Good afternoon, and welcome to the PennantPark Investment Corporation's first fiscal quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. The call will be open for a question-and-answer session following the speaker's remarks. If you would like to ask a question at that time, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star two on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PennantPark Investment Corporation. Mr. Penn, you may begin the conference.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to PennantPark Investment Corporation's first fiscal quarter 2022 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Richard Cheung, our Chief Financial Officer. Richard, please start off by disclosing some general conference call information and include a discussion about forward-looking statements.
Thank you, Art. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call is being recorded. Please note that this call is the property of PennantPark Investment Corporation, that any unauthorized broadcast of this call in any form is strictly prohibited. Audio replay of the call will be available by using the telephone numbers and PIN provided in our earnings press release, as well as on our website. I would like to call your attention to the customary safe harbor disclosure in our press release regarding forward-looking information. Today's conference call may also include forward-looking statements and projections, but we ask that you refer to our most recent filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these projections. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements unless required by law.
To obtain copies of our latest SEC filings, please visit our website at pennantpark.com, or call us at 212-905-1000. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Art Penn.
Thanks, Richard. I'm going to spend a few minutes discussing how we fared in the quarter ended December 31st, how the portfolio is positioned for the upcoming quarters, our capital structure and liquidity, the financials, and then open it up for Q&A. We are pleased with our performance this past quarter. Due to this performance and the successful execution of our equity rotation program, we are pleased to announce a three-part plan to increase long-term shareholder value. Number one, an increase in our quarterly dividend by 17% to $0.14 per share per quarter, up from $0.12, starting this quarter ended March 31st. We anticipate using up to $25 million of the proceeds from the exit of Pivot to engage in a stock buyback program over the next 12 months. Number three, an increase in our investment in our PSLF JV with Pantheon, which will enhance NII over time.
Now to review the results which support this plan. For the quarter ended December 31st, net investment income was $0.19 per share, including $0.02 per share of other income. We achieved a 2.7% increase in NAV. NAV went up $0.27 per share from $9.85 to $10.11 per share. We are particularly pleased that our NAV as of December 31st, 2021, is up 15% from what it was pre-COVID on December 31st, 2019. As part of the filing of our 10-Q, you will see a substantial increase in the value of our investment in Pivot Physical Therapy or PT Network. It's been in the press that Pivot is being sold to Athletico Physical Therapy.
This transaction is expected to close in the next few weeks. We will generate approximately $160 million of cash proceeds on our $18 million common and preferred stock investments in Pivot. We will also receive $73 million from the redemption of our second lien investment. We believe in the combination of Athletico and Pivot and will invest $10 million of equity in the company. Over the last couple years, we've been targeting a reduction of the equity portion of our portfolio and using cash proceeds to invest in loans to increase net investment income. At its peak, equity was 36% of the portfolio on March 31st, 2021. Pro forma for the exit of Pivot, the percentage of our portfolio that will be equity will be down to 20%. Our long-term target continues to be 10%.
The exits are a combination of investments from our successful equity co-investment program, such as Wheel Pros, Walker Edison, DecoPac, WDB, Summit, and Jupiter, as well as the successful outcomes of restructuring such as Pivot. Including the $160 million from the Pivot exit, equity proceeds since the peak on March 31, 2021, will equal approximately $225 million. As part of our business model, alongside the debt investments we make, we selectively choose to co-invest in the equity side by side with the financial sponsor. Our returns on these equity co-investments have been excellent over time. Overall for our platform from inception through December 31st, our $297 million of equity co-investments have generated an IRR of 29% and a multiple on invested capital of 2.9x.
In a world where investors may want to understand differentiation among middle-market lenders, our long-term returns on our equity co-investment program are a clear differentiator. With regard to net investment income, we continue to have a strategy which includes, number one, optimizing the portfolio and balance sheet of PNNT as we move towards our target leverage ratio of 1.25 x debt to equity. Number two, growing our PSLF JV with Pantheon to about $750 million of assets from approximately $420 million of assets through additional investments from PNNT and Pantheon and balance sheet optimization, including a potential securitization. Three, the opportunity to rotate out of our equity investments over time and into cash paid yield instruments. We are well on our way to implementing the NII growth strategy.
