Q2 2025 Goldman Sachs BDC Inc Earnings Call
Speaker #2: Good morning. This is Austin Neri, Head of Investor Relations Team for the Goldman Sachs BDC, Inc. And I would like to welcome everyone to the Goldman Sachs BDC, Inc. second quarter 2025 earnings conference call.
Speaker #2: Please note that all participants will be in listen-only mode until the end of the call, when we will open the line for questions. Before we begin today's call, I would like to remind our listeners that today's remarks may include forward-looking statements. These statements represent the company's belief regarding future events that, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control.
Speaker #2: The company's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from what is indicated in those forward-looking statements. This is a result of a number of factors, including those described from time to time in the company's SEC filings.
Speaker #2: This audio cast is copyrighted material of Goldman Sachs BDC, Inc. and may not be duplicated, reproduced, or rebroadcast without our ent. Yesterday, after the market closed, the company issued an earnings press release and posted a supplemental earnings presentation, both of which can be found on the homepage of our website at www.goldmansachsbdc.com.
Speaker #2: Under the investor resources section, and which include reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. These documents should be reviewed in conjunction with the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed yesterday with the SEC.
Speaker #2: This conference call is being recorded today Friday, August 8th, 2025, for replay purposes. As many of you may be aware, we announced changes effective yesterday, August 7th, to the Goldman Sachs BDC management team and private credit business writ large on July 21st.
Speaker #2: I will now hand the call over to Alex Chi, former co-CEO and president of Goldman Sachs BDC.
Speaker #3: Thank you, Austin. Well, after 31 years with the firm, I've made the difficult decision to step down. This is not the result of any disagreements.
Speaker #3: Rather, it's a personal decision that I've to pursue another professional opportunity. Looking back, I'm incredibly proud of what we've accomplished together. One aspect that stands is the integration of GSBD into the broader private credit platform at Goldman Sachs.
Speaker #3: When we pursued that, we envisioned that GSBD would benefit from the broader origination capabilities enhanced scale and deep expertise across the firm. I'm very proud to say it has played out exactly that way.
Speaker #3: I want to phasize that the platform is in a strong position. And I leave it in very capable hands, including my long-standing co-CEO, David Miller, who I have had the sincere pleasure and privilege of working with.
Speaker #3: Vivek Bantwal, who I've worked with for nearly 25 years and is currently the Global Co-Head of our private credit platform, will be stepping into my co-CEO role alongside David.
Speaker #3: Tucker Green, who is our Chief Operating Officer, will also assume the additional role as sole president of GSBD and the BDC platform. And Stan Matuszewski, who will continue in the role of Chief Financial Officer.
Speaker #3: I have full confidence in their leadership and in the platform's continued success. The board of directors, thank you for your partnership and support, and to my colleagues and team members thank you for the trust, the collaboration, and the shared commitment over the years.
Speaker #3: And most importantly, thank you to our shareholders for your trust in investing your capital. It's been an honor. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to David.
Speaker #4: Alex, thank you. We wish you nothing but the best in our future endeavors, and thank you for not only being a friend, but an instrumental part of the growth of the private credit franchise.
Speaker #4: We will miss you. As Alex mentioned, we're excited to have Vivek formally journal our DC complex, which has been and continues to be an integral part of our broader private credit platform.
Speaker #4: When the legacy BDC business integrated with the legacy merchant bank and special situations group in March of 2022, it created a unified private credit team that opened the aperture for our BDC complex to take vantage of proprietary origination and deal flow previously unavailable to its family of funds.
Speaker #4: In his previous role, Vivek was responsible for the firm's relationship lending book, as well as the acquisition finance and leveraged buyout book. Vivek served as co-chair of the firm-wide capital committee, responsible for the approval and oversight of debt-related transactions, including principal commitments of the firm's capital.
Speaker #4: Vivek's expertise in lending and risk management across leveraged finance and structured finance has helped augment our private credit business, in addition to expanding our origination capabilities.
Speaker #4: Vivek's new role and long-tenured experience in investment banking and global markets aligns with the aforementioned integration to the firm's focus in elevating our BDC franchise.
Speaker #4: Namely, our flagship public and private non-traded BDCs, GSBD and GS Credit. In addition, Tucker Green, our COO, will be taken on the added role of president of the BDC complex, wherein he will take on more investor engagement, both on the equity and debt side across our complex of funds.
