Turning now to our Q1 investment and portfolio activity. During Q1, we completed an attractive mix of first lien investments. We completed private direct first lien financings for new portfolio companies alongside several of our long-term club partners with whom we had – we have completed many successful investments together. These transactions include key impact, American Family Care, [and Rydell], where we acted as either a co-leader ranger or impactful partner. We also completed refinancings and add-on investments for portfolio companies, including American Lawyer Media, OptioRx and Rogers Mechanical. The weighted average coupon for our direct investments in new portfolio companies was approximately SOFR plus 6.3% for the quarter. During Q1, we made $125 million in new investment commitments across five new and seven existing portfolio companies, of which $107 million was funded.
These investments were diversified across new and add-on opportunities with approximately 50% in direct private investments for new portfolio companies. We also funded a total of $4 million of previously unfunded commitments. We had sales and repayments totaling $207 million for the quarter, which primarily consisted of the full repayment of our debt investment in Ampac, Services Compression, Pentec, and R.R. Donnelley. The full repayments were back-ended with nearly half occurring at, or within the last several weeks at the end of the quarter. As a result, net funded investment activity decreased by approximately $96 million for the quarter. We expect the active repayment trend, to continue in 2024 as strong cash inflows into direct, and syndicated loan funds will likely fuel refinancing and repayment activity.
We are pleased with our portfolio’s continued performance as non-accruals declined slightly from 0.89% of fair value at the end of Q4, to 0.86% of fair value at the end of Q1. We removed one name, our second lien investment in TriMark Ambrosia from non-accrual this quarter as the company completed a voluntary restructuring process in Q1, as we indicated on our previous earnings call. CION was a member of the backstop Group and received a package of backstop fee, take-back debt and equity for our first lien, and second lien positions in the company. No new names were added to non-accrual this quarter. Overall, our portfolio remains defensive in nature with 84% in first lien investments, and 86% in senior secured investments. Approximately 99% of our portfolio remains risk-rated three or better.
Our risk-rated three investments, which are investments where we expect full repayment, but are either spending more engagement time and/or have seen increased risk, since the initial asset purchase increased from approximately 6.5%, to 10.4% of the portfolio. This increase was driven largely by portfolio companies where we are more actively working on merger, refinancing or recapitalization transactions that are requiring, a higher engagement level by our investment team. I will now turn the call over to Keith.
Keith Franz: Okay. Thank you, Gregg, and good morning, everyone. As Michael mentioned, we reported another quarter of strong financial results, driven by a combination of income generated from our quarterly investment activity, and yield-enhancing provisions realized within the portfolio. During the quarter, net investment income was $32.6 million or $0.60 per share, compared to $21.8 million, or $0.40 per share reported in the fourth quarter, an increase of $10.8 million, or $0.20 per share. Total investment income was $73.6 million during Q1, as compared to $60 million reported in Q4. This is an increase of $13.6 million, or about 23% from the prior quarter. This increase was driven by additional income, related to our quarterly restructuring activities, make whole payments received and prepayment premiums earned, in connection with the repayment of certain investments in our portfolio, during the quarter.
On the expense side, total operating expenses were $41 million, as compared to $38.2 million reported in the fourth quarter. The increase was driven by higher interest expense, and advisory fees when compared to the prior quarter. At March 31, we had total assets of approximately $2 billion and total equity, or net assets of $863 million with total debt outstanding of $1.07 billion, and 53.8 million shares outstanding. At the end of the quarter, our net debt-to-equity ratio, was 1.03 times, which is slightly lower than 1.1 times at the end of Q4. Our portfolio at fair value ended the quarter at $1.7 billion, down $100 million from the fourth quarter, reflecting a combination of price declines, mostly in our equity investments, and large repayments received at the end of the quarter.
The weighted average yield on our debt and other income-producing investments at amortized cost, was 12.9% at March 31, which decreased 48 basis points from 13.4% at the end of Q4. At March 31, our NAV was $16.05 per share, as compared to $16.23 per share at the end of December. The decrease of $0.18 per share, or 1.1% was primarily due to price declines in our portfolio, partially offset by over-earning our distributions, and the accretive nature of a share repurchase program during the quarter. We ended the first quarter with a strong and flexible balance sheet, with over $600 million in unencumbered assets, lower leverage relative to our peers, a strong debt servicing capacity, and solid liquidity. We had about $179 million in cash and short-term investments, and an additional $175 million available under our credit facilities, to further finance our investment pipeline and continue to support, our existing portfolio companies.
Our current debt mix, is about 60% in senior secured and 40% in unsecured, with over 85% in floating rate. During the quarter, the weighted average cost of our debt capital was about 8.4%, which is slightly down from the fourth quarter. In terms of our debt capital, we are actively working with our commercial lenders, to amend and extend our credit facilities, for an additional two to three years with more constructive provisions and better economics. We believe these new terms will give us the flexibility needed to further diversify our debt mix between secured and unsecured and to continue to expand our group of lending partners. Now turning to distributions. During the first quarter, we paid a quarterly base distribution to our shareholders of $0.34 per share, which is the same as the fourth quarter.
As a result, the trailing 12-month distribution yield through the first quarter based on the average NAV was 10%, and the trailing 12-month distribution yield, based on the quarter end market price was 14.6%. As announced this morning, we declared our second quarter base distribution of $0.36 per share, which is an increase of $0.02 per share, or about 6% from the first quarter. The second quarter base distribution will be paid on June 17, to shareholders of record on June 3. This is now the fourth time we have increased our quarterly base distribution, since we listed back in October 2021, raising the base distribution by $0.10 per share with 38% from $0.26 per share to $0.36 per share. In addition, as previously announced, we will be disclosing the amount of the midyear supplemental distribution, sometime during June.
The midyear supplemental distribution, will be paid on July 12 to shareholders of record on June 28. Okay. With that, I will now turn the call back over to the operator, who will open the line for questions.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first questions come from the line of Erik Zwick with Hovde Group. Please proceed with your questions.