The investment portfolio of PNNT increased by approximately $190 million to $1.45 billion from $1.26 billion over this past quarter. PSLF's investment portfolio also grew $422 million from $405 million, an increase of $16 million. Since the quarter end, we and Pantheon have agreed to increase our commitments to PSLF from about $170 million to approximately $235 million. Our portion of this upsize is $39 million. We are focused on the core middle market, which we generally define as companies with between $10 million-$15 million of EBITDA. The target market where we think we add the most value and where we get the strongest package of risk return is in the $10 million-$30 million of EBITDA range.
We like the core middle market because it's below the threshold and does not compete with the broadly syndicated loan or high yield markets. As such, we do not compete with markets where leverage is higher, equity cushion lower, covenants are light, wide, or non-existent, information rights are fewer, EBITDA adjustments are higher and less diligent, and the timeframe for making the investment decision is compressed. On the other hand, where we focus in the core middle market, generally our capital is much more important to the borrower. As such, the leverage is lower, equity cushion higher. We have real quarterly maintenance covenants. We receive monthly financial statements to be on top of the companies. EBITDA adjustments are more diligent and achievable, and we typically have six to eight weeks to make a thoughtful and careful investment decision.
According to Lincoln International, the covenant-light share of direct lending loans increased from 20% in Q3 2021 to 35% in Q4 2021. A 15% increase in covenant light in the direct lending world in just one quarter. We believe this was driven primarily by the growth of the mega multi-billion dollar direct loans done by the largest direct lenders who compete heavily among themselves, as well as competing with the broadly syndicated loan market. Less covenant protection may ultimately have important ramifications down the road to outcomes. Virtually all of our loans in the core middle market had meaningful covenant packages which protect lenders. According to S&P, loans to companies with less than $50 million of EBITDA had a lower default rate and a higher recovery rate than those loans to companies with higher EBITDA than $50 million.
We believe that meaningful covenant protections of the core middle market have been an important part of this differentiated performance. Our portfolio performance remains strong. As of December 31st, average debt-to-EBITDA in the portfolio was 5x, and average interest coverage ratio, the amount by which cash interest income exceeds cash interest expense, was 3.3x. We have no non-accruals on our book in PNNT and PSLF. The portfolio is highly diversified with 107 companies in 30 different industries. Since inception, PNNT has invested $6.6 billion at an average yield of 11%, which compares to a loss ratio of about 9 basis points annually. This strong track record includes our energy investments, our primarily subordinated debt investments made prior to the financial crisis and now the pandemic.
As we analyze our 15-year track record at PNNT, it is clear that our returns took a step function up starting in 2015. The IRR of our investments made prior to 2015 was 9.7%, and since 2015, we've achieved a 14.1% IRR. We believe this is due to four key factors. Number one, better company selection within industry verticals where we have domain expertise. Number two, avoidance of investments in the energy industry and other cyclicals. Number three, excellent results from our equity co-investment program. Number four, a substantially increased focus on the core middle market companies where our capital is more important to those companies.
Core middle market to us means below $50 million of EBITDA, and our primary market focus today, and where we see the best risk-adjusted returns, is in the $30 million of EBITDA and below range. Many of our portfolio companies are in industries such as government services, healthcare, technology and software, business services, and select consumer companies where we have the meaningful domain expertise. Turning to RAM Energy. RAM Energy had a record revenue, EBITDA, and cash flow in 2021. The company has a strong liquidity position and continues to benefit from improved prices in 2022. While RAM analyzes its hedging weekly, the majority of its liquids, which are oil and NGLs, the majority of that production is unhedged to the upside, which comprises the majority of the revenues.
In light of the current oil and gas market, and to further enhance the cash flow and value of RAM for an eventual sale, in December, the company launched the drilling of two new wells in its horizontal Austin Chalk acreage. To date, RAM has drilled 11 wells in the Giddings field and is the operator on 100% of its Austin Chalk acreage. These wells are 100% working interest wells, and once completed and producing, substantially all of RAM's Fayette County acreage will be held by production. All of the costs and expenses for these wells and the related gathering system expansion are being funded from cash on balance sheet. The outlook for new loans is attractive. We are as busy as we've ever been in 15 years in business, reviewing and doing new deals.
