Earnings call transcript: Golub Capital BDC meets EPS forecasts in Q3 2025

Golub Capital BDC (GBDC) reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2025, meeting analyst expectations with an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.39. Revenue, however, fell short of forecasts, coming in at $218.34 million compared to the anticipated $222.9 million, marking a 2.05% miss. In after-hours trading, the company’s stock showed a slight decline, reflecting a cautious market sentiment. According to InvestingPro data, GBDC maintains strong fundamentals with a P/E ratio of 12.46 and impressive revenue growth of 28.08% over the last twelve months. The company’s beta of 0.53 indicates lower volatility compared to the broader market.

Key Takeaways

• Golub Capital BDC met EPS forecasts but missed revenue expectations.
• The company’s net asset value per share decreased slightly to $15.
• The investment portfolio grew by 4% quarter-over-quarter, reaching nearly $9 billion.
• The stock price decreased by 0.75% in premarket trading following the earnings announcement.

Company Performance

Golub Capital BDC’s performance in the third quarter of 2025 was consistent with expectations in terms of earnings, although revenue fell short. The company continues to focus on first lien senior secured loans to middle market companies, maintaining a highly selective underwriting approach. Despite revenue challenges, the investment portfolio grew by 4% quarter-over-quarter, indicating robust asset management.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $218.34 million, a 2.05% miss from the forecast.
• Earnings per share: $0.39, meeting the forecast.
• Net Asset Value (NAV) per share: $15, a decrease of 4 cents from the previous quarter.
• Investment Portfolio Value: Just under $9 billion, reflecting a 4% quarter-over-quarter growth.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Golub Capital BDC reported an EPS of $0.39, aligning with analyst expectations. However, the company experienced a revenue shortfall, reporting $218.34 million against a forecast of $222.9 million, a 2.05% miss. This discrepancy highlights challenges in achieving revenue growth despite stable earnings.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Golub Capital BDC’s stock price experienced a decline in premarket trading, dropping by 0.75% to $14.6. This movement suggests a cautious investor sentiment, possibly influenced by the revenue miss. The stock remains within its 52-week range, with a low of $12.68 and a high of $16.01.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Golub Capital BDC anticipates a protracted credit cycle and a slow improvement in the M&A environment. The company plans to maintain a conservative approach to underwriting, focusing on proactive loan management. The annualized dividend yield stands at 10.4%, reflecting a commitment to shareholder returns.

Executive Commentary

CEO David Golub described the quarter as "another good boring quarter," emphasizing stability in operations. COO Matt Benton highlighted that nearly 90% of the investment portfolio remains in the highest performing internal rating categories. Golub also reiterated a proactive stance on new loan origination.

Risks and Challenges

• Revenue Growth: The revenue miss indicates potential challenges in achieving growth targets.
• Credit Cycle: A prolonged credit cycle could impact loan performance and investment returns.
• Market Volatility: Fluctuations in market conditions may affect portfolio valuations.
• Competitive Pressure: Intense competition in the middle market lending space could compress margins.
• Economic Uncertainty: Broader economic factors may influence borrower creditworthiness and default rates.

Golub Capital BDC’s earnings call provided insights into its financial health and strategic direction, with a focus on maintaining stability and managing risks in a challenging market environment.

Full transcript - Golub Capital BDC Inc (GBDC) Q3 2025:

David Golub, Chief Executive Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): Hello, everyone, and welcome to GBDC’s earnings call for the fiscal quarter ended 06/30/2025. Before we begin, I’d like to take a moment to remind our listeners that remarks made during this call may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements other than statements of historical facts made during this call may constitute forward looking statements and are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those described from time to time in GBDC’s SEC filings. For materials we intend to refer to on today’s earnings call, please visit the Investor Resources tab on the homepage of our website, which is www.gallopcapitalbdc.com, and click on the events and presentations link.

Our earnings release is also available on our website in the investor resources section. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. With that, I’m pleased to turn the call over to David Golub, chief executive officer of GBDC. Hello, everybody, and thanks for joining us today. I’m joined by Matt Benton, our chief operating officer, and Chris Erickson, our chief financial officer.

