And I think if you look across the shareholders, we’re not selling stock. I think I’ve — my stocks have declined, but most of the stock I own has declined as a result of the issuances to the management team. So, we are. long term, equity owners, equity holders, equity buyers, many of us reinvest in our stocks. So, we are believers in our own stock. The manager is a very firm believer, having invested more in that stock. And there’s obviously — there’s two — there’s more things than this, but there’s two things, obviously, that we have to watch for. One is growth. And without equity as a cornerstone, given leverage limitations on BDCs, we can’t grow unless we have equity. And so, we’ve been issuing equity to support our growth. And our growth has been a profitable growth, I think.
Obviously, this quarter, a lot of things converged. And so, not the best news this quarter relative to some others. But if you look over the long haul, we’ve had very, very positive performance, which we expect to continue. And we’re very sanguine about the opportunities in our field. But in order to grow, we need to issue equity. And so, we took advantage of some opportunities, including our willingness to invest to support the BDC in the past period of time. The other element, which you and others have commented on, is the leverage ratios that Saratoga has. And we kind of have a statutory leverage, and we also have a — that we have to comply with. And then because of certain technicalities with SBIC accounting, we can borrow more than the statutory limits for a regular way BDC are.
And so, we have historically taken advantage of that opportunity over the long run, and it’s worked out very, very well for us. We’ve had lots of discussions on these calls about the character of our leverage. And a lot of people point to absolute leverage and say, okay, your leverage is X and that’s “too high” or “higher than everybody else” and things like that. And we have said, well, at a point in time, that’s right. But if you look at the dynamic of our leverage, and the term structure of our leverage and the absence of covenants and the absence of mark-to-markets and the absence of advance rates and all those types of things, our leverage is very well structured and very well structured for horror shows like when we had in COVID. When everything sort of fell apart, I mean, we were able to go forward and put money to work and support our portfolio companies and support our sponsors because our leverage structure was very solid and was not being perturbed by the external environment.
We’re very prominent BDCs in our universe. They had to write checks to cover out of formula asset-based loan requirements to basically stay in business. And so, I think our leverage structure has been time and event-tested. And so — but — so we’re very comfortable with it, as we said many times. However, if there is — there are absolute metrics associated with leverage and the issuance of equity basically allow us to have more either cushion in a down environment or support opportunity in an up environment or up set of opportunities environment. So, I think we’ve been very — I think our equity performance, I think, it’s been very good all along for anyone who’s ever gotten into the stock, and we would anticipate anyone who’s bought the stock recently, we’ll share in that performance.
And we think our stock is — we don’t think people are looking at it the right way. And where else are you going to get 16% earnings yield at this point in time with the type of historical performance and portfolio that we have assembled. So, we think Saratoga is a very good value at this point in time.
Casey Alexander: Well, I appreciate that answer. I’m looking at Slide 21, and the period of underperformance of Saratoga relative to the BDC index kind of clearly corresponds with the time period where you’ve been in the market and selling stock at around 90% of book. So, can you explain until a shareholder is confident that you’re no longer in the market at 90% of the book, and look, I appreciate the fact that you’re making up the difference at the manager, I understand that fully, but you still supplying the market at 90% of the book. So, can you tell me as a shareholder, why I should be willing to pay more than 90% of book, if I know that you’re willing to sell stock at 90% of book?
Christian Oberbeck: Well, when you say you, the BDC is not selling at 90% of book. Okay. BDC is selling…
Casey Alexander: Okay. That’s fine.
Christian Oberbeck: By the way, Casey…
Casey Alexander: That’s your answer.
Christian Oberbeck: But Casey, just by the way, I’m not sure your headline of your report…
Casey Alexander: The supply is coming into the market at 90% of book, okay? You’re making up the difference. But the supply is coming into the market at 90% of book. That’s where we know the supply is coming, right? So, explain to me why someone should be willing to pay more than that…
Christian Oberbeck: Well, the BDC…
Casey Alexander: …until they’re confident that you’re no longer in the market at that level?
Christian Oberbeck: Well, first of all, I’ll just say what’s going into the BDC at $1, so BDC is getting a…
Casey Alexander: I’m aware of that. I already acknowledge that.