With our experienced, talented, and growing team, our wide funnel is producing active deal flow that we can then carefully and thoughtfully analyze so that we can be selective as to what ends up in our portfolio. Let me now turn the call over to Richard, our CFO, to take us through the financial results.
Thank you, Art. For the quarter ended December 31st, net investment income totaled $0.19 per share, including $0.02 per share of other income. Looking at some of the expense categories, base management and performance-based incentive fees totaled $7.8 million. Taxes, general, and administrative expenses totaled $1.2 million, and interest expense totaled $6.9 million. Net realized losses on investments were $26.1 million, or $0.39 per share. We redeemed our 2024 notes in full, which resulted in a realized loss from debt extinguishment of $1.7 million, or $0.02 per share. Realized gains on our investments, net of any associated tax provision, were $41.7 million, or $0.62 per share. Change in the value of our credit facility decreased our NAV by $0.01 per share.
Our net investment income was in excess of our dividend by $0.07 per share. Consequently, NAV per share went from $9.85 per share to $10.11 per share, up 2.7% from the prior quarter. As a reminder, our entire portfolio, credit facility, and senior notes are marked to market by our board of directors each quarter using the exit price provided by an independent valuation firm and securities exchanges and independent broker-dealer quotes when active markets are available under ASC 820 and ASC 825. In cases where broker-dealer quotes are inactive, we use independent valuation firms to value the investments. Our GAAP debt-to-equity ratio, net of cash, was 1.1 x. We have a strong capital structure with diversified funding sources and no near-term maturities.
We have a $465 million revolving credit facility maturing in 2024 with a syndicate of banks. $64 million of SBA debentures maturing in 2027 and 2028. $315 million of unsecured notes maturing in 2026, which includes the issuance of $165 million of unsecured notes with an interest rate of 4% during the quarter ended December 31st. Our overall debt portfolio has a weighted average yield of 8.8%. On December 31st, our portfolio consisted of 107 companies across 30 different industries. Portfolio was invested at 47% in first lien secured debt, 15% in second lien secured debt, 8% in subordinated debt, including 4% in PSLF, and 30% in preferred and common equity, including 3% in PSLF.
23% of the debt portfolio has a floating rate, of which has a LIBOR floor of 4%. The average LIBOR floor is 1%. Now, let me turn the call back to Art.
Thanks, Richard. To conclude, we want to reiterate our mission. Our goal is to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns through income, coupled with long-term preservation of capital. Everything we do is aligned to that goal. We try to find less risky middle-market companies that have high free cash flow conversion. We capture that free cash flow primarily in debt instruments, and we pay out those contractual cash flows in the form of dividends to our shareholders. In closing, I'd like to thank our extremely talented team of professionals for their commitment and dedication. Thank you all for your time today and for your continued investment and confidence in us. That concludes our remarks. At this time, I would like to open up the call to questions.
If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. We'll take our first question from Casey Alexander with Compass Point.
Hi. Good afternoon. Art, I think you and your team are entitled to a victory lap on PT Network's outcome. Truly congratulations on that and the holding to your goal of reducing equity as a percentage of the portfolio. Congratulations on that.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Yep. I would like to, you know, kind of better understand the sort of overall RAM strategy in that it's business that we've been trying to exit, and yet at the same point in time, you're investing more capital into the business. I understand that, for instance, with PT Network, the same thing. It was a business you were trying to exit. You invested more capital to buy more stores and ultimately did exit it with great success. I really wanna understand the RAM strategy that in the business that we're trying to exit, we're investing more. Does having more wells not only improve the valuation because it increases the barrels of oil per day that you're producing, but does a larger field get a better multiple somehow?
I'm really curious to understand the overall strategy that hopefully results in an exit of this business.
