WhiteHorse Finance, Inc. (NASDAQ:WHF) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Joyson Thomas: As of the end of Q4, the spillover was a little over $24 million. Based on that number related to our distribution requirement for the tax year 2022, we do not envision a required special dividend. But as Stuart alluded to earlier, in regards to 2023 and forecasted potential earnings, we do expect earnings in excess of our distributions. And so, that as he had mentioned before, he’s going to factor into our determination on how we do dividends going forward, i.e. do we increase the regular dividend or do some supplemental dividends during the year.

Robert Dodd: Understood. And then, one — your response to Mickey’s question on EBITDA, Stuart, I mean, you said 40% of the portfolio is — has EBITDA that’s lower than — at underwriting. If I looking at your investment ratings, you’ve got 25% that’s category 3, 4 or 5, which — so there’s a discrepancy there between 40% and 25%. Is it fair to say that a portion of those portfolio companies have lower EBITDA than at close were expected to have lower EBITDA? I mean, can you give us any reconciliation between the 25% that are rated higher risk, so to speak, but the 40%, that lower EBITDA?

Stuart Aronson: It’s a matter of magnitude, Robert. If we did a deal with 4 times leverage and it’s currently at 4.25 times leverage, that would be a part of the 40%, where the EBITDA is down and the leverage is up. But going from 4 to 4.25 times leverage would not trigger a company to become a 3. The company would need to materially underperform before that would happen. So, if the leverage had gone from 4 times to call it 5.5 times, then it would probably become a 3. But for small decreases in EBITDA and small increases in leverage, those assets are generally still rated at 2.

Robert Dodd: The last one for me, I mean, you’ve mentioned, obviously, the sponsors have been quite responsive with the exception of PlayMonster when necessary. How were you looking — for the non-sponsor book, obviously, there is no sponsor to put in more cash or contingent equity. So, how are you evaluating those non-sponsor businesses that may be having a few issues in this situation? And are the owners willing to — the equity owners willing to step up even though they don’t necessarily, obviously, have a fund or anything like that? I mean, so what’s — how’s the non-sponsors segment looking in terms of cash needs and are they getting it?

Stuart Aronson: That’s a really good question, Robert. And the answer is that there is not a single answer. In many cases, non-sponsor companies are owned by either very wealthy individuals or wealthy family offices. And in those cases, we are generally finding that the owners are injecting capital into the companies the same way private equity firms are. But there are other non-sponsor companies that are owned by entrepreneurs that don’t have deep pockets, and don’t have the wherewithal to support their companies through the economic turbulence that is going on right now, especially in the consumer sector. And in those companies, we are generally willing to provide incremental capital. But in return for that incremental capital, we take minority and/or majority equity stakes in the Company.

So, a part of non-sponsor lending, where there are owners that either can’t or won’t support their companies is playing the long-term game of investing those companies during the downturn, getting equity in those companies during the downturn, and then managing those companies back towards economic health, when a downturn doesn’t exist, and then generating, hopefully, nice equity gains off of those equity positions we took in the downturn. That’s again, less true in sponsor deals, because the sponsors are almost uniformly willing to put up equity to protect a good company. But on the non-sponsor side, it really breaks into two camps, where just directionally about half of the companies have owners that can support the companies, and about half the companies have owners that can’t support the companies.