Trinity Capital Inc. (NASDAQ:TRIN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Kyle Brown: Yes. You are going to see us be real consistent with our marks in our valuations. On 12/31, that was the value of that equipment and we have to look it that way, the way we look at it is what could we sell this for right now right today? And listen, we could argue about it all day long about what it’s worth today, it doesn’t matter. As of 12/31 that’s what it was worth. Is Bitcoin up 40% since then? Yes. We are working with the company, we’re going to do our best to collect every dollar that and we’ll see what happens here. But as of 12/31, that was evaluation. That’s what we’re reporting, and you’re going to see us be real consistent on the valuations.

Bryce Rowe: And then maybe last one for me. You’ve got a chart and in the K and in the presentation about kind of internal risk ratings. Can you walk through kind of the some of the migration we saw quarter-over-quarter? Is it kind of more a reflection of the, I guess, the environment than anything else?

Steve Brown: Yes, I mean, happy to. Where we saw migration within the portfolio was — as you know, we have five bins, three of which are our different levels of performance. And so we saw more companies in that center performance bin versus one of the higher. And so these are still performing loans that doesn’t indicate distress. When you look at our risk rating, performance to plan is a very big aspect to that, right? And so our portfolio companies faced quite an inflection within 2022, where we just spoke about it earlier, the growth plans that they may have — might have laid in early in the year needed to be tempered quite a bit. So — but the portfolio is robust on the lower two categories, we’ve been stable, I guess two credits that we’ve talked about in the past. So, we don’t see great danger there in that migration, but it reflects the reality as of year-end.

Operator: And at this time, we have no further questions in the queue. We do have one last question from the Vilas Abraham with UBS.

Vilas Abraham: Just on loan spread, what are you guys seeing there now? And are you trying to push those at all with new borrowers and new investments?

Kyle Brown: This is Kyle. We do continue to push on pricing. We continue to push on awards. And we have seen that trend up. We will continue to be aggressive on transactions that make to the finish line from a pricing perspective. So on a percentage basis, it’s not a significant increase. But it is an increase nonetheless.

David Lund: Stay, we keep them relatively constant spread over prime. So you’ll see anywhere from 6.5% to 7.5% over prime on most of our underwriting. So it’s going to move more with the prime than necessarily we’re moving a spread.

Vilas Abraham: And then just maybe just a broader question on M&A. When do you think that picks up again, particularly since it seems like the sentiment is that valuations are pretty reasonable or close to the bottom here? What are your general thoughts around there? And I guess how that plays into new investments and the conversations around how it’s just going to look like at some point? Thanks, bye.