PennantPark Investment Corporation (NASDAQ:PNNT) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Art Penn : It’s about 2 to 1.

Casey Alexander : Thank you.

Operator: We will go to a question from Mickey Schleien of Ladenburg.

Mickey Schleien : Yes. Art, a lot of good questions this afternoon. I just have one follow-up to Casey on the JV. The dividend that you accrued on the JV was up sharply versus the previous quarter, and it was also well above the GAAP net income for the quarter. And I realize there’s differences between GAAP and tax and cash and things like that. But is the current dividend run rate at the JV that’s being upstreamed to the BC sustainable? Or is there sort of a onetime non-recurring dividends received this quarter?

Art Penn : There’s no non-recurring. It’s a sustainable dividend. In fact, we’re — same thing we ever in the dividend and the JV.

Mickey Schleien : You over earned it in terms of cash?

Art Penn : Yeah.

Mickey Schleien : Thanks. Those are my only questions. Thank you.

Operator: And we’ll go to our next question from Mike Ramirez with Truist Securities.

Mike Ramirez : Yeah, good afternoon. What does the timing on when you get clarity from the rating agencies or when you work through that process? Does that impact your ability to invest in the second quarter here?

Art Penn : Yeah. Look, I think it’s over the next couple of months. Again, the difference between 1.25 and 1.4 is really not that material, particularly with the type of portfolio we have, but it’s something that we do need to solve this one.

Mike Ramirez : Fair enough. And then of the five sectors that you target, anything in particular there that you’re — you feel like there’s more deal flow or you have more interest in at this point given the macro backdrop?

Art Penn : Yeah. Certainly, we’re one of the largest lenders to the government services, defense space. We think of that as a very steady, stable space. We have real domain expertise there. Given the geopolitical environment around the world, we think that’s a space that will continue to grow and will experience tailwinds. Also, healthcare is a big space for us. Typically, healthcare services. And there, there is usually tailwinds through demographics. There, we just want to make sure that we keep our leverage appropriate and reasonable, but we’ve had a very nice track record in that vertical as well.

Mike Ramirez : Thank you.

Operator: We will go to Melissa Wedel of JPMorgan.

Melissa Wedel : Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions today. Just a follow-up on sort of the portfolio rotation component that you talked about today. I mean this has been something that you’ve talked about for more than just — longer than just today. Given that the exit from RAM should bring equity — the equity component of the portfolio down significantly. It would be helpful, I think, if you could update us on how you’re thinking about equity as a component of the portfolio going forward? Where — do you still target sort of a long-term 10% allocation? Or how you’re thinking about?

Art Penn : Yeah. So it’s a great question because there are some nuances in the answer, which is, we have this joint venture in PSLF. Of course, that is equity, but we don’t count that as kind of a true equity coinvest like we would elsewhere. So we have to exclude that. And I don’t have it at my fingertips when our equity with ran out of the portfolio, excluding PSLF. What our equity percentage would be. Rick, do you have it?

Rick Allorto: 14%.

Art Penn : 14%. So 14% excluding PSLF, excluding RAM is still kind of in the zone. Probably, a little high. I think we’d still probably target 10%, but 14% is not that wildly off kind of our long-term target.

Melissa Wedel : Okay. That’s helpful. Thanks. And then as a follow-up to the question about sort of recycling capital given where leverage is right now. Is there anything that we should be thinking about in terms of visibility that you have on additional repayments outside of the $32 million expected from RAM in the near term? Thank you.