Saratoga Investment Corp (NYSE:SAR) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call July 11, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Henri Steenkamp - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Treasurer and Secretary

Christian Oberbeck - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Michael Grisius - Chief Investment Officer

Conference Call Participants

Mickey Schleien - Ladenburg

Bryce Rowe - B. Riley

Casey Alexander - Compass Point Research

Erik Zwick - Hovde Group

Operator

Good morning, ladies, and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Saratoga Investment Corp.'s 2024 Fiscal First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Please note that today's call is being recorded. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions.

At this time, I’d like to turn the call over to Saratoga Investment Corp.'s Chief Financial and Compliance Officer, Mr. Henri Steenkamp. Sir, please go ahead.

Henri Steenkamp

Thank you. I would like to welcome everyone to Saratoga Investment Corp.'s 2024 fiscal first quarter earnings conference call. Today's conference call includes forward-looking statements and projections. We ask you to refer to our most recent filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements and projections. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements unless required to do so by law.

Today, we will be referencing a presentation during our call. You can find our fiscal first quarter 2024 shareholder presentation in the Events and Presentations section of our Investor Relations website. A link to our IR page is in the earnings press release distributed last night. A replay of this conference call will also be available. Please refer to our earnings press release for details.

I would now like to turn the call over to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Christian Oberbeck, who will be making a few introductory remarks.

Christian Oberbeck

Thank you, Henri, and welcome, everyone. Saratoga’s 10% and 104% increases on adjusted net investment income per share, as compared to last quarter and last year's first quarter respectively outpaced our recent and significant dividend increases and reflects growth in AUM and margin improvement from rising rates on our largely floating rate assets in contrast to the largely fixed rates paid on our financing liabilities.

Higher and rising interest rates and a general contraction of available credit of producing higher margins on our portfolio and importantly an abundant flow of attractive investment opportunities from high quality sponsors at increasingly improving pricing, terms, and absolute rates. We believe Saratoga continued [Technical Difficulty] well positioned for potential future economic opportunities and challenges. Saratoga's credit structure with largely interest-only covenant free long duration debt, incorporating maturities, primarily two to 10-years out, positions us well, particularly well for rising and potentially higher for longer interest rate environment, coupled with market volatility.