For those of you who are new to GBDC, our investment strategy is focused on providing first lien senior secured loans to healthy, resilient middle market companies that are backed by strong partnership oriented private equity sponsors. Yesterday, we issued our earnings press release for the quarter ended June 30, and we posted an earnings presentation on our website. We’re going to be referring to this presentation over the course of today’s call. I’m going to start with headlines, and then Matt and Chris are going to go through our operating and financial performance for the quarter in more detail. And finally, I’ll wrap up with our outlook for the coming period, and we’ll take some questions.

The headline is that GBDC had another good boring quarter. Here are the highlights. Adjusted NII per share was $0.39 This corresponds to an adjusted NII return on equity of 10.4%. Adjusted net income per share was 34¢, and that’s an adjusted return on equity of 9.1%. This brings the since IPO internal rate of return for GBDC shareholders to 9.6% over fifteen years.

Adjusted net income per share included 5¢ per share of adjusted net realized and unrealized losses, primarily unrealized losses in the small tail of underperforming borrowers that you’ve heard us speak about previously. Our new investment activity increased from prior quarters, but the overall M and A environment were being muted. And we continue to see an encouraging level of resilience across our borrowers with internal performance ratings remaining strong and generally consistent quarter over quarter. With that, I’ll pass the call over to Matt Benton to discuss the quarter in more detail.

Matt Benton, Chief Operating Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): Thanks, David. I’m gonna start on slide four. GBDC’s 39¢ per share of adjusted NII and 34¢ per share of adjusted earnings were driven by four key factors. First, overall credit performance remained solid. Nearly 90% of GBDC’s investment portfolio at fair value remains in our highest performing internal rating categories.

The 5¢ of adjusted net unrealized and realized losses were primarily related to fair value markdowns on a small number of underperforming investments, the majority of which were in equity investments in these portfolio companies. Investments on nonaccrual status remained very low at 60 basis points of the total investment portfolio at fair value. This level is well below the BDC peer industry average. Second, earnings were supported by historically high base rates and the spreads consistent with recent quarters. GBDC’s investment income yield was 10.6%, a sequential decline of about 20 basis points, primarily driven by one modestly lower base rates, mostly related to a greater mix of loans tied to lower non SOFR reference rates and, two, modest spread compression during the quarter.

Third, a decline in GBDC’s borrowing costs largely offset the sequential decline in investment income yield. The repricing of GBDC’s syndicated corporate revolver, which took effect in mid May, reduced effective borrowing costs during the quarter. And fourth, earnings benefited from lower operating expenses due to GBDC’s market leading fee structure. GBDC’s investment portfolio grew modestly quarter over quarter, an

David Golub, Chief Executive Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): increase of 4% to

Matt Benton, Chief Operating Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): just under $9,000,000,000 at fair value. The increase was the result of $557,000,000 of new investment commitments in the quarter, 411,000,000 of which funded in the quarter and net of 306,000,000 in repayments. We continue to remain highly selective and conservative in our underwriting, closing on just 3.1% of deals reviewed in the quarter at a weighted average LTV of approximately 34%. We continue to lean in on existing sponsor relationships and portfolio company and common fees for approximately half of our origination volume and delivered an uptick in deal activity with new borrowers. We continue to leverage our scale to lead deals acting as the sole or lead lender in 88% of our transactions.

We focus on the core middle market, which we believe continues to offer better risk adjusted return potential than the large borrower market. The median EBITDA for our calendar q two twenty twenty five originations is $79,000,000 We believe our ability to play across the size spectrum is a particularly valuable differentiator today versus many of our peers that are limited to the large borrower market. Continuing on slide four, let me briefly summarize distributions paid and certain balance sheet changes in the quarter. Total distributions paid in the quarter were 39¢ per share. NAV per share decreased by 4¢ on a sequential basis to $15 primarily because of net unrealized loss.

Net debt to equity increased modestly quarter over quarter ending at 1.26 turns. On average throughout the quarter, GBDC’s net leverage was 1.21 turns, within our targeted range of 0.85 to 1.25 turns. During the quarter, we opportunistically repurchased common stock on an accretive basis. GBDC’s board declared a regular quarterly distribution of $0.39 per share, representing an annualized dividend yield of 10.4% based on GBDC’s NAV per share as of 06/30/2025. I’m gonna turn it over to Chris now to take us through our financial results in more detail.