Yeah. Thanks, Casey. There are some similarities. Obviously, there's a big difference between physical therapy and oil and gas. The similarity is to optimize exit, sometimes you have to put more money in. We did that. We did a bunch of tuck-in acquisitions and invested in de novos, and that created incremental EBITDA and ultimately, you know, more, very accretive exit because we knew that for every dollar of EBITDA we could create, we get a very high multiple on it, on the exit. That's what we thought, and that played through. In RAM, the situation is somewhat similar. First, the wells in and of themselves are accretive. You know, at today's prices, you can put a dollar in the ground, and you can get a really good return on that dollar.
You know, really good expected IRRs on the money that we're using to drill new wells. In and of themselves, that creates better cash flow, you know, better economics for the company. Yes, because you're proving the worth of the field, you're expanding the worth of the field, and you're playing offense to some extent, perhaps it makes you more attractive on the exit to potential buyers. You know, the wells on their own two feet irregardless of any exit, you know, it makes sense. They're accretive. Yes, we hope it leads a better exit for us.
I mean, I was looking at the press releases from RAM and noted that RAM had a record year in 2021. Would you characterize still no change in the M&A market, or is there beginning to be indications of interest? How would you characterize the market for M&A in oil and gas in the Austin Chalk?
We think it's getting a little bit better. We think it's stalling a little bit. It's moving in the right direction. Obviously, if oil continues to stay at a current price, today it's over $90, it should continue to fall and, you know, set up the M&A market, the middle market M&A market for oil and gas to be more active, hopefully as we get into 2022.
All right. My last question is, to a certain extent, playing devil's advocate. Let's say that you're not getting a price that you want to, you know, you complete these wells, you bring them online, they're producing in line with the rest of the field. At what point in time do you build enough cash that, say, for instance, you could pay off the Main Street loan and start dividending cash to the BDC? Not that that's the outcome that we want, but perhaps that's the outcome that we end up with at some point in time. You know, how does that play itself out, and what sort of timeline might that be?
It's a good question. I think it's, you know, to try to put a pin in and timing on that. Look, if the prices continue to be good and, you know, every dollar you put in the ground, you can make $2 or something like that. You just keep doing that, and at some point you say, gee, this loan that we got through the Fed Main Street Lending Program is attractive as it is. You know, we could pay off and just continue to generate good cash flow. Of course, at that point, also send cash flow up to PNNT. You know, it depends on how long this good market continues, and if we can continue to get excellent returns, then yeah, you look at it.
I don't know when that will be. You know, is that six or 12 months down the road? Depending on where the M&A market is, you could theoretically say that the cash flows are really attractive. Just keep drilling wells, and we'll send back, you know, chunks of cash to pay off the payment, then out to the BDC.
All right. Well, again, congratulations on the PT Network's outcome, and thank you for taking my questions.
Thanks, Casey.
Go to our next question from Robert Dodd with Raymond James.
Hi, guys. Yeah, congratulations on the quarter and the Pivot exit. A couple of semi-housekeeping ones if I can first, and then I got a couple more detailed ones. I mean, first on Pivot. With the exit, is there gonna be any, in addition, obviously, the cash proceeds and repayments, but is there gonna be any one-time income? I mean, are you getting any success fee, any last minute dividend up to PNNT or anything like that that's gonna flow through NII? Or is all of it gonna come in in terms of just, you know, below the line?
Yeah. It's virtually all, and Richard, correct me if I'm wrong, virtually all of it is coming in below the line.
That is correct. Yes.
Got it. What's the target leverage within the JV? I know it's 1.25 at the payment.
Yeah.
What about within the JV?
That's a great question. Look, I think if you said we're taking our commitments up us and Pantheon to $235 million, and we, you know, we expect over time to have that JV be $750 million. I guess that looks something like.
I did. Yeah.
Two to one. Yeah, something like two to one.
Got it. Okay. Moving on to assets that did get marked down, Cascade and Mail South, the equity got marked down. Based on what you know right now and the trends of those businesses, should we have any concerns on more on the debt side? Obviously, they're both high-paying PIK coupon loans.
Yeah.
You know, is there any concern that there could be an issue on the loan side, which I think marked pretty well still?
Yeah, no, I think the marks, you know, when you indicate on the debt that there's still money good, there's still cushion there to pay them and pay them in cash. The markdowns were really on the junior capital, the preferred and common stocks for various reasons and can go through them, you know, however you want to go through them. You know, we feel like they were fairly marked, both the debt and the equity, obviously, through third parties and are accurate in terms of of how they're being valued.
