Earnings call transcript: Bain Capital Specialty Finance misses Q1 2025 forecasts

Bain Capital Specialty Finance (BCSF) reported its first-quarter 2025 earnings, showing mixed results with a slight miss on revenue forecasts. The company posted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.50, surpassing the forecast of $0.4551, but reported revenue of $66.84 million, below the expected $67.4 million. Trading at an attractive P/E ratio of 8.29 and offering a substantial 12% dividend yield, the stock remained unchanged in aftermarket trading at $15.24, reflecting a 1.17% decline during the regular session.

According to InvestingPro, two analysts have recently revised their earnings upward for the upcoming period, suggesting potential optimism about the company’s prospects. InvestingPro subscribers have access to 5 more exclusive insights about BCSF’s performance and outlook.

Key Takeaways

• Bain Capital Specialty Finance’s EPS beat expectations, but revenue fell short.
• Total investment income declined to $66.8 million from the previous quarter’s $73.3 million.
• Stock price remained stable in aftermarket trading despite a regular session decline.
• The company maintains a strong dividend coverage of 119%.

Company Performance

Bain Capital Specialty Finance demonstrated resilience in a competitive market, with a focus on defensive industries such as healthcare and high-tech. Despite a decline in total investment income from the previous quarter, the company maintained a robust annualized yield on book value of 11.3%. Portfolio diversification increased, spreading across 175 companies, up from 153.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $66.8 million, down from $73.3 million in Q4 2024
• Earnings per share: $0.50, exceeding the forecast of $0.4551
• Net Asset Value (NAV) per share: $17.64, a slight decrease from the prior quarter

Earnings vs. Forecast

Bain Capital Specialty Finance’s EPS of $0.50 surpassed the forecasted $0.4551, marking a positive surprise of 9.9%. However, the revenue of $66.84 million missed expectations by approximately 0.8%. This mixed performance contrasts with the company’s historical trend of meeting or exceeding both EPS and revenue forecasts.

Market Reaction

The stock’s unchanged position in aftermarket trading at $15.24 suggests investor sentiment remained neutral despite the earnings miss. During the regular session, the stock fell by 1.17%, reflecting broader market trends and possibly the revenue shortfall. The stock is trading closer to its 52-week low of $13.20, indicating cautious investor outlook.

Outlook & Guidance

The company remains optimistic about its future, with no immediate plans to adjust its dividend. Bain Capital Specialty Finance is well-positioned to handle potential market volatility, with $823 million in total liquidity and no debt maturities in 2025. The firm continues to focus on asset-light, high free cash flow businesses.

Executive Commentary

CEO Michael Ewald emphasized the company’s commitment to delivering shareholder value, stating, "Our portfolio and balance sheet are well positioned to navigate potentially increasing periods of volatility ahead." CFO Amit Joshi reassured investors about dividend stability, saying, "We do not foresee in near term any need to revisit our dividend."

Risks and Challenges

• Revenue shortfall could indicate challenges in maintaining investment income.
• Increased competition in middle market lending may pressure margins.
• Potential market volatility could affect portfolio performance.
• Interest rate fluctuations pose a risk to floating rate debt investments.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the impact of late quarter fundings on interest income and strategies for stock buybacks. The management addressed exits from two non-accrual investments, Atlas and Aimbridge, and confirmed dividend stability in the near term.

Full transcript - Bain Capital Specialty Finance Inc (BCSF) Q1 2025:

Conference Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Bain Capital Specialty Finance First Quarter Ended 03/31/2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode.

Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. Please note this call is being recorded, and I will be standing by should you need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Kathryn Schneider, Investor Relations. Please go

Michael Ewald, CEO, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: ahead. Thanks,

Conference Operator: Nikki. Good morning, and welcome to

Kathryn Schneider, Investor Relations, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: the Bain Capital Specialty Finance first quarter ended 03/31/2025 conference call. Yesterday, after market close, we issued our earnings press release and investor presentation of our quarterly results, a copy of which is available on Bain Capital Specialty Finance’s Investor Relations website. Following our remarks today, we will hold a question and answer session for analysts and investors. This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on our website. This call and the webcast are property of Bain Capital Specialty Finance, and any authorized broadcast in any form is strictly prohibited.

