Okay, why don't we get started. So, great to have the Blue Owl Capital Corp team with us today. Should be a very, very timely conversation just on the heels of the merger and, this week with OBDE and then everything else just kind of going on at the firm and the BDC, and even the industry more broadly. So, with me today, we have Craig Packer, CEO of OBDC. He also runs all of the firm's BDCs, and I think many on the call know this, but he's also co-president of Blue Owl, the parent, and he's also head of credit. And then we have Jonathan Lamm. He's the CFO, COO of OBDC. And then I believe also OTF and OTF II . So great to see you guys and thanks for taking the time.
You know, maybe just to start, Craig, you know, I think Owl Rock and, you know, the Blue Owl Credit business was founded about, you know, not quite, but we're getting close to the 10-year mark. So maybe just talk about the last decade, the evolution of the direct lending business. And I think OBDC was one of the first, if not the first funds raised at Owl Rock. And so maybe just talk through that evolution a little bit. You know, where the business has grown and then, you know, where it is today and kind of where we go from here.
Oh, sure. Well, Brian first, thanks for hosting this. You're right, it's very timely and it's a great opportunity for us now that we've got our merger close just this week to have everybody get refreshed. I think generally beginning of the year, you know, people are hopefully looking forward. We, you know, I'll be brief, but I'm happy to talk more about this when I look back on it. You know, we started the firm, Blue Owl, the predecessor company, Owl Rock Capital, was a direct lending business. You know, direct lending is our bread and butter. That was the core. The thesis at the time was that direct lending historically had been more of a middle market, smaller companies, smaller funds. We thought this, the opportunity set was going to grow, bigger companies, bigger sponsors, and also more capitalists had come in the space.
And we thought we had a chance to, with our relationships with sponsors, relationships with investors, our reputations in the market, we had a chance to build a scale firm. You know, when I look back on it, I mean, we've been very, very fortunate and we don't take that for granted. You know, if anything, we really underestimated just how powerful those trends were. And we were well positioned to take advantage of those trends and deliver for our investors from those trends. And the trends, what I'm talking about is, you know, OBDC was our first fund. You know, today we're, you know, call it $90 billion in direct lending.
When you have the scale to provide large solutions in direct, certain form to private companies, we are finding we're getting really attractive at risk-adjusted returns for ever-increasingly higher quality companies enabled to deliver really attractive high single-digit, low double-digit returns. The sponsors have become, you know, they prefer direct lending. What I think's really, when I look back on it, the quality of the space, I think this is the part that I just want to emphasize. People talk about the growth and the deployment and it's gotten big, but we're financing much bigger companies. And so the quality of the space, I think, is much higher and every year it gets higher and higher. The core of our business is direct lending. I'm sure we'll get into it. We have gotten into a couple other different adjacencies.
But OBDC, our first fund, OCIC, our large non-traded fund, you know, these are two of the most important products at the firm and at its core, Blue Owl is a credit business. It's still half the firm. And even though we've grown in assets, we're still a very focused firm. So anyway, take me wherever you want to go from there, but that's just a little bit of a kickoff.
Yeah, no, that's a great rundown. I mean, there's a ton that we could explore in that. Maybe some of that we'll touch on later on, but maybe just moving to OBDC specifically and you announced some preliminary results for the fourth quarter today for OBDC, OBDE. So at least from my seat, you know, things are going great at both vehicles now really one. But you look at NII and ROEs and dividend and coverage and even non-accruals and credit quality, it's just pristine. So maybe just walk through it from your seat. What really stands out? What's the biggest takeaway? And then we can kind of just go deeper after that.
First, so forgive me for doing this, but I really like our finance team. You know, did heroic work. You know, we had to get this merger done and, you know, we're putting out results here, you know, two weeks into the new year. That takes a lot of effort. And I thank our team for being able to do that, but we thought it was important in the context of all the work we were doing on the merger and having the merger closed and wanting to get some, you know, some summary information out quickly to the market post-closing the merger. Okay, you said it. We're really thrilled with the results. Obviously, we're going to have a full-sum quarterly call soon with all the detail, but really strong quarter, $0.47. In line with the third quarter, I think a penny above estimates.
The way we do it, no new non-accruals, low 12 ROEs, stable NAV. Really good results at OBDE, which is gone, but I think it's just nice to know for OBDC shareholders that the fund that's getting folded in just had a really good result and we put out some combined information. So both funds operating really well, delivering great returns. And look, the credit quality, I mean, that's the question that everybody worries about is just the credit quality. And I worry about it too. And just every quarter, we continue to put up very, very stable credit results. So just, you know, a lot of good things in the quarter. And I think it's a great backdrop, you know, with the merger now and for people to take a fresh look at the company.
Yeah. Got it. And then, you know, I think as we all know, scale is really critical in private credit and even the alts more broadly. And you look at where all the market share gains are happening, it's at the large end of the market with the largest managers with the most amount of scale. So, I mean, what is, you know, even, you know, you have OBDC at a ton of scale, part of, you know, the Blue Owl platform, but, you know, for the BDC now that it has even greater scale, like, you know, what else can you do or can you maybe just walk through from your seat, you know, why scale is so important and what you get, you know, from this transaction as well on that front.
