Carlyle Secured Lending Inc. (NASDAQ:CGBD) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call November 8, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Daniel Hahn - Shareholder Relations

Aren LeeKong - Chief Executive Officer

Tom Hennigan - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Operator

Hello and welcome to the Carlyle Secured Lending Inc. Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce Daniel Hahn, Shareholder Relations.

Daniel Hahn

Good morning and welcome to Carlyle Secured Lending's third quarter 2023 earnings call. With me on the call this morning is Aren LeeKong, our Chief Executive Officer; and Tom Hennigan, our Chief Financial Officer.

Last night, we filed our Form 10-Q and issued a press release with a presentation of our results, which are available on the Investor Relations section of our Website. Following our remarks today, we will hold a question-and-answer session for analysts and institutional investors. This call is being webcast and a replay will be available on our Website.

Any forward-looking statements made today do not guarantee future performance and any undue reliance should not be placed on them. These statements are based on current management expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including those identified in the Risk Factors section of our Annual Report on Form 10-K. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated. Carlyle Secured Lending assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements at any time.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Aren.

Aren LeeKong

Thanks Dan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining. As has become custom, I will focus my remarks on three topics for today's call. First, I'll provide an overview of the third quarter financial results. Next, I'll touch on the current market environment. And finally, I'll conclude with a few comments on the quarter's investment activity and portfolio positioning.

Starting off with earnings. We continue to see our portfolio yield benefit from the higher base rate environment. In the third quarter, we generated total core NII of $0.52 per share, which is an increase of 18% from the prior year and represents an annualized return on equity of 12.4%, continuing to trend upward from last quarter and the LTM period.