinson: Yes. Robert, I just might add that’s historically been the case. We’ve effectively covered our dividends through NII throughout our history. I mean there have been times when the realized gains have come in handy. But for the most part, it’s been coming from NII.

Robert Dodd : Understood. And to that point, I mean, over time, your realized gains have been greater than your realized losses, which goes to dividend funding on that front as well. So what are you seeing in the environment right now? I mean you said you expect the portfolio to be, what was it, $850 million to $900 million this year, kind of stable in the first quarter. Is this just — is this year of rotation, a few repayments, a few additions? Or do you expect larger scale rotation in the second half? Or can you give us any color about how that — how you think the year might play out in terms of activity level.