Got it. Thank you. Then the last one for me. On the equity co-invest side, I mean, you laid out some numbers there. You do have, I mean, a 29% IRR over time is really attractive. In the market today, how are the terms you're seeing or the availability even of equity co-invest, do you think they're still, you know, multiples are up in the business, and I'm sure you're not getting a discount when you do an equity co-invest.
Right.
You're paying the same multiple as the PE firm, right? I mean, is it you know, is that 29% sustainable, do you think? Or do you think in the environment today, not that it's really affecting IRR obviously, right? You know, is that 29% sustainable, or should we expect that to come down? I mean, I realize it's a big question.
Yeah. Look, it is a great question. Time will tell. As I said, I think in most cases, we are part of the first institutional capital in a company that's owned by a founder, an entrepreneur or a family. That founder, entrepreneur or family are selling to a private equity firm in large part because there's a game plan for taking a $10 million or $20 million EBITDA company and taking it to $30 million, $40 million, $50 million, $70 million, $100 million of EBITDA. You're right, in some cases, the multiples are pretty high today. There's a lot of private equity. Multiples are high on one hand. On the other hand, when you're taking the company from $15 million to $50 million of EBITDA, you know, irregardless of paying a high multiple, you're gonna get a very good return on that equity capital.
Our debt is helping to fuel that growth. I mean, that's part of the, part of the social contract with the private equity firm who's, you know, permitting us to co-invest in the equity, is that we are helping to drive that growth through our debt investments as a partner, and then we're participating in the ups through the co-invest. You know, is 29% sustainable? I mean, I'm thrilled and, you know, excited that it's been 29%, but MOIC at 2.9x. Sure. I mean, we're skeptical people. We're debt people. We're always saying, you know, we should always kind of create cushion and you know, kind of think about it as a, you know, 20% IRR type of thing. Maybe it's not 2.9x, it's 2.4x or something like that.
That would be, you know, us as credit people and skeptics, that's probably how we'd model something like that. But we've gone through an extraordinary time period and, you know, I'd say kind of the one thing that's newer, and I highlighted this on the call, and we've been in business at PennantPark now we're in our 15th year. We've really honed in the last handful of years on where we add the most value, where we bring the most knowledge, where we can avoid the most mistakes, where we can get the best package of risk-adjusted return, including covenants. It seems to be kind of below this radar. You know, a lot of press about the upper middle market and the mega unitranches and all this other stuff.
Where we add this most value is kind of in this $10 million-$30 million EBITDA, where we're partnering as part of the first institutional capital, you know, of the company. It's been working better. I feel like we're continuously improving and getting better in that vein, but time will tell.
Thank you, and congrats on the quarter, the NAV, the dividend, and the buyback. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question from Ryan Lynch with KBW.
Hey, good afternoon, Art. I'll just join everybody else by saying congrats on a nice quarter and probably more importantly, the successful exit of PT Network. That's really great to the kind of long-term strategy of equity monetizations. Kind of on that point, though, obviously super successful exit or monetization of that investment, but that's gonna throw a lot of cash coming back at you know, $225 million. A lot of that's non-yielding equity, but you also have some, you know, also a chunky higher yielding debt and preferred piece. Just wanted to get your thoughts and outlook on capital deployment. Obviously, fourth quarter was incredibly busy, you know, kind of capped off a very strong 2021.
How is early in 2022 shaping up as far as, you know, redeploying some of that capital, and portfolio growth from here? I would assume that you expect, you know, based on the big repayment or exit of PT Networks in calendar Q1, a net repayment in that quarter.
Sure. Yeah. No, it's you know, as we say in our business, when someone pays you back and when you get a big one like this, you say thank you, and you shouldn't complain about it because obviously, you know, we have to. We do you know one of our main goals is predictable NII and we're not complaining. We'll take it back, and we'll take the cash. Yes, it's a juicy second lien we're getting paid off on that was too expensive for us, let it go to take. So, we're gonna you know put our heads down and try to find good deals. We're not gonna rush it. We're not the types to kind of rush deployment. We've seen how that can you know harm long-term interest.