Speaker #4: With that, let me turn it over to my co-CEO, Vivek.
Speaker #5: Thank you, David. Our BDC complex is core to our strategy, and the growth and positioning of GSBD in particular is a focus for myself and the management team.
Speaker #5: The Goldman Sachs Global Private Credit Platform is uniquely positioned at the intersection of asset management and one of the world's top investment banking and global markets franchises, creating an unparalleled sourcing engine of investment opportunities across the credit spectrum.
Speaker #5: With that, let's pivot to a recap of what we saw in the market in Q2 and what is guiding the performance of GSBD. After my comments, I will then turn the call over to David Miller and Tucker Greene to describe our portfolio activity and performance in more detail before handing it over to Stan Matuszewski to take us through our financial results.
Speaker #5: And then finally, we'll open the line for Q&A. Despite the policy volatility that is defined at 2025, exacerbated by the noise of Liberation Day, the M&A market has remained resilient.
Speaker #5: Total M&A dollar volumes in the first half the year were up 29% year over year as companies adapted to a change is constant mentality.
Speaker #5: We believe that uncertainty will persist, particularly in the tariff-sensitive industries, but many companies are seizing the opportunity to reevaluate their portfolio and strategic ambitions with a fresh perspective.
Speaker #5: A persistent lack of DPI, or distributions to paid-in capital, a continued buildup of dry powder, and rapidly accelerating innovation have driven sponsors to act, especially in sectors less sensitive to tariffs such as software, domestic services, financial services, and digital infrastructure. These are the stalwarts of our platform and strategy that have been in place for over 29 years.
Speaker #5: Despite the hesitation in public markets following tariff announcements in April, equity markets hovered near all-time highs at the end of Q2 boosted by a series of successful IPOs.
Speaker #5: The public and private markets are necessary enablers of each other and will continue to fuel the M&A market in tandem. This is a key part of our approach, wherein we see bringing a fulsome term sheet—whether it be private, public, or a combination of both—as a leading indicator of our right to win.
Speaker #5: The interplay between the broadly syndicated loan market and direct lenders remains strong. Roughly $16 billion in direct loans have been refinanced via BSLs, while $11.7 billion of BSLs have been refinanced by direct loans as of the end of the second quarter.
Speaker #5: Our banking colleagues believe we are in the second year of a five- to seven-year M&A market recovery, but the backlog has continued to build leading into year-end, despite a shifting macro backdrop with a 10-year moving in and a lower cost of capital.
Speaker #5: From a weighted average spreads perspective, we saw a modest tightening across the platform's new deals. Now, turning to our second quarter results. Our net investment income per share for the quarter was $0.38 and net asset value per share was $13.02 as of quarter-end, a decrease of 1.4% relative to the first quarter NAV, which was largely due to the $0.16 per share special dividend.
Speaker #5: Taking a closer look at the NAV bridge for the quarter, if you were to exclude the supplemental and special dividend paid in Q2, our book NAV per share increased quarter over quarter.
Speaker #5: The board declared a second quarter 2025 supplemental dividend of $0.03 per share payable on or about September 15th, 2025, to shareholders of record as of August 29th, 2025.
Speaker #5: Adjusted for the impact of the supplemental dividend related to the second quarter's earnings, the company's second quarter adjusted NAV per share is $12.99 which I would note is a non-GAAP financial measure introduced as a result of the dividend policy change.
Speaker #5: The board also declared a third quarter-based dividend per share of $0.32 and a special dividend of $0.16 per share to shareholders of record as of September 30, 2025.
Speaker #5: We ended the quarter with a net debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12 times as of June 30th, 2025, as compared to 1.16 times as of March 31st, 2025.
Speaker #5: We remain focused on delivering on our new dividend structure through the core earnings power the portfolio and realizing exits of legacy portfolio companies while rotating into new vintage credits.
Speaker #5: With that, let me turn over to our COO and president, Tucker, to discuss portfolio fundamentals.
Speaker #6: Thanks, Vivek. As a result of our current trading levels, we utilize our 10B51 stock repurchase plan during the quarter. We repurchased north of $1 million shares for $12.1 million which was NAV accretive.
Speaker #6: During the quarter, we made new investment commitments of approximately $247.9 million across 15 portfolio companies comprised of nine new and six existing portfolio companies.