Any forward looking statements made today do not guarantee future performance, and actual results may differ materially. These statements are based on current management expectations, which include risks and uncertainties, which are identified in the Risk Factors section of our Form 10 Q that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated. Bain Capital Specialty Finance assumes no obligation to update any forward looking statements at this time unless required to do so by law. Lastly, past performance does not guarantee future results. So with that, I’d like to turn the call over to our CEO, Michael Ewald.

Michael Ewald, CEO, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: Thanks, Kathryn, and good morning, thanks to all of you for joining us here on our earnings call. I’m also joined today by Mike Boyle, our President and our Chief Financial Officer, Amit Joshi. As usual, in terms of agenda for the call, I’ll start with an overview of our first quarter results and then provide some thoughts on our performance, the current market environment and positioning. Thereafter, Mike and Amit will discuss our investment portfolio and financial results in greater detail. As usual, we’ll also leave some time for questions at the end.

So yesterday, after we closed, we delivered strong first quarter results. Q1 net investment income per share was $0.50 representing an annualized yield on book value of 11.3%. Our net investment income was well in excess of our regular dividend with 119% dividend coverage. Q1 earnings per share were $0.44 reflecting an annualized return on book value of 10%. Our results were driven by high quality interest income earned from our middle market borrowers and stable credit performance across our portfolio.

Our net asset value per share was $17.64 down to $01 per share from the prior quarter end. Subsequent to quarter end, our Board declared a second quarter dividend equal to $0.42 per share, payable to record date holders as of 06/16/2025. The Board also declared an additional dividend of $03 per share for shareholders of record as of 06/16/2025, as we previously announced in February. The total dividends for the second quarter to zero four five dollars per share or a 10.2% annualized return on ending value as of March 31, which we believe represents an attractive yield for our shareholders. The first quarter was driven by a busy start to the year beginning in January, while volumes then trended lower throughout the quarter on increased volatility uncertainty experienced across the broader market.

Middle market direct lending volumes continue to see compression amid high levels of competition, which were steepest across the upper and larger ends of the market. We’re certainly not immune to increased competition within a core part of the market, although we seek to be disciplined capital providers when we underwrite new capital structures, price, the risk we take, the reward we receive. Q1, BCSS gross originations were $277,000,000 down 31% year over year. We remain selective in our underwriting approach and continue to favor middle market companies within the core part of the market. The median weighted average EBITDA of borrowers during the quarter were approximately $23,000,000 and $3,000,000 respectively.

The weighted average spread on our first lien originations was over 140 basis points. Many of the core tenants that we value in our direct strategy, such as higher spread premiums, stronger lender controls through credit documentation containing financial covenants, and having majority control positions within a small lender group are much more attainable in this segment of the market. Notably, these are attributes that we believe are increasingly important during periods of greater volatility. So 97% of our Q1 originations to new companies were structured with documentation containing financial covenants tied to management’s forecasts, majority control positions in over 78% of these debt tranches, allowing us to drive eventual outcomes at our discretion. These statistics are consistent with our broader portfolio, showing our continued focus on these core tenants.

Credit quality and fundamentals continue to be solid across our portfolio. Investments on non accrual represented 1.4%, zero point seven % in amortized cost and fair value respectively as of March 31. Our liquidity draws $823,000,000 of total available liquidity across undrawn capacity on our revolving credit facility, cash and net settled trades. We ended the first quarter at a net leverage ratio to 1.17 times, which falls within our target leverage ratio on a net basis of one point zero to 1.25 times and positions us well with ample dry powder in the current environment. Following the U.

S. Government’s tariff announcements in early April, we performed a portfolio review to identify potential individual exposure to higher tariffs. While there’s still uncertainty around the timing and height of eventual tariffs, given the fluid situation and ongoing developments, only a small portion of BCSS portfolio companies were estimated to have direct tariff exposure. This limited exposure to exogenous factors identified by our team aligns with various facets of our investment strategy, including a focus on the core middle market, asset light, high free cash flow businesses, domestic manufacturing and favoring certain industries such as software, healthcare, business services and financial services. Notably, our aerospace and defense investments are not expected to have high direct impacts from tariffs as our exposure within this segment includes service providers and manufacturers with overwhelmingly domestic customer bases and supply chains.

