Saratoga Investment Corp (NYSE:SAR) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call January 11, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Henri Steenkamp - Chief Financial and Compliance Officer

Christian Oberbeck - Chairman and CEO

Michael Grisius - Chief Investment Officer

Conference Call Participants

Bryce Rowe - B. Riley

Casey Alexander - Compass Point Research & Trading

Robert Dodd - Raymond James

Erik Zwick - Hovde Group

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Saratoga Investment Corp.'s Fiscal Third Quarter 2023 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 would 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 fiscal third quarter 2023 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 third quarter 2023 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 33% sequential quarterly increase in adjusted net investment income per share substantially outpaced its recent record 26% dividend increase, as rising interest rates positively impact the company's largely floating rate assets and drive increasing spread margin due to Saratoga's largely fixed rate liabilities.

Saratoga's credit structure with interest-only covenant-free long-duration debt incorporating maturities two to 10 years out, positions us well for rising and "higher for longer" interest-rate environment. Importantly, overall portfolio quality continues to remain high as demonstrated by NAV per share remaining essentially flat over the prior quarter.