CION Investment Corporation (NYSE:CION) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Erik Zwick: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. You noted in the prepared remarks that there were a number of transactions in the quarter that drove some revenue, from realization fees and exit fees and things of that nature. Curious, if you could kind of quantify that revenue that occurred in 1Q that, would not be expected to occur in 2Q, fully understanding that there could be additional transactions going forward as well?

Keith Franz: Yes, Erik. Good morning. It’s Keith. So in terms of some of the transaction income and restructuring income that we had during the quarter, it was about between $7 million and $8 million in total.

Erik Zwick: Okay. Great. That’s helpful. And then you continue to note that you look to diversify your funding, and from that perspective, both in terms of the mix. Curious, you mentioned also desire to extend some of your current facilities, and wondering if that $30 million unsecured term loan that matures at the end of the 3Q, is one that you’re looking to extend? And then also, whether your preference today for any new kind of funding would be, if preference in terms of fixed or floating, kind of given where we are in the interest rate cycle at this point?

Keith Franz: Yes. At this point, we continue to evaluate opportunities within the capital – debt capital markets. So, we’re evaluating everything at this point. But right now, the focus is to, continue to work with our commercial banking lenders, to get those two facilities extended.

Erik Zwick: Got it. Thank you. And then last one from me. You’ve done a commendable job working down the non-accrual list over the past year. And it’s also good to see that the percentage of investments on your internal ratings that, have four or five have decreased as well. I’m actually a little bit curious about the top end of the rating scale. It looks like in 4Q, you had one or more investments that were upgraded to one. It may have been kind of downgraded maybe back, to where they were prior based on the Q1 profile. So, curious kind of what happened there in that one category?

Michael Reisner: I think – this is Michael. How are you doing? The ones – we only really upgrade something to one when we have knowledge of a loan that’s going to be exited. So we – for the reporting period. So you should expect most of our names will be two, when we do a deal and only upgrade it to one, if we have knowledge of something that’s going to happen to that name.

Erik Zwick: Got it. That makes sense. So given kind of the transactions that were reported here in 1Q, you had a pretty good sense of that in 4Q, they are upgraded. Perfect. That’s all for me today. Thank you.

Michael Reisner: Yes. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes our Q&A session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Michael Reisner for closing remarks.

Michael Reisner: Thank you. In closing, I just want to reiterate that CION continues to perform well, and that we believe the current discount to NAV remains unwarranted. On a total return basis, based on the market price, CION ranked in the top 10 of 42 publicly traded BDCs over the past 12 months. A similar analysis based on NAV rather than market price, places CION in the top five total return metrics over the same time period. We are focused on building a durable franchise here at CION that seeks to deliver strong results in all market environments. We look forward to speaking to you again next quarter. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today’s teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of your day.

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