Solar Capital Ltd. Issues Letter to Stakeholders.
ENPNewswire-April 2, 2020--Solar Capital Ltd. Issues Letter to Stakeholders
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Release date- 01042020 - Solar Capital Ltd. (NASDAQ: SLRC) (the 'Company' or 'Solar Capital') announces today that it issued an open letter to its stakeholders regarding a business update amid the coronavirus ('COVID-19') pandemic.
We hope you and your family, friends, and colleagues remain healthy and safe during this pandemic. Our thoughts are with all of our stakeholders, including our portfolio company owners and employees, sponsors, investors, lenders, rating agencies, advisors, vendors, and the dedicated employees across Solar Capital and the Company's investment advisor, Solar Capital Partners, LLC ('SCP'), who are working from home with full business continuity.
During this time of uncertainty, we want to keep the communication channels open and provide the highest possible transparency with our stakeholders. While we are early in the process of understanding the full, potential impact that the COVID-19 pandemic may have on our business, we are providing this update to reassure our stakeholders that we believe Solar Capital is well-positioned to weather this storm.
Our management philosophy has been defined by our commitment to invest as principals, creating a meaningful economic alignment with our fellow investors. As the result of our significant SLRC share purchases since inception, and including recent purchases by all of our executive officers, our senior management team now owns approximately 7% of our outstanding common stock. Additionally, all members of the investment team have a significant percentage of their annual compensation invested in SLRC stock, many of whom have also purchased SLRC shares this year. We believe our significant ownership creates a critical alignment with our stakeholders. Moreover, our management team's recent share purchases in the face of this crisis demonstrate the team's confidence in the Company's defensive portfolio, stable funding, strong liquidity, and favorable positioning to make new investments.
During the past few years of frothy market conditions, the 'easy' path would have been to aggressively grow our portfolio through higher risk investments, and in so doing incur increased portfolio leverage. As the saying goes, 'A rising tide lifts all boats.' Instead, given our focus on long-term value creation, we maintained our underwriting and investment discipline. While no one could have predicted that this record-long economic expansion would end so abruptly and catastrophically, we have proactively managed our business to position us for an inevitable downturn.
Specifically, we undertook a multi-year initiative to build and acquire niche specialty finance and asset-based lending ('ABL') businesses, which have historically exhibited lower default and loss rates throughout business cycles compared to more traditional cash flow lending. We also migrated the Company's portfolio to predominantly first lien senior secured loans. In both our cash flow and specialty finance businesses we have remained patient and intentionally under-levered in order to preserve liquidity for a potential market dislocation when risk-adjusted returns are generally more attractive. Additionally, we have approached our funding profile and liquidity with the same conservatism, including transitioning a significant portion of our liabilities to unsecured fixed rate term debt.
Unfortunately, due to the current circumstances that are taking a horrific toll not only on our economy but on human life as well, the tide has gone out. While we expect to have stress in our portfolio given the sheer magnitude of the disruption, we feel confident in Solar Capital's future. We have spent the past decade preparing the Company to successfully navigate through rough waters such as the current environment. Below, we provide an update on our business and how it has benefited from these efforts.
Significant Liquidity
Credit Facilities and Available Capital
In February 2020, Solar Capital secured an additional $75 million commitment to the Company's primary credit facility, bringing total commitments to $620 million. As of March 27, 2020, due to positive...
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