Yeah. So I might, just to answer your question, I might go back to our investor day in 2023. Because I hope most people on the call probably followed us, you know, then and prior. You know, we had 7 BDCs. We were scale. The platform has always been scale. Yeah, but the scale has been reflected in the direct lending space by having a number of vehicles, which have, you know, very much intentional overlapping investment strategies. Now, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to overstate this. We manage them together. We allocate them together. The teams are together. But I think there are some inefficiencies, particularly in how we face investors by having these multiple funds. And those investors can be equity investors, but it could be lenders. It could be rating agencies. It could be, you know, vendors.
It could be, you know, everything is just a little bifurcated. And, you know, we have found that we can attract more capital in the space by offering different wrappers at different periods of time. That's why we had OBDE to begin with. OBDE delivered great results for its investors. But going forward, having it as part of OBDC and one bigger entity, I think it creates more trading liquidity in the stock. I think it creates more, you know, more focus from the investor community, the analyst community. I think it creates greater focus from the liability side for our bondholders who, you know, have a lot of tickers to follow, lenders. You know, we will be able to have the portfolio be more diversified because it's bigger now. We'll have more names, top 20, 25 positions. It'll be a smaller percentage.
We can invest in some of the other alpha-generating joint ventures and the like that we didn't quite have capacity for. So I think that the scale and continued scale is the name of the game in direct lending. And we had scale before, but we have even more scale now. And so I think that those are some of the factors. And there's some expense, you know, some of the more mundane expense ratios and the like. But I think it's just also how the simplicity and clarity and size, you know, I think hopefully it's clear OBDC is if you're paying at all attention to BDCs, you need to pay attention to OBDC and this just underscores that.
Yeah. Yeah, especially at sometimes sub-1x book value, which maybe we'll get into later. But that's helpful. And, you know, I guess, you know, in terms of some of the financial impacts and, you know, you touched on some of the strategic benefits and the rationale, but, you know, ROEs and even in, you know, the pre-announcement this morning, you know, they're well into the double digits for both. And so, you know, is there any way to quantify what the merger can do in terms of the accretion to the ROE and then even bigger picture, you know, how are you thinking about the ROE through the cycle? And I think there's a lot of focus in the market right now on lower base rates and what that means for NII returns and even part one, you know, Part I fees back up to the advisor, Blue Owl, etc.
You know, you can kind of run the math on the portfolio today, but there's also other offsets. I think what you guys have demonstrated, you can deliver 10%+ ROEs through the cycle and, you know, maybe it's even a little bit above that now with E within C, but I would just love to get your thoughts there.
Jonathan, do you want to take a first break?
Sure. So I mean, look, a lot of the themes that Craig hit on really in the scale discussion are really what drive, and you've sort of hit on a lot of the ROE benefits. You know, on the top line, you know, Craig referenced, obviously, some of the things that we can do around some of the strategic equity investments, incremental capacity there. So there are things to do there. But when it comes to the ROE drivers in terms of the real impact, it's going to be much more on the expense side. It will be on the financing side. And I think the financings, it's twofold. One, literally every time we go and do a bond deal, we spend an enormous amount of time with our bond investors explaining the complexity of the structure.
Yeah, and it's just something that they feel like they need to get paid for because of the complexity of the structure. We've seen it in observation that our bond spreads have just been wider because of it. There's a demand for it and there's deals. We feel like there's real benefit in the context of these mergers. Obviously, you know, we're not all the way there, but we've got tech out there and you've got two issuing entities there that are going to come down to one issuing entity. So there, you know, we have felt 10-20 basis points of compression is certainly a possibility in the context of that simplification. I think the other thing that sort of gets overlooked a little bit on the financing side is that we just have so many line items of financing.
Yeah, the costs and the operational costs associated with those line items, they add up. And when you merge two entities together, you have the ability to bring together facilities over time, again, and reduce cost and expense out of that. And you can do that both on the unsecured side as well as on the secured side. We have many CLOs. Both capital structures were built out very appropriately, but when you bring them together, there's scale and there's real savings there. I mean, we've also talked about the operational expense efficiencies and Craig mentioned them. When you have a single entity, you're just going to get benefits in the context of anything that is a fixed cost. It's not based on assets. You're going to see scale. You're going to see benefits there. So all of those things could drive growth in ROE.
We think it's not huge, but it's not nothing. Now where our ROEs are, again, we're in that nice low double digit ROEs and we enjoy that. But you've mentioned and sort of dovetailing and moving to your next question, which is trajectory. At the end of the day, rates make an enormous, have an enormous impact on things. You can do the math. The math is very simple. We're a floating rate. We're a floating rate asset entity and therefore it's going to impact. And you can run the math to see that returns come down to the high single digits when rates move to not what today's forward curve says, but what, like, you know, two weeks ago or a month ago, that, you know, what that forward curve says. So I think that that's going to really be the significant driver.
But on the margin, we're definitely going to be able to drive meaningful ROE benefits. And when absolute numbers are lower because rates are lower, certainly these synergies in OpEx and financing have much more of an impact on a percentage basis.
Yeah. Got it.
Well, and maybe just to underscore, Jonathan covered it, but just to underscore from my perspective, I'm quite energized about the merger being completed. You know, I think that it will give us that much more time to focus on OBDC. Yeah, I think the liability side is low-hanging fruit. It's all execution, both efficiency and how the market will see us. I'm enthusiastic on the asset side. We can be more diversified. I'd like to invest some additional capital in some of our creative joint ventures. We have, you know, more capacity now because OBDE was not in those entities. I think that we can continue to try to optimize our asset mix. And so we're going to, we're very focused on, I think our ROE is very healthy, but I think we're very focused now on grinding it higher as a result of this merger.