While it is still too early to assess longer term impacts of tariffs on the broader economy, we remain focused on the potential downstream effects of these and other current administration policies that could drive inflation higher, lower economic growth, and lead to a potential recessionary environment. Bain Capital’s private credit group has over twenty five years of experience and is well equipped to navigate the current environment as our professionals have successfully navigated multiple market cycles and periods of disruptions in the past, and we remain focused on prudently managing our portfolio. I will now turn the call over to Mike Boyle, our President, to walk through our investment portfolio in greater detail.

Mike Boyle, President, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: Thanks, Michael. Good morning, everyone. I’ll start with our investment activity for the first quarter and then provide an update in more detail on our portfolio. New fundings during the first quarter were $277,000,000 into 89 portfolio companies including $140,000,000 in 13 new companies, dollars 134,000,000 in 75 existing companies and $2,000,000 into our senior loan program. Activity totaled approximately $246,000,000 resulting in net investment fundings of $31,000,000 quarter over quarter.

Our fundings were split with 51% of total fundings made to new portfolio companies versus 49 to existing companies. This quarter we remained focused on investing in first lien senior secured loans with 90% of our investments made into first lien structures, 9% in subordinated debt and 1% into equity. Investments made in the quarter continued to favor defensive industries such as healthcare, high-tech and business services. For our select investments within auto and capital equipment sectors, we provided capital to service oriented companies within these end markets or manufacturers with domestic footprints. Turning to the investment portfolio.

At the end of the first quarter, the size of our portfolio at fair value was $2,500,000,000 across a diversified set of 175 companies operating across 29 different industries. We have continued to increase our single name portfolio diversification with name count up from 153 companies one year ago and 108 companies at the beginning of twenty twenty. Our portfolio primarily consists of investments in first lien senior secured loans given our focus on downside management and investing in the top of capital structures. As of March 31, ’60 ’4 percent of the investment portfolio at fair value was invested in first lien debt, 1% in second lien debt, 3% subordinated debt, 7% in preferred equity, 9% in equity and 16% across our joint ventures, including 10% in our international senior loan program and 6% in our senior loan program. As a reminder, the vast majority of the underlying investments within our joint venture structures are first lien loans.

As of 03/31/2025, the weighted average yield of the investment portfolio at amortized cost and fair value was eleven point five percent and eleven point five percent respectively as compared to 11.711.8% respectively as of 12/31/2024. This decrease in yields was primarily driven by a decrease in reference rates as well as spreads across our portfolio. 93% of our debt investments bear interest at a floating rate positioning the company favorably in today’s higher rate environment. Moving on to portfolio credit quality trends. Our credit fundamentals remained healthy.

We saw largely stable trends within our internal risk rating scale quarter over quarter. Risk rating one and two investments comprised 95 of our portfolio as of March 31 indicating that these companies are performing in line or better than the expectations we set at our underwrite. Risk Rating three and four or underperforming investments comprised just 5% of our portfolio at fair value. Investments on non accrual represented 1.40.7% of the total investment portfolio at amortized cost and fair value respectively as of March 31. And this compares to 1.30.2% respectively as of December 31.

I will also highlight that performance across our aggregate 100 plus companies within our underlying joint ventures continue to perform well consistent with our broader portfolio. I’ll turn it now to Amit who will provide a more detailed financial review.

Amit Joshi, Chief Financial Officer, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. I’ll start the review of our first quarter results with our income statement. Total investment income was 66,800,000.0 for the three months ended 03/31/2025 as compared to 73,300,000.0 for the three months ended 12/31/2024. The decrease in investment income was driven by decrease in average investment balance of the portfolio as a new origination funded towards the back half of the quarter, lower portfolio yields and decrease in other income. The quality of our investment income continues to be high as vast majority of our investment income is driven by contractual cash income across our investments.

Interest income and dividend income represented 96% of our total investment income in Q1. PIC income is also low at just under 10% of our overall investment income. Notably, the vast majority of our PIK income is derived from investments that were underwritten with PIK versus from amendment or restructured investments. Total expenses before taxes for the first quarter was 33,700,000.0 as compared to 38,400,000.0 in the fourth quarter. The decrease in expenses was primarily driven by lower incentive fee resulting from our three year look back feature on our incentive fee hurdle rate.