Chris? Thanks, Matt. Turning to slide seven. You can see how the earnings drivers Matt just described and distributions paid in the quarter translated into GBC’s 06/30/2025, NAV per share of $15 Adjusted NII per share of $0.39 was in line with the $0.39 per share base distribution paid out during the quarter. Adjusted net realized and unrealized losses were $05 per share and repurchases of common stock during the quarter resulted in a $0 per share of NAV accretion.

Together, these results drove a net asset value per share decrease to $15 We will turn to Slide 10, which details our origination activity for the quarter. Net funds quarter over quarter increased modestly by $340,000,000 as the combination of funded new originations and DVTL and revolver draws outpaced repayments in the quarter. Looking at the bottom of the slide, the weighted average rate on new investments was 9.2. Investments that repaid in

Chris Erickson, Chief Financial Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): the quarter were at a

Matt Benton, Chief Operating Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): weighted average rate of 9.8%. We did see some spread widening immediately after liberation day that was followed by some spread tightening over the remainder of the quarter. Slide 11 shows QVC’s overall portfolio mix. And as you can see, the portfolio breakdown by investment type remained consistent quarter over quarter with one stop loans continuing to represent around 87% of

Chris Erickson, Chief Financial Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): the portfolio at fair

Matt Benton, Chief Operating Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): value. Slide 12 shows that GVC’s portfolio remains highly diversified by portfolio company with an average investment size of approximately 20 basis points, consistent with prior quarters. Additionally, our largest borrower represents just 1.5% of the debt investment portfolio, and our top 10 largest borrowers represent below 12% of the portfolio. We are big believers in modulating credit risk through position size, which we believe has served GBDC well in previous credit cycles. And as of 06/30/2025, 92% of our investment portfolio consisted of first lien senior secured floating rate loans to borrowers across a diversified range of what we believe to be resilient industries.

The economic analysis on slide 13 highlights the drivers of GBDC’s net investment spread of 4.9%. Let’s walk through this slide in detail. We’ll start with the dark blue line, which is our investment income yield. As a reminder, the investment income yield includes the amortization of fees and discounts. GBDC’s investment income yield fell 20 basis points sequentially to 10.6%.

The decline was primarily the result of a lower weighted average spread on debt investments in the portfolio and the result of a portion of GBT’s 99% floating rate investment portfolio reindexing in the quarter to lower reference rates. Our cost of debt, the teal line, decreased 20 basis points to 5.7%, reflecting our approximately 80% floating rate debt funding structure and the partial quarter contribution of the amendment of our syndicated corporate revolver. Net net, GBDC’s weighted average net investment spread, the gold line, remained stable quarter over quarter at 4.9%. Moving on to Slide fourteen and fifteen as we take a closer look at our credit quality metrics. On slide 14, you can see that nonaccruals decreased slightly to 60 basis points of total investments at fair value.

The number of investments on nonaccrual status remained at nine. Slide 15 shows the trend in internal performance ratings. As Matt noted earlier, nearly 90% of the total investment portfolio remained in our top two internal performance rating categories. And investments rated three, signaling a borrower is or has the potential to be performing below expectations at underwriting, remain low at just 9% of the total investment portfolio. The proportion of loans rated one and two, which are the loans we believe are most likely to see significant credit impairment, remain very low at just 1.3 of the portfolio at fair value.

As we usually do, we’re going to skip past slides 16 through 19. These slides have more detail on GBDC’s financial statements, dividend history and other key metrics. I’ll wrap up this section by reviewing GBDC’s liquidity and investment capacity on slides 20 to 21. First, let’s focus on the key takeaways on slide 21. Our debt funding structure remains highly diversified and flexible.

Our debt maturity profile remains well positioned with 42% of our debt funding in the form of unsecured notes with no near term maturities. The April 2025 corporate revolver amendment further enhanced our debt maturity profile, extending final maturity on the nearly $2,000,000,000 of total commitments under the facility through 02/1930, and we expect to operate at the lowest pricing tier of 1.525 over one month over, given the level of over collateralization in the facility. And following quarter end, we elected to repay in full the outstanding notes under the GBC III 2022 debt securitization with available borrowing capacity under GBC’s corporate revolver. This action represented the final step in transitioning the post GBC III merger debt funding structure, and we expect it to result in a modest borrowing cost reduction beginning in the quarter ended ninethirtytwenty twenty five. Consistent with our asset liability matching principle, 82% of GBC’s total debt funding is floating rate or swapped to a floating rate.