Last point I make on rates, you know, they may not go down. Yeah, they may not go down. Look, the thing that's great about BDCs is you don't have to bet, you're not betting on rates. Right? I mean, the ROE is all going to be relative to the base rates. If you, you know, everything's going to look more attractive, it's all relative. And I think we continue to be a strong performing ROE fund.
Yeah. Got it. And then just in terms of like the timeline around remixing some of the assets, as you mentioned, and also even just on the liability side, are we, is it a few quarters? Is it a couple of years? Like, is there any way to think through the timeline there and how that all comes together?
I mean, Jonathan should weigh in. I mean, look, we're not going to do anything rash. I think that I think this is something that gets phased in over the next, you know, 12 to 18 months. I mean, it's, you know, we're not going to, you know, we're going to take the, we're going to do whatever we can quickly. Some of the liability stuff just takes time. The asset side, you know, as opportunities present themselves, it takes time. So I think it's more of a direction and travel. We're not going to, you know, do something where we look dramatically different in 6 months.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. You know, there will be some opportunities in the near term and then stuff will happen. Yeah, sort of evolve. On the secured side, we have, you know, we have final maturity days, but we also have recently to reinvestment periods. Those are natural times, you know, you know, in order to combine facilities, bring things together, create those efficiencies. And on the unsecured side, I mean, you see, we have, there are more maturities that are coming in the next couple of years. So there will be opportunities there.
Yeah. Okay. All right. That's great. And then, you know, maybe just one quick one, Capital Corp II , I know it's fairly small. And I don't know how much more you can say, but you know, what's the plan there? I'm assuming that will probably come up into OBDE at some point, but you know, any just updated thoughts on that?
Nothing concrete to say. You know, an investor day, we said it'd be great to get from 7 to 4. We're now at 6. We've announced the plan is to merge tech. That'll get us to 5. And you know, and certainly OBDC II is on the list. Look, I think we were hopefully, I know we can come on to this. I think we were really thoughtful and careful and deliberate about how we managed E. And we'll be equally thoughtful and careful about how we manage 2. There's no emergency to it, but it would make sense under the right conditions.
Yeah. Okay. That's great. Maybe just moving a little bit here, kind of just, you know, you had some good detail in the presentation today and then the release, but you know, just the pro forma portfolio and even the credit quality. And I think to me, that is probably one of the biggest takeaways is, you know, really OBDE's credit quality is almost perfect. And even OBDC's to start was terrific. And you know, a little bit of that is mixed. There's more, you know, first liens in E, but you know, maybe just talk about the pro forma kind of portfolio here. Sector exposure, it's pretty well diversified. And then, you know, really, you know, what's driving such strong underlying performance and really, you know, the pristine credit quality. And to your point, it remains front and center.
You know, when are we going to start to see, you know, the cracks and the blowups, especially in private credit direct lending, you know, software financing, you know, et cetera, et cetera. You know, it kind of goes on and on. But like from your seat, you know, what's driving this and what?
So if folks have the deck, at least the page number I have is 13, is a good summary page if folks are listening and just want to stare at something. You know, but it shows the combo. But yes, I mean, you, thank you. Oh, it was a very nice question yet. But E has been pristine. Okay. Part of that's vintage. E was a more recent vintage. And so C's had terrific credit performance, but E is a little more, a little earlier vintage. E was also more, much more first lien in orientation. And so on a combined basis, you know, $17+ billion of investments, 236 portfolio companies, average position size 0.4%. First, you know, for almost all, for mostly first lien. The sectors are the same, you know, 78% first lien. So that's, you know, it's very close to a high watermark for OBDC.
Sectors are the same that everyone, you know, the same software, insurance, food and beverage, healthcare. Why does the performance continue to be really strong? Look, our mission, you know, is what we do. Like really careful credit selection, upper middle market, sponsor-backed, first lien, 40% loan-to-value. Yeah, we have a very high bar for our portfolios. We're not a firm that's trying to just price out risk. We're trying to, we want everything we put in the portfolio, we want to have very high expectation to get all of our money back and get our interest. And that's the bar. And we work really hard, even in our, when we do have some stress, we do, we work really hard to get to have that same outcome. Or in the very few circumstances where there's non-accruals, to have really high recoveries. We've had very few non-accruals.
We've had very good recoveries. I think that, why is that going to continue? While the U.S. economy has continued to do well, that certainly helps. I think the expectation this year, you know, is new administration, very focused on economic growth. So I think we'll have wind at our back there. I don't, you know, software, I love, I love having our biggest sector be software. I don't, you know, sometimes clients will ask, I don't spend one second at night worrying about software. Like software is, you know, we'd take more of it if we could find good opportunities and we have a, we obviously have two, three dedicated funds in software. These perform very, very, very well. You know, there are areas of the portfolio that are, you know, a little higher concern. We have a couple of names facing the consumer.
