Carlyle Secured Lending Inc. (NASDAQ:CGBD) Q4 2022 Results Conference Call February 28, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Daniel Hahn - IR

Linda Pace - Chairperson

Tom Hennigan - CFO

Aren LeeKong - CEO

Conference Call Participants

Aaron Cyganovich - Citi

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Carlyle Secured Lending's Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After this speaker presentation there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the call over to your speaker today, Daniel Hahn. Please go ahead.

Daniel Hahn

Good morning, and welcome to Carlyle Secured Lending's fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. With me on the call this morning is Linda Pace, the Chair of our Board of Directors; Aren LeeKong, our newly appointed Chief Executive Officer; and Tom Hennigan, our Chief Financial Officer.

Last night, we filed our Form 10-K 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 Linda Pace.

Linda Pace

Thank you, Dan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2022 results. I will focus my remarks on three topics for today's call. I'll start with an overview of our fourth quarter results; second, I'll comment on the current market environment and investment activity; and finally, I'll conclude with a few thoughts on our full year 2022 performance.

We generated net investment income of $0.48 per share in the fourth quarter. This was an increase of 9% from the core earnings in Q3 as the portfolio continued to benefit from higher base rates. We declared total first quarter dividends of $0.44, consisting of our new base dividend of $0.37, which we have increased for the third consecutive period plus a $0.07 supplemental. We have now increased our base dividend rate by a total of almost 16% over the last three quarters and are pleased to highlight that the $0.37 per share is now back at our IPO level.