Speaker #6: This marks the highest level of new investment commitments since Q3 2024, which indicates our unique position in a competitive deal environment where we can be selective on credit quality and exhibit discipline where we want to lean in.
Speaker #6: 100% of our originations during the quarter were on first-lean senior secured loans which reflects our continued bias in taining exposure to the top of the capital structure.
Speaker #6: Of the nine new portfolio companies, we served as lead on eight, which is a tangible indication of the power of the GS platform. The weighted average spread of new portfolio companies during the quarter was approximately 500 basis points over SOFR.
Speaker #6: We continued to see increased repayment activity, albeit at the tail end of the quarter. This has contributed to the further roll-off of our legacy book with pre-2022 investments accounting for 80% of fair value of year-to-date repayments.
Speaker #6: This rotation remains a key focus for the GSBD portfolio as it recycles into new credits. Repayments totaled $288.1 for the quarter, primarily driven by full repayments and exits of 10 portfolio companies.
Speaker #6: Seven of which were pre-2022. One notable payoff during the quarter was rubric. GS agented the first investment in the company in 2022, financed an acquisition in 2023, and acted as lead underwriter on its IPO.
Speaker #6: In April 2024, rubric was founded in 2013 into the market leader in cloud data management and data security. The credit facility remained outstanding post-IPO at a spread of SOFR plus 700, but was eventually repaid in June 2025.
Speaker #6: This is an example of the power of our platform and illustrates our team's enhanced credit selection in the software space where we saw a two-and-a-half times revenue growth over the course of our estment.
Speaker #6: Another notable payoff, initially invested in 2015, was ZEP via a new mountain sell-side process. This comes on the back of a successful restructure where GS and the existing lender group up-tiered the second-lean position to a first-lean.
Speaker #6: ZEP is a producer of cleaning and maintenance solutions products. We believe our platform thrives in times of market volatility through the unique opportunities to channel the Goldman Sachs ecosystem and investment banking origination engine, which is beneficial to GSBD shareholders.
Speaker #6: During the quarter, we financed the acquisition of Global Critical Logistics by Providence Equity Partners, as lead arranger and agent. Global Critical Logistics is a leading provider of asset light specialty logistics solutions.
Speaker #6: At the end of the quarter, total investments at fair value and unfunded commitments in our portfolio were $3.8 billion, with 162 portfolio companies across 40 different industries.
Speaker #6: The portfolio at fair value is comprised of 97.4% in senior secured loans, including 90.2% in first-lean, 5.7% in first-lean last-out unit tranche, 2.3% in a combination of preferred and common stock, one and a half percent in second-lean debt, as well as a negligible amount in unsecured debt.
Speaker #6: The weighted average yield of our debt and income-producing investments in amortized cost at the end of the second quarter was 10.7%, as compared to 10.8% at the end of the first quarter.
Speaker #6: Despite a modest tightening in portfolio yield quarter over quarter, our portfolio companies have both top-line growth and EBITDA growth quarter over quarter and year over year on a weighted average basis.
Speaker #6: Our weighted average net debt to EBITDA remained flat quarter over quarter at 5.8 times, and our interest coverage was also flat quarter over quarter at 1.8 times.
Speaker #6: Let me turn the call back to David to discuss credit quality. As of June 30th, 2025, investments on non-accrual status were $1.6% at fair value, a decrease from 1.9% at fair value as of March 31st, 2025.
Speaker #6: This was the result of one new non-accrual, two names restored back to accrual status, and one exit. During the quarter, a position from Streamland Media was placed on non-accrual status due to financial underperformance.
Speaker #6: While CAWA's preferred stock position previously on non-accrual status was exited. Furthermore, a position from Bayside Opco was restored back to accrual status due to enhanced performance.
Speaker #6: During the quarter, Lithium was restructured and restored back to accrual status. As the lead and agent in the deal, we worked with our co-lenders and the existing minority shareholder following a potential sale process.
Speaker #6: Our existing debt has been exchanged for two securities. Number one, a take-back term loan debt, and number two, a preferred security that gives the lender group claim on a portion of all future distributions by the company.
Speaker #6: We believe this outcome is the best opportunity to maximize recovery on our initial investment. I will now turn the call over to Stan to walk through our financial results.