We have a couple of names that, you know, they've done acquisitions and maybe the acquisition growth is a little slower. But no thematic. The thematic is continued low single-digit, you know, kind of growth and good credit performance. I think one of the things, you know, I always like to say, and I'm not just saying this, we don't have to be perfect. I think that, you know, you're right. People are, private credit's grown a lot and there's, you know, people, oh, when are the cracks coming? When are the cracks coming? We underwrite expecting some few credit issues. You don't have to invest in us thinking if you see one name have a problem, that that means that there's a problem. Because we're a first-lien lender, even when we have problems, we should get very high recoveries, $0.70-$0.80 recoveries.
And that's the difference between us and the equity holders that get wiped out. And that's how we approach it. And that's what generates really good returns. You can't have, you can't have a number of credit problems and have low recoveries. Your returns will blow up. And that's what our team does. And I just want to hit this diversification point again. Because again, I, many, some on this call were probably here in 2016 and 2017 and I met with you and you're like, well, you're too concentrated. You know, I'm like, well, we just started. Of course, we're concentrated. You know, but now we're down to, you know, our top, you know, 25 investments, you know, 40% of the portfolio, the top 15, 29%. Like these are the lowest statistics in our history. And that diversification, I love that.
Like we're going to keep making it more diversified, you know, one of the best ways. That's why being part of Blue Owl is so important. Because we can be scale, we can write really big checks, but not have to be chunky in any one fund. We can spread it for our non-tradeds.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's super helpful. And then, you know, it's probably tough to say today, but you know, I think there's also some focus on the new administration and, you know, the agenda there and if there's this massive pullback in government spending or services, whatever it may be, is there any potential issues there? So, I mean, how are you thinking about, you know, the new administration? We'll see what happens with the agenda and any maybe second or third derivatives off of that or knock-on effects to the portfolio specifically. Might be too early.
Yeah. I mean, look, the sentiment is certainly very strong that, you know, the new administration, very committed to economic growth, very committed to deregulation, very committed to the markets. Generally, those are going to be things that are going to favor us and favor our companies. We, you know, we did do a review of the portfolio to see if there's any particular exposures. Yeah. We have a few businesses that have some exposure to government, you know, government spending, but nothing really, you know, nothing really jumped out at us. I'm sure there'll be some unanticipated things. There always are. Tariffs, obviously, you know, we've been through an administration, you know, previously had tariffs. And so, but we're just not. I think it's the new administration generally. I'm viewing as a positive with respect to our portfolio and hopefully realizing on the potential there.
We'll keep watching to see if anything unexpected comes out. Unexpected things always come out related to the new administration or others, but nothing generally. I think it's going to be wind at our back.
Yeah. Okay. That's helpful. Maybe, you know, thinking through the dividend here, you know, coverage at, at least base dividend coverage at OBDC has really been, you know, top of the list in the industry. I think, you know, 125%-130%. And OBDE, I think even in Fortune looked, you know, I think north of 120% on a base dividend basis. So the dividend coverage is terrific there. You're paying out some of that excess through the special. But, you know, any updated thoughts on the dividend and, you know, with some of the synergies and the creative nature of the transaction, I mean, is there an opportunity to raise the base dividend? Is that maybe, you know, or you just keep it where it is and then, you know, whatever, you know, is in excess of that, you'll pay out the majority of it?
I'm just trying to think through kind of where the dividend can go longer term.
It's so funny because here we are talking about where rates are expected to be versus where people thought rates were going and now suddenly we're talking about raising base dividends. Look, we've raised our base dividend three times now in the last two years. Yeah. And then we implemented the supplemental. We definitely were always confused as to why the market does not give credit for the supplemental. It's cash. We all like cash in our pocket. We know that we're getting it. There's a very defined way that it is, you know, that it is provided. And we certainly like that structure. We're happy with our dividend coverage. We like our dividend coverage levels to be toward the higher end.
We know that there's a little bit of an asymmetric treatment on dividend cuts and all of that, even though you've got this floating rate, floating rate and floating earning company that's expected to have a fixed dividend. So we never take it off the table. You know, we did two quarters in a row about a year ago of dividend increases or a couple of quarters in a, you know, maybe I think it was two out of three or two in a row. Yeah. Never take it off the table, but we like the supplemental. You know, right now, you could see we just put up $0.47. So that pays out half of it. We have built a nice amount of spillover. Yeah. But it's not, we're not at a point where we have to pay it out, but certainly there's cushion there and there's optionality there.
So we'll evaluate it, but you know, just given the volatility and rates and all that, it's certainly not a here and now type of thing, you know, certainly on the base. And we like the fact that we're getting dollars back into shareholders' pockets through the supplemental in a very efficient manner.
Yeah. Got it. That's helpful. And then, you know, maybe just talking about the stock quickly. And I know, you know, the transaction closed Monday. So, you know, the conversion to C shares, I think, are kind of hitting people's accounts the last day or so. And there's been, you know, I think the last day or two, maybe there's been a little bit of incremental selling, but I mean, we'll see how the next several days and maybe even weeks progress in terms of selling. But, you know, what are you thinking in terms of the buyback? You know, even sub-book value, you know, I think that's great value. I think you guys think the same as well.
But I mean, does there come a point where you maybe, you know, allocate a little bit of, you know, incremental capital into buybacks just to put a little bit of a floor in the stock?
