Earnings Sentiment

Sentiment Analysis of the earnings transcript to help figure out if there are any bullish or bearish sentiments that could be gathered from it. We're doing ML and AI based analysis on the earnings call to get some more insights.

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Sentiment Distribution

   

Earnings Call Transcript Word Cloud

     

Bullish Statements during Earnings call

Statement
And I would say, except for healthcare services, it's done a very, very good job
And the thing we always point to is 2021 was a record year in volumes for us, and I'm sure all of us up here, we had fantastic years putting new money to work
We're seeing that the economic underpinnings of the economy, revenue, and EBITDA are growing, and their economy remains healthy despite everyone worrying about the lag effective rate increases, credit tightening
Credit performance was really strong last year
And certainly, it's our activities depend on our origination depending you know, having M&A and assets trading will drive activity, but, it's not the only factor, right? And I think as a large BDC, one of the larger BDCs and all of us up here are enjoying the benefit of having a large portfolio
So there may be some there was great tailwinds last year on those wins might shift a bit, but credit quality in that environment should be a positive
So that strength and stability of the balance sheet allows us to be patient and navigate periods of stress in a much calmer way, right? There's no triggers that are making us sell our assets, so we can sit there and work together with our partners, the owners of the assets to achieve better outcomes
And so I think we've been able to be much better at picking industries and have the flexibility to do so versus being kind of own the market
We had our IPO back in 2004, so we've got a 20-year public track record out there delivering industry leading results
But because we're better holders of that credit, we have better liability structures, we're able to attract talent
Generally speaking, we benefit from good credit performance and over earning our dividend to drive net asset value that was flat
To compete in what, surely what we think is the highest quality opportunity set
Our recoveries are actually quite good
Certainly, the market backdrop has been very favorable
And we have a much better ability to get high recoveries on our problems
Get great returns, great deals
And then you fast forward 20 years, here you see a substantial influx of very talented, very well-known institutional managers in the space that are, in my view, operating and working to operate and make this space better
And so we have the good fortune to be able to provide capital into those existing portfolio companies
And so the return on equity is pretty good
Economy's better
I think last year, though, was a real testimony to the strength of the quality of the companies in the direct lending space
It continues to be very good
And if you have a diversified portfolio and the problems get back $0.80 to $0.90 on the dollar, you're going to have great returns
We are aligned all the time, and we take comfort in each other having very high quality underwriting standards
So it's a remarkable evolution
We've got excellent relationships with these private equity firms
The economy was very good
It was very profitable model to distribute the risk, and earn fees
And that allows us to achieve all those factors, allow us to achieve the lower loss rates
Really good management teams
       

Bearish Statements during earnings call

Statement
So there's a little bit of an adverse selection also that these smaller lenders are suffering from
I think that there still had been, and maybe still some of you may feel this way, a lingering misperception that we're lending to kind of subprime borrowers that in moments of weakness, that there's going to be this great ripple effect, and it's just misplaced
Unidentified Company Representative I think it's funny how when rates are going up, everybody's worried about credit quality and credits could explode the business
Could you talk about what's going on here? And, specifically, what are you seeing within your portfolio, portfolio companies? Craig Packer So a year ago, everybody was worried about credit performance
If rates go down, that's going to hurt our income
There's an expectation that they're going to come down but until they actually come down, we're going to continue to be cautious
Unidentified Company Representative I find it fascinating all the talk out there about banks competing with private credit, and the world's going to explode and structures are going to collapse
They're just losing share
The business model is more painful for banks
And we're a new entrant eight years in, but there's very, it's very few, and it's very difficult to come in now and recreate that
I think this is one of the things that's underestimated about direct lending
So I think even when there are issues, we had a few, not too many
There's high capital charges
So you would start to see those leading indicators pointing to signs of stress if companies were struggling with liquidity
So that misconception around lower credit quality is just really kind of not true
So there's always something to worry about
M&A activity was really slow last year
What I would say is that the regulatory environment is only getting tougher
There's, I think, continue maybe it won't go down as much or as fast
It's a drop in the bucket in the investment grade bond market
   

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