The portion of the debt funding that remains fixed rate are the 2026 and 2027 notes that were issued with a weighted average coupon of 2.3%. And as you’ve heard us say on prior occasions, we did not swap them out for floating rate exposure. Overall, our liquidity position remains strong, and we ended the quarter with approximately $950,000,000 of liquidity from unrestricted cash, undrawn commitments on our corporate revolver and the unused unsecured revolver provided by our advisers. We’re well positioned with the level of capital and significant amount of liquidity for the period ahead. Now I’ll hand it back over to David for closing remarks.

David Golub, Chief Executive Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): Thanks, Chris. So to sum up, GBDC posted another quarter of good boring results. But these results happened in the quarter that, from a macro perspective, wasn’t boring at all. It saw big market swings, and it saw another example of a bad consensus forecast. You’ll recall in prior quarters, talked about how many bad consensus forecasts we’ve seen since the beginning of of COVID.

At the beginning of calendar q two, the strong consensus view was that tariff related uncertainty would be a big drag on The US economy, and it would probably result in slowing growth. But that’s not what happened. Instead, The US economy is, at least so far, demonstrated considerable resilience. So I’m now gonna offer up some observations and some predictions about the future, But I want to acknowledge in doing so that we’re in a period that’s proved very difficult for forecasters. I advised last quarter, given this, that we should all stay humble, we should all choose resilient strategies, and we should prepare for multiple scenarios.

I I think that was good advice then, and it it’s good advice now. With that context, let me touch briefly on two topics, on our outlook for credit performance and our outlook for the deal environment. First, credit performance. I expect what is already a protracted credit cycle to become even more protracted. Traditionally, credit cycles are they’re typically spiked.

Something bad happens. There’s a collapsing confidence or there’s too much inventory or there’s a geopolitical shock. And you get a spike in credit defaults where defaults rise to an unusual height and then quickly fall. That’s not what we’ve seen this credit cycle. In 2022, when we saw the dramatic increase in interest rates, a lot of smart people, including us, expected that we’d see a a sudden significant increase in defaults in response to that increase in rates, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, almost two years later, we started to see a slow increase in defaults, and we saw it across the broadly syndicated market, the high yield market, and private credit markets. And we continue to see that slow increase, sustained increase today. Defaults in the the broadly syndicated market place where the the data is reasonably clean once you factor in liability management exercises. They’ve been running at about four and a half percent for about eighteen months. That’s about two x historical average levels.

We think this elevated level of credit stress across public and private credit markets is likely to continue for a considerable period. With apologies to Tolstoy, who famously wrote that that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Every unhappy credit’s unhappy in its own way. But there are a few common themes that cover a large number of the stressed companies that we see today. Three examples.

Some haven’t grown into aggressive capital structures that were put in place in 2021. Some are on the wrong side of some changing post COVID consumer case. And for some, the adjustments in their original business plans haven’t played out the way the way that they were expected to play out. Our observation is that many of these companies have not yet gone through restructurings and fixed their balance sheets. Some have done liability management exercises, but those LMEs haven’t solved their issues.

They’ve just kicked the can. So we expect high yield, BSL, and private credit default rates to stay elevated for some time from here. We also anticipate that there will continue to be very substantial dispersion in credit manager performance. We call these winners and whiners. Some firms are gonna continue to produce really solid ROEs and some won’t.

We think this will be directly related to whether the firms have solid competitive advantages. So, accordingly, we expect the same winners to keep winning and the same whiners to keep well, you get the idea. So that’s topic one. We expect a protracted credit cycle to become even more protracted. Second topic, let me give you my view on when the muted m and a environment is gonna get less muted.

Now here, there there’s some reasons for optimism. The recent enactment of the big beautiful bill provides a significant degree of clarity on tax and spending changes. The regulatory environment is also becoming clearer. And there remains, as we’ve talked about in prior quarters, there remains very significant pressure on private equity firms to be sellers in order to make distributions to LPs and to be buyers to deploy the very significant amounts of dry powder that they’re behind schedule in deploying. So all that’s positive.