Look, we'll see. I mean, we're very close to book value. So, you know, I think we're very attractively priced at 0.98, but it's not like we're 0.92 where it's... So it's something we'd look at. Look, maybe, I know you probably touched on this, but maybe now's a good time to hit it. I totally understand why when we announced the merger, you know, that raised concern about where the stock might trade. You know, because other BDC mergers haven't always traded well. And so I understood the caution. We had felt that ours would be different. And we, you know, not just hoped, we thought it would. And the reason for that is OBDC had been a strong performing fund, drove over in great returns. And it's primarily institutional investors, you know, who in our communications have a long-term view.
And other BDC mergers, and I'm not trying to speak ill of other transactions, but I think that wasn't the case in some of the other mergers. You had performance issues or you had, you know, a different investor base that, you know, kind of needed that liquidity bid. And so we felt that this would, that there was a good potential that we would perform technically very different. But we were deliberate about it. We didn't want to just bet that. And that's why we listed it and that's why we staged the shares coming off lockup. What we have seen is, you know, while E traded a discount to C, you know, that E's actually traded, you know, just fine. And most of the investors have been very happy to continue to hold the stock. And our discussion with them, that's what they're telling us.
Now, they can, you know, they have to do that. I don't want to promise it, but that's what they're telling us. And so I think even in the first days here where shares are coming into account, I think that's what you're seeing. You're seeing, you know, people are happy to hold the stock. And so I know that there was skepticism on this. You know, I think that OBDC, you know this, OBDC is trading at a meaningful discount to high-quality peers. You know, I appreciate the skepticism, but we're hopeful if what we are being told is true and these investors are long-term in orientation, happy on the stock, that at some point, sooner rather than later, people will stop, no longer be concerned about the technical and see it as an opportunity. You know, you're going to wake up.
Again, you know, my lawyers are like, I can't predict this, but there's a scenario where you're going to wake up and say, oh, it's above book value. I mean, we've been above book value before. You know, nobody gets, you don't get like, you know, the tap on the shoulder. It's going up, but it's, you know, the factors are in place. We have, it is an institutional investor base. OBDC trades, you know, the discount to its peers, just put up great performance. And I think it were, you know, merits a look. We had worked through some of the technical issues at OBDC previously. We, you know, a lot of shares had traded out. I think this is kind of the last piece is getting the merger actually closed and announced.
I'm hopeful that that's how people will look at it.
Yeah. Got it. And you know, I was even going to ask you, and you know, maybe it's a better question for you guys to ask, but you know, really in your seat, why has C traded at such a discount to really ARCC and BXSL? I mean, those are really the two at, kind of call it 115 today. And it sounds like you think most of it is technical. And I agree. I mean, if you look at the underlying fundamentals, they're, you know, arguably better, if not quite similar. And so, you know, what are you focusing on, I guess, moving forward?
You know, I think getting the deal done, getting the merger completed, and then, you know, moving forward, like, is it just continued execution and head down, you know, regular way blocking and tackling, and at some point, you know, the market will wake up and kind of see the disconnect? Or I'm just curious, you know, kind of what you're trying to do moving forward to close that gap.
Look, I, from my perspective, I kind of keep going back to investor day. You know, if folks went to the investor day, we went, we did a number of things. We told the story. We increased the dividend. We did a buyback. Employees bought shares. That was a really, I mean, those were really good entry points. We felt at the time it was primarily technical. And the stock performed very well over the year or so after that. And so from my standpoint, it was technical and that had washed through and the fundamentals prevailed. But then we announced the merger and the merger introduced a new, different technical factor. And now that is over. And so yes, I mean, we're, I don't want to seem like we're complacent.
We want to take advantage of our scale on the liability side, optimizing the portfolio, continue to grind the ROE higher. But I think our fundamentals, as I think you're acknowledging, are very comparable. There's no reason for us. So I think it remains technical, but I understand it. And I think for investors that are listening that didn't want to go through the brain damage of thinking about it, you don't need to think about it anymore. It's done. It's in the rearview mirror. And that's to look at it fresh. And let's see over the next, I mean, you tell me better. I won't try to force a timetable, but whatever timetable in your mind, that's terrific. How much time does it take for you to be convinced that the technicals are out? And whatever that is, you know, put a little reminder on your phone.
And when it's over, I just say at that point, you know, can we agree that it's no longer technical? Because I think that's, and you know, again, some of the analysts, they took a wait-and-see approach, but they did it in a very complimentary way. So I think that at some point, the fundamentals will win out. They did post our investor day. I think they will here. And I actually think it'll be sooner than previously thought because I think it's already showing itself in the volume and activity in the stock.
Yeah. Okay. That's great. And then even, you know, I think the stock gets there, but some of the peers that trade decently above book, you know, they're active on the ATMs and they're able to kind of lean in and growth, lean in on growth kind of year in and year out. And so assuming stock starts trading better, you're consistently above book, like how are you thinking about growth of OBDC, the utilization of the ATM, and just essentially raising additional equity capital to be levered and ultimately invested kind of back into the market? Like how should we think about that? Is it?
Look, we want it. We're well aware of what some folks have done there and they've done a really nice job with it and it seems like that's gone very smoothly. We want to avail ourselves of all the tools. It hasn't been a front burner issue given where we've traded. It hasn't been something that we had to really be focused on. But given what I just said about where we hope it gets to, I think it's something that can be part of the conversation. And certainly, you know, certainly something that we would, you know, want to discuss with our board, at least to put ourselves in a position where we can take advantage of it. I think it would make a lot of sense. But again, we are scale and we would want to be really good stewards about doing that.
