Saratoga Investment Corp. (NYSE:SAR) Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 7, 2024 1:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Christian Oberbeck - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer & President
Henri Steenkamp - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Treasurer & Secretary
Michael Grisius - Chief Investment Officer
Conference Call Participants
Erik Zwick - Hovde Group
Robert Dodd - Raymond James.
Mickey Schleien - Ladenburg
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Saratoga Investment Corp's 2024 Fiscal Year-End and Fourth Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Please note that today's call is being recorded. During today's presentation, all parties will be in listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, we will be opening the line for questions.
At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Saratoga Investment Corp.'s Chief 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 year-end and fourth 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 year-end and fourth 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
Well, thank you, Henry, and welcome, everyone. Saratoga's adjusted net investment income per share for the year increased 44% as compared to last year and for Q4 decreased by 2.5% as compared to last year and 4% as compared to last quarter.
The substantial year-over-year increase in NII reflects growth in AUM, strong overall portfolio performance and margin improvement from year-over-year increased rates and spreads on Saratoga's investments largely floating rate assets with cost of financing liabilities remaining largely fixed. Perspectives on year-over-year quarterly performance include; a $0.04 decrease from last year's Q4 includes $0.13 of dilution and from the increased share count resulting from the recent equity ATM issuances this year at NAV, which have not yet been deployed in new investments.