On the other hand, there’s still a lot of tariff uncertainty, and there’s still a lot of global macro issues. On balance, I expect the m and a environment to improve. I think it’s gonna improve slowly in the rest of this year and then more quickly next year. But I also wanna go back to my theme of humility. I’m I’m I’m humble about this prediction.

We’ve all been pretty consistently wrong on this. No matter whether the deal markets heat up or not, our playbook at Golub Capital is gonna remain the same as it’s been for decades. We’re gonna continue to be very proactive when we make new loans. We’re gonna continue to focus on early detection of of borrower underperformance, and we’re gonna continue to work with our sponsor friends to address problems proactively. Our approach is all about minimizing realized credit losses and being ready to play offense when opportunities arise.

With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question comes from the line of

Matt Benton, Chief Operating Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): Kelly Scheth with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Kelly Scheth, Analyst, Raymond James: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for the question. So a quick one on leverage. So this quarter, you guys ended with net leverage of 126, which is quite high by historical standards.

So is it fair to say that you’re expecting a significant wave of repayments to eventually lever down?

David Golub, Chief Executive Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): Yes and no. You’re correct that we have some repayments in the pipeline and that we think the quarter end leverage was a little bit higher than than than than if you were looking at it over time. Matt alluded to this in his comments. He alluded to the fact that average leverage over the quarter was was about 1.2. We’ve always thought about leverage as being appropriate in the context of a target range rather than being too religious on one specific point within the range, and 1.25 is is the high end of our range.

So I I I you you you indicated in your question, are we anticipating a deleveraging? No. But likewise, we’re we’re we’re not anticipating further leveraging either.

Kelly Scheth, Analyst, Raymond James: Got it. Thanks. And a quick follow-up, maybe a more philosophical question, but spreads across the floating rate markets are quite tight right now, not just with CDCs but with syndicated loan spreads as well, which tend to widen when rates go down. So with BDC’s spreads having lagged these movements by upwards of six months, do you think this lag time between liquid loan markets and BDC is going to remain the same, or is it more likely to respond more quickly going forward?

David Golub, Chief Executive Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): I’m not sure I understand your question. When you when you say BBPs have lagged, can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

Kelly Scheth, Analyst, Raymond James: Yeah. Lagging, like, loan spread movements with the syndicated loan market.

David Golub, Chief Executive Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): So you’re saying that the syndicated loan market has seen more spread compression than we’ve seen in our reported spreads on our new loans? Yeah. That was, Yeah. You’re you’re right. There I think that is that is a appropriate description of the pattern that we’ve seen.

We’ve seen quite significant spread compression in the broadly syndicated market. It’s been a pattern for some time. So if you think back to the 2022 when rates went up and the broadly syndicated market dislocated and we saw, you know, very significant spread widening, since 2023, we’ve been on a trend toward a more borrower friendly, tighter spread environment in both private credit and the broadly syndicated market. I do think you’re right that private credit spreads are a little stickier, especially middle market private spreads. But but we’ve we’ve seen significant degree of of spread compression in our markets as well, and I I I I I don’t think we’re immune to to to those trends.

I I think the right way to look at it is, especially in the core middle market as opposed to the larger market, the core middle market’s insulated but not immune from from spread trends that are happening in in in the broadly syndicated market. But the larger end of the private credit market is less insulated because BSL is a is a replacement. So, you know, we we’ve seen a number of transactions. Finaster is a good example recently where credits that were in the private credit market are being refinanced at lower spreads in the broadly syndicated market. So because of that phenomenon, the the the the larger end of the market tends to respond more quickly to changes in spreads than than the core middle market.

Kelly Scheth, Analyst, Raymond James: Got it. Thanks for the color. Appreciate it.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I’ll now turn the call back over to David Golub for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

David Golub, Chief Executive Officer, Golub Capital BDC (GBDC): Gosh. It seems the today, the the report’s so good, boring. We don’t have the usual number of questions, which is fine. Thank you all for listening. As always, if you have questions after today, please feel free to get in touch, and we look forward to being back in front of you next quarter.

Thank you.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.

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