You know, we're not trying to crawl above book value for 10 minutes and, you know, try to take advantage of the ATM. So we'll be deliberate about it as we always are, but I think it's something we haven't had in our toolkit that we probably should have.
Okay. All right. That's great. Maybe shifting gears a little bit or expanding the conversation a little bit. You know, the broader Blue Owl platform, it's been a busy 12 months or so on the strategic M&A front. You know, that's been getting a lot of focus in the market broadly, especially for OWL. But you acquired Atalaya, a great alternative credit business. You know, I've been in the team, I've been at it for a couple of decades now. You know, so what is like having that business? Yeah, they're not the same underlying assets, but there probably are opportunities to maybe put some of those assets into OBDC or even just the deal flow. So I'd love to just get your thoughts on what that acquisition does for OBDC, all the BDCs in the broader credit platform.
Yeah. So, you know, so for folks that haven't looked at it, Atalaya is an alternative credit provider. So that is an umbrella term for a number of lending strategies, many of which are asset-based in some way, shape, or form. It could be buying or lending to portfolios of consumer loans, commercial loans, equipment finance, NAV loans, sublines, you know, a variety of lending strategies. What it's not is it's not sponsor-backed cash flow lending, which is what we've been doing. So it's distinctive. You know, it's a growth area. A lot of the trends that we saw in direct lending 10 years ago, we'd see in the alternative credit space today, a lot of that interest from clients in that asset class. So we think we're going to be able to scale the ROI business, the alternative credit business. It's integrated very smoothly.
I work very closely with Ivan and the team. They're terrific. They're very much, you know, wearing the Blue Owl jerseys already. I'm excited about that. But to answer your question, we now have access to 65 investment professionals sourcing, you know, billions of dollars of assets, most of which will not be appropriate for our BDCs, but there are going to be opportunities that can be invested across the platform generally. We are not going to change our stripes. We are not going to change our strategy. There are investments in our alternative credit business that have the consistent, predictable cash flows that are similar to our direct lending strategy. And if they can offer, you know, creative returns, you know, we can benefit from our team's differentiated sourcing and underwriting and structuring. We will do that.
Yeah, but a lot of what they do is really attractive returns, but it's a different type of risk and we're not going to put that in. So we're going to be, I don't, it's not going to change the face of OBDC, but it's going to widen the funnel. And it's going to, on the margin, give us more opportunities for attractive investing. It also makes us just that much more a better call from private equity firms, from companies. Think of the technology area. Part of what the alternative credit business does is there are a lot of fintech companies that are sourcing loans, but don't have balance sheet. Historically, they would go to Wall Street to securitize those loans.
Part of what our alternative credit business can do, just like our direct lending business can do, is go to those generators of assets and say, you don't need to securitize it. We can buy that portfolio or we can make a loan against that portfolio, capture better economics and structure. Underlying those assets are high-quality loans with very predictable performance characteristics that generate income and payments. And so, you know, the kind of, if I can say it this way, lower-risk part of the alternative credit business, I think, can be a nice, a creative addition to our portfolio in the direct lending space.
Yeah. All right. That's great. And kind of, you know, related to the alternative credit theme, and yeah, I think if you look at, you know, I think everyone talks about private credit today, but you know, really historically, it's just been for the most part direct lending, right? And so the last decade really has been the evolution of direct lending. And so I think if you look over the next 5-10 years, this whole alternative credit, asset-based finance, asset-based lending is really, I think, going to accelerate and probably is the biggest growth driver in the industry. But you know, I guess, you know, how do you see it evolving from here, just kind of bigger picture across the industry? And really just given your experience and, you know, direct exposure, you know, within the direct lending side, you know, the last decade.
Just trying to, you know, think through where this goes from here.
Look, as you know, as I was saying, I think we see a lot of similar themes, which is there are large pools of assets that historically have had to be intermediated. Yeah. And the real story here, people talk about private credit versus the public markets. I think of it as direct versus syndicated. Yeah. The value add that we offer or our large peers is if you're a borrower or an owner of assets, we can give you privacy, certainty, customization, scale, and be a reliable partner in all market environments. That's what direct lending, that's what just, you know, people have come to realize. And alternative credit, the reason why it's so exciting is, similarly, before you just had to do is go through a securitization market to get scale. You just couldn't do it $ billions at a time.
Atalaya is a wonderful business, but it's $10 billion in assets. Yeah. We think as part of Blue Owl, we can grow that business like pretty meaningfully. And that by doing so, we can offer bigger solutions to their counterparties and you get that same benefit, which is the asset class grows and the quality grows because you're offering bigger solutions. Yeah. Look, our peers, you know, and they deserve, you know, lots of credit for this. They're, you know, they're in the space and they're talking about these markets in trillions. Yeah. You know, at Blue Owl, we don't need trillions. Like we have a $10 billion alternative credit business that if we can just do a really good job with some raising some additional pools of capital and deploying it, you know, we can grow it exponentially, whether the market is a trillion or 10 trillion.