Speaker #7: Thank you, David. We ended second quarter of 2025 with total portfolio investments at fair value and commitments of $3.8 billion, outstanding debt of $1.8 billion, and net assets of $1.5 billion.
Speaker #7: Our ending net debt to equity ratio as of the end of the second quarter was 1.12 times, which continues be below our target leverage of 1.25 times.
Speaker #7: At quarter-end, approximately 50% of our total principal amount of debt outstanding was in unsecured debt, as of June 30th, 2025, the company had approximately $793 million of borrowing capacity remaining under the revolving credit facility.
Speaker #7: Given the tightening of credit spreads, we've observed the market, we continue to constructively engage our lenders to seek lower pricing on our credit facilities.
Speaker #7: During the quarter, we amended the truest RCF to extend maturity date from October 2028 to June 2030, and reduced the spread by 10 bips.
Speaker #7: Before continuing to the income statement, as a reminder, in addition to GAAP financial measures, we also referenced certain non-GAAP or adjusted measures. This is intended to make our financial results easier to compare to results prior to our October 2020 merger with Goldman Sachs Middle Market Lending Corp, or MMLC, these non-GAAP measures removed the purchase discount amortization impact from our financial results.
Speaker #7: For the second quarter, GAAP and adjusted after-tax net investment income were $44.5 million, and $43.5 million respectively, as compared $49.6 million and $48.8 million respectively in the prior quarter.
Speaker #7: On a per-share basis, GAAP net investment income was $0.38. Excluding the impact of asset acquisition accounting in connection with the merger with MMLC, adjusted net investment income for the quarter was $0.37 per share, equating to an annualized net investment income yield on book value of $11.4%.
Speaker #7: Total investment income for the three months ended June 30th, 2025, and March 31st, 2025, was $91,096.9 million respectively. We observed PIC as a percent of total investment income decreased to 8.3% for the second quarter from 10.5% in the first quarter of 2025.
Speaker #7: With that, I'll hand it back to David for closing remarks.
Speaker #6: Thanks, Stan, and thanks everyone for joining our earnings call. Although the deal environment exhibited hesitancy and caution in Q2, as a result of the headline macro reaction, we see green shoes leaning in the year-end and the first half of next year that will continue to support active and high-quality deployment across our credit complex.
Speaker #6: With that, let's open the line for Q&A.
Speaker #1: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure that your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our ment.
Speaker #1: Again, press star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal. We'll take our first question from Aaron Saganovich with Truist.
Speaker #1: Your line is now open.
Speaker #8: Thank you. Good morning. The investment activity is pretty strong, but you had some repayment sales that exceeded that. So you're leverage is still a touch, I guess, below what ou deem as your target of 1.25.
Speaker #8: What are your thoughts on getting leverage back up, maybe in the second half of the year, and whether or not your pipeline is sufficient to fulfill that?
Speaker #9: I think good morning, Aaron. Yeah, I an, I think that was a result of a couple of things. Number one, some of the commitments we made slipped into the next quarter, so you'll see those fund.
Speaker #9: Across the platform, we continue to see very strong activity in new deal flow. So I would expect that to take up slightly over time as we fund those new deals.
Speaker #9: Plus, the existing commitments that we put online.
Speaker #8: Great. And then alternatively, maybe you could talk a little bit about some of the non-accruals that you exited. You mentioned some restructurings in some resolutions there.
Speaker #8: Could you just a little more detail on those, please?
Speaker #9: Yeah. Some were due to continued improvements, like ProPT; the company continues to improve, so that was taken off. You know, Lithium, we restructured. We actually exited that, or we restructured that into really two securities, as we talked about in the prepared comments.
Speaker #9: One, a cash-paying note, and then number two, an equity-linked security where we're entitled to receive excess proceeds over a period of time.
Speaker #9: So those were the two main exits that we had, and then we had CAWA, Solar, that came off due to a disposition. And then we added one new non-new accrual, which was Stream this year.
Speaker #9: This quarter.
Speaker #8: Okay. Great. Thanks. I appreciate the answers.
Speaker #9: All right. Thank you.
Speaker #1: As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, you may press star one on your telephone keypad now. Again, that's star one to ask a estion.
Speaker #1: Once again, that's star one if you would like to ask a question. It appears there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back over to David for any additional or closing remarks.
Speaker #8: Great. Well, thanks everyone for joining this quarter's call. We'll talk to you next quarter.