Net investment income for the quarter was 32,100,000.0 or 50¢ per share as compared to 33,600,000.0 or 52¢ per share for the prior quarter. During the three months ended 03/31/2025, the company had net realized and unrealized losses of 3,600,000.0. Net income for three months ended 03/31/2025 was 28,500,000.0 or $0.44 per share. Moving to our balance sheet. As of March 31, our investment portfolio at fair value totaled 2,500,000,000.0 and total assets of 2,600,000,000.0.

Total net assets were 1,100,000,000.0 as of March 31. NAV per share was $17.64 a slight decrease of 1¢ per share from $17.65 at the end of fourth quarter. In January, we issued $350,000,000 of unsecured notes maturing in March 2030 at a spread of 190 basis points. We swapped these notes to floating notes at SOFR plus 190 basis points, which is close to parity with our weighted average spread on our floating rate debt of 187.5 basis points. We believe our liability structure is well positioned in the current environment with no debt maturities this year.

Our unsecured note issuance during the first quarter position us well in advance of our first unsecured debt maturing in March of twenty twenty six. As of March 31, approximately 59% of our outstanding debt was in floating rate debt and 41% was in fixed rate debt. For the three months ended 03/31/2025, the weighted average interest rate on our debt outstanding was 4.8% as compared to 5.1% of the prior quarter end. The weighted average maturity across our total debt commitment was approximately four point two years at 03/31/2025. At the end of Q1, our debt to equity ratio was 1.27 times as compared to 1.22 times from the end of Q4.

Our net leverage ratio, which represent principal debt outstanding, less cash and unsettled rate was 1.17 times at the end of Q1 as compared to 1.13 times at the end of Q4. Liquidity at quarter end was strong totaling $823,000,000 including $699,000,000 of undrawn capacity on our revolver facility, 94,000,000 of cash and cash equivalent, including 55,600,000.0 of restricted cash and 30,300,000.0 of unsettled rate net of receivables and payables of investments. We currently estimate that our spillover income total approximately $1.41 per share representing over three times of our quarterly regular dividend. With that, I turn the call back over to Mike Ewald for the closing remarks.

Michael Ewald, CEO, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: Thanks Amit and thank you Mike as well. In closing, we are pleased to deliver a strong start to the year for our shareholders with our Q1 twenty twenty five results. Looking ahead, we believe our portfolio and balance sheet are well positioned to navigate potentially increasing periods of liquidity ahead volatility ahead, excuse me. And our investment team is equipped with deep expertise having invested across multiple market cycles across our long term. We remain committed to delivering value for our shareholders by providing attractive returns on equity and prudently managing our shareholders’ capital.

Nikki, please open the line for questions. Thanks.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And we’ll take our first question from Paul Johnson with KBW. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Paul Johnson, Analyst, KBW: Yes, thanks for taking my questions. Just on the later fundings that you mentioned in the quarter and the lower sort of interest income, I guess, over quarter, Is there any way to quantify that, I guess, in terms of like how much funded kind of late in the quarter and kind of when approximate timing?

Mike Boyle, President, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: Sure. Thanks for the question Paul. So it was somewhat backdated in terms of new fundings. But what I would point you to is just the spread calculation and yield calculation across the entire portfolio. So we are still generating about an 11.5% yield across the book and new originations as you all noted in his remarks were made at about five forty basis points spread over base rates.

So we do feel quite good that the earnings yield is still quite stable. But I do know your point that some of the fundings were back weighted into the quarter.

Michael Ewald, CEO, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: And Paul, look, it’s helpful too, that spread, the five forty plus that we had last quarter was down about 10 basis points over the prior quarter. So, decline, but certainly not what we have seen earlier.

Paul Johnson, Analyst, KBW: And that spread, is that just a straight coupon spread or does that include any kind of, you know, adjustment for like amortized income?

Mike Boyle, President, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: Spread is just spread

Michael Ewald, CEO, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: spread spread. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Johnson, Analyst, KBW: Got it. Okay. Thanks.

Amit Joshi, Chief Financial Officer, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: I mean, on an average. Right?