You know, we're not at the point where that distinction is going to make a difference. These are high-asset classes. Yeah. But I think this is, I want to keep coming back to it because I think, again, I've been in these markets a long time and I think there can be a little bit, it's the ability to provide a direct solution. Yeah. In scale, that is the difference maker. And now we didn't have that before. We have it. Last thing I'd say, just again, you know, I know we're jumping back and forth between OBDC and Blue Owl. And I'm sure my compliance people are going to be really upset with me later. But the, we also acquired a business in the insurance space, Kuvare Asset Management. And that's an important piece to this. We didn't have that. We didn't have insurance capital before. It's investment-grade nature.
It's a lower price point. But by marrying up the insurance space, which is acquiring many of the same assets, they're just doing it at a lower risk profile. You can combine the insurance and the alternative credit. And that's what provides the scale. And so it's important for those who follow Blue Owl. It's not just having the alternative credit business. It's having the insurance piece alongside it. Again, some of our peers have done a really nice job with this. Different people have approached it different ways. But this theme is a powerful one.
Yeah. All right. That's great. Well, I guess I'll try and leave it there for the OWL specific questions. But you know, I guess sticking with the macro a little bit in the industry, and I think as spreads have come in quite a bit the last year, you know, we've been getting some questions from the market. It's like, you know, is the, you know, does the excess spread and the excess yield and return that the alts have delivered or private credit has delivered to date, you know, does that, you know, start to deteriorate over time? And I think as spreads continue to go lower, you know, some folks will say like, "Oh yeah, see, you have excess spread and the excess return is going down." So I mean, how do you think about excess spread, excess yield?
I think you touched on this a little bit in terms of the solution that you bring to borrowers. I guess what would your rebuttal be to, you know, a statement like that?
Yeah. I think anybody who's in the markets and compares the markets knows that the alternative space is still getting a premium. Spreads are lower, but spreads in every market is lower. Talk to folks in the Broadly Syndicated Loan market about where spreads are. They've gotten crushed on spreads. Talk to IG. They've gotten crushed on spreads. All the market spreads have tightened. We still get a premium, but it's all relative.
Sure.
You know, single-B loans are getting done in the low 300s. So our, you know, our unitranche's pricing, it used to be 600. I love 600, but we can't get 600 when the syndicated markets are 300. We're getting 475-500. That's still a really big premium. And we're getting underwriting fees. The alternative space continues to get a significant premium. It's going to move up. The actual spread is going to move up and down based on where the markets are. We don't operate in a vacuum. Base rates are also staying high. And so the absolute return is very good. I also think that there's a heavy cyclical component to this. I mean, if again, if anybody who observes the CLO market, the entire CLO market repriced last year, the $1.5 trillion repriced, that impacted our spreads. That's not going to happen again.
At some point, if that market reverses, then everything will widen a bit. You know, and this happens in a very, it's unpredictably predictable. You know, this happens every few years and it'll happen again. If we get even a modest pickup in M&A, which I think most people expect, and you get just a less frothy BSL market, it's going to help direct lending spreads. I will tell you this in the last comment I make. The investors get this. You know, there's a lot of appetite for the funds. They get this. The returns are attractive. We continue to be able to generate, you know, really attractive ROEs, even with the tighter spread environment. So I think it's all working, but you have to, it's all relative.
Yeah, of course. And I feel like we kind of, it's been this perfect storm, if you will, in terms of, you know, how tight spreads have gone and the dynamics that you had stated. And I think everyone's been hoping and thinking this recovery and sponsor M&As, you know, I think a lot of people thought maybe that inflection recovery was last year and, you know, here we are to start 2025 and we're still hopeful it's that. So I mean, I guess like, what's your view about, you know, why is it taking so long for sponsors to come back to the market? You know, I think on paper, you know, I think you could say they should really be active with markets where they are, where borrowing costs are, where spreads are.
You know, maybe it has to, you know, maybe it comes down to the underlying assets that they own and where they're marked. But I'd love to just get your perspective on what's been driving the, you know, the lack of deal flow and even just your outlook for 2025.
Yeah. Okay. A year ago, I would have said I expected to pick up and I was wrong. So I don't want to overstate my ability to see the future. Look, I think there's some inexorable forces that will eventually result in more M&A. The private equity firms, the LPs badly would like to get some capital back. Yeah, the private equity firms would badly like to exit. I talk to private equity firms all the time. They all have several companies that they're eager to sell and they've generated, and they think they've generated great returns. You know, I think at the risk of oversimplifying it, I think as rates went up and just generally, you know, the market environment we were in, the sponsors were not confident they could exit at the values they thought they deserved. And they were willing to be patient, stubborn about exiting.
But that can't go on forever. And I think they don't want it to go on forever. They would prefer. So at some point, the pendulum will swing. It's just about can they exit it at the returns? And they felt like, you know, with rates higher, maybe they need a little higher valuation and they want to wait a little bit more on performance. But again, with the company's doing as well as they are, you know, I think you'll see some of that. So I'd be surprised if we don't see some pickup in M&A this year. You know, whether it's a boom year, I mean, you've got a lot of, all the factors are in place to see that happen.
Yeah. I got it. Okay. And you know, maybe on, you know, you talked a lot about sponsors and I think, you know, you focus on the upper middle markets, sponsor-backed. I mean, so many in the industry are talking about the non-sponsor opportunity. Yeah, I'd love to just get your quick thoughts on what you think the opportunity is there, what the exposure is even at in OBDC on that front, you know, etc.
I mean, we've always done some non-sponsor deals, even though we're primarily a sponsor shop for folks that follow us, Associa, one of our single largest investments. There's no sponsor involved there. And you know, at any one point in time, probably, you know, sort of 10% of the portfolio is non-sponsor. You know, the challenge with non-sponsor, they tend to be family or founder-owned businesses. You don't have some of the same governance or the ability to support the company when there's a challenge. So our bar is high because of that and we want businesses like Associa that are very predictable and scale. And so when we find them, we'll do them. It's hard to do it in scale.
I mean, it's hard to do it in real scale because it's maybe obvious, but it's just hard to deploy a lot of capital in non-sponsored, which is idiosyncratic and episodic in nature. It's just hard to do in scale. Most of the large BDCs are primarily sponsored. So we're open to doing it and we have folks that spend all their time talking to family offices or talking to founder-owned businesses. And you know, we're open to doing it. But it's, you know, it's hard to do it in the kind of scale that we're talking about here.
Yeah. Got it. Okay. That's helpful. I know we're getting close to the hour, so maybe just a couple to wrap. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, you guys are credit investors, right? So, and I think you think about the world and like worst-case scenario or downside risk, but I mean, you look at 2025 and it's still early. There's a lot of variables. Things could change. We'll see what happens in D.C. But you know, anything you're paying attention to or any potential surprises, you know, that we could see throughout the year, positive or negative?
Look, I'll try to give you an honest answer. We spend our time, when people that wouldn't lay awake at night, I worry, it's the idiosyncratic credit risk. The macro environment, I think, is a pretty good one. I think that, you know, we certainly have names on a watchlist, even the problems we've worked through. But we spend a lot of energy, you spend a disproportionate amount of energy on the, you know, the 3%-5% of the portfolio that's just, you know, the most challenged. And some of these companies, certainly, you know, with higher rates now for a couple of years, you know, it's tight. The sponsors are saying to support them, but there's a lot of energy that goes into those and just keeping them in good stead. You know, beyond that, I think it's going to be a good macro environment.
I think that, you know, rates, you know, we've covered the gamut. Are they going to go up? You know, go up, go down. You know, I think if rates stayed right here, that would be a good, it kind of landed a good place for direct lending. Yeah. You know, look, I certainly know there are those out there that are worried a little bit about, hey, if you're doing a lot, you know, the government, a lot of stimulus and what's that going to do for rate? Could rates, you know, could there be some, you know, government deficit crisis or spike or whatever? You know, so those are, you know, the, yeah, we're a bottoms-up investor. We're not a hedge fund. I always find it helpful, at least for myself, to remind me of the basics. We have 236 portfolio companies.
The loans are, you know, a weighted average life of 4.5 years or so. You know, that's past the next administration. You know, as long as these companies continue to pay us their interest and principal, you know, and we're a floating rate lender, we're going to deliver great returns for our clients. I try not to get too caught up in the top-down because it's just not, it's sort of not, we can't control it and it doesn't, we really don't try to bet on where we are in the economic cycle. It's why I love software, you know, and it's why we stick to the parts that we think are going to stay very stable. I know these are maybe kind of basic answers, but that this is, you know, how I think about it.
I think, you know, for those that are more anxious about the world, you know, personally, floating rate debt is a defensive place to be if you're more anxious about the world.
Yeah. Got it. Okay. Great. And then last one, maybe more of a governance question. I don't think you're, you know, leaving your day job anytime soon. But, you know, I just, how do you think about succession planning, I guess, longer term? I know Logan's gotten elevated. He's been taking on more responsibility. He's been doing a great job. And I know you've brought in some others up kind of within the platform. But, you know, how do you just, you know, think about that kind of longer term? And really, as the evolution continues, you know, you have, you know, the right team in place and, you know, continue to just execute and do what you do. But just would love any thoughts there.
Well, I appreciate it. I'm glad you started with even expecting me to be leaving anytime soon. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. I enjoy doing it and, you know, love, love, love our team, love our company. We got a lot of exciting things ahead. But look, we have a deep bench, Logan Nicholson, you know, many of you met him. If you haven't, I'd love to get in front of him. Logan is someone that joined our team a couple of years ago who had worked with me earlier in my career, Goldman, and he named him president of several of our BDCs. But we have a deep bench, Erik Bissonnette, you know, does a great job in our technology BDCs.
You know, and there's a number of folks, our investment teams, 100 and well, when you add in Atalaya , more than 200, but the direct lending teams, 150 people at this point. And there's a lot of folks behind the scenes that, you know, that can do more and will, at the right time, have a chance to do more. So honestly, it's not a front-burner issue in my mind, but I wouldn't want, look, here's what I would say, maybe to answer it this way. Anybody that's watched us, everything we do, really thoughtful, really careful, really deliberate. Look, the listing of E and the merger with C, you know, everything. So you can bet when it comes time to things like succession, we'll be equally thoughtful and deliberate about it.
Yeah. All right. Well, just figured out to ask. But we'll leave it there. Thank you, Craig and Jonathan. Great rundown. I know this is an exciting week for you guys and I think the next chapter here has commenced. But congrats on the deal and, you know, appreciate the time and we'll definitely stay in touch. And then if investors have any follow-ups, I'm always around and, you know, happy to catch up at any point. So appreciate it, guys, and take care.
All right. Thanks, Brian.
Yeah. Take care. Bye-bye.