Paul Johnson, Analyst, KBW: Got it. Okay. Thank you for that. And then maybe just kind of talking about or sorry, going into just the realized losses this quarter. Can you just kind of talk about, for example, forming machine industries, what was kind of the resolution there, if that’s what drove the loss or if there was any other things in there that drove realized losses this quarter and how you’re able to drive to such a quick solution there?

Mike Boyle, President, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: Sure. Yes, we did have two names that were on non accrual that we exited in the quarter. Atlas which is at forming machine products as well as Aimbridge which was a second lien investment that we made. Both of them were situations where our restructuring teams worked with the company and other participants in the capital structure to drive to a resolution. And in both of those situations we either sold the position to another lender in the group or just completely exited that position with the sale of the company.

So both of those were on had been on accrual for quite a reasonable period of time when we were doing work through the restructuring. And in both situations we feel like we optimized our value on the exit. In Atlas we were both in the first lien and second lien. And in Ambridge we were a second lien holder there. And both of those we did recover a reasonable value here over the life of the hold north of $0.50 across both of those investments.

So it was the strong work of our restructuring team that did drive us to exit both of those investments here in the first quarter.

Paul Johnson, Analyst, KBW: Got it. And that’s in exit mark, you know, $5.00, the recovery there, was that below the fourth quarter mark? Was there any sort of additional markdown from that? Or was that pretty much in line from last quarter?

Mike Boyle, President, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: It was in line with last quarter’s mark. Thank you very much. That’s all for me.

Michael Ewald, CEO, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will move next with Finian O’Shea with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Finian O’Shea, Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities: Hey, everyone. Good morning. I wanted to ask about the ATM. It looks like you tapped that in the quarter. Just seeing what your posture will be there, if this will sort of continue to dribble out as they say?

And if so, will you also be buying back stock below book going forward? Thanks.

Michael Ewald, CEO, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: Thanks, Ben. Look, it is on the ATM first. It’s meant to be opportunistic if it makes sense to tap it. Quick wrap issue, but as you certainly appreciate the entire, the entire IBD segment traded down right around the time that we announced it. So we did not end up tapping into that again.

It is something that is open, it’s available, but I think it’s going be dependent on how we’re trading. And on your question around buybacks, we do sell that program that we put in place, I guess, probably back four years ago now. It’s something that we evaluate versus the alternative of continuing to use that capital, that equity capital to invest in the market. As you know, we haven’t tapped that before, but that is something that is available to us if we think that that is the risk of capital.

Finian O’Shea, Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities: Okay, thanks. Can you talk about dividend coverage and the SOFR curve like sort of what level would it be the next Fed cut or something more that would put you underneath?

Amit Joshi, Chief Financial Officer, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: I would say at this point, yeah, at this point based on our projection, right, and again, in an environment where we believe rates will continue to stay higher, we don’t see in foreseeable future that we need to revisit our current dividend as we have highlighted. Our regular dividend is $0.42 and we have been declaring an additional supplemental dividend. So, we don’t foresee in near term any need for us to revisit our dividend. At the same time, as we highlighted, we do have good amount of spillover income as well, we’ll continue to evaluate as we look at our dividend policy.

Finian O’Shea, Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities: Okay, thanks so much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And once again, that is star and one for your questions. And there appear to be no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back to management for closing remarks. Oh, actually, yeah, we are showing another question comes from the line of Derek Hewitt with Bank of America.

Please go ahead.

Derek Hewitt, Analyst, Bank of America: Good morning, everyone. Just a question on the look back. If the if credit kind of stabilizes at current levels, when should the full incentive fee kick back in? Will it be in second quarter or will it be sometime later? Thank you.

Amit Joshi, Chief Financial Officer, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: We do expect that from second quarter onwards, it should stabilize. There are some nuances with look back because there is a payment component too. So, it does create some volatility in future as well. But we do expect that significant amount of impact around COVID and all has already been accounted for. So, we do expect from Q2, it should be more stabilized.

Derek Hewitt, Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And it appears that we have no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back to management for closing or additional remarks.

Michael Ewald, CEO, Bain Capital Specialty Finance: Thanks a lot, Nikki, and thanks again to everyone on the phone for your time and attention today. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thanks.

Conference Operator: And this does conclude today’s program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.

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