In a methodical, careful, thoughtful way, we're gonna, you know, deploy the capital over the coming quarters. Part of it'll be deployed in the JV with Pantheon. Part of it will be deployed in the stock buyback. Part of it, you know, we're gonna roll into the Athletico deal, you know, $10 million in equity. But yeah, we gotta put our head down and invest, at the same time, being very careful and selective about, you know, what comes into the portfolio. In terms of kind of activity levels, 2021 was, my God, what a blizzard of deals, particularly at the end of the year.
I think everyone in energy is probably still recovering, whether it's those of us who are the lenders or the accounting firms, law firms, other people who are providers, just a record level, you know, year end. You know, right now, and you've probably heard it from our peers, we're kind of going through a typical year seasonality-wise, where it's a little slow in January, February, because, you know, all the blizzard deals that were done in December. We still feel like 2022 will be an active year. Don't know how active that'll be. If you had to kind of take a base case to model, maybe it looks a lot like 2019, pre-COVID. It may, you know, it may not.
I mean, we're still early, but you know, talking to our deal teams, they feel like, you know, there's good dialogue, there's gonna be, you know, nice activity levels, and we'll have an active year, you know, in 2022.
Okay, that makes sense. Then, you know, on kind of the point of capital deployment, you guys announced that the $25 million share repurchase program, you know, that's one form of capital deployment. You know, how do you guys view how you guys plan on deploying the capital as part of that program? Is that gonna be kind of pretty consistent deployment over the next four quarters? Or will that kind of have ebbs and flows depending on where you guys' stock price trades and the relative attractiveness you guys view in those share repurchases?
Yeah, it's a good question. At this point, we think of it as kind of, you know, equivalent pieces over the course of the next four quarters. It's certainly what we've done historically. I'm also looking at the stock share and saying, you know, it still remains, you know, really, really cheap relative to NAV and where we think it's going. I think we think of that right now as, you know, equivalent bites over the course of the four quarters, but you never know.
Okay, fair enough. Just one last question, just following up on Robert's question regarding, you know, Mail South, and Cascade. Would you be willing to provide, you know, an update? I mean, obviously, there was the equity, you know, for both of those investments got marked down to zero. So there obviously was something there, either fundamentally or from a valuation standpoint that changed pretty materially. You know, could you just provide an update on what kind of drove those marks?
Sure. Cascade is in the soil testing business, environmental soil testing. You know, Omicron certainly in late 2021 took and really slowed it down. You know, the testing slowed down as the crews could not really operate, in particular the jurisdictions that were in California and New Jersey, which were, you know, restrictive in terms of the operation. You know, we hope that's, you know, that bounces back here as, you know, Omicron rolls through the population. It certainly, you know, harmed the company kind of in late 2021. Mspark is a direct mail business. Unfortunately, a big part of its market is restaurants and retail, which got hurt during COVID and still are soft.
We've executed a management change there and brought in a new CEO who we think very highly of, who we think will, you know, take this company to higher heights and help it rebound. You know, we thought that made sense in late 2021 to execute that management change.
Okay. That's a helpful update. Thanks again for taking the questions. Again, congrats on the very successful exit.
Thanks, Ryan.
Our next question from Mickey Schleien with Ladenburg.
Yes, good afternoon, Art. Just a couple questions. Your unfunded commitments at PNNT have about tripled over the last few quarters. How much of that is for delayed draw? What are your expectations for the timing to fund those commitments when we consider how active the M&A markets are currently?
Yeah, it's a good question. I don't have the delayed draw versus revolver at my fingertips. Richard, I don't know if you do. If not, we can certainly get back to you know, after the call. My sense is a lot of it's delayed draw. You know, as we work with these companies and we have these growth plans to take us from $15 million to $50 million, a lot of what we're doing is kind of delayed draws to fuel that growth. But Richard, any particular color you have at your fingertips, else we can call him-
Yeah.
To be clear.
Yeah, no, we'll call you back. It's about 50/50 between delayed draw and revolver, but I can give you a precise breakdown after the call.
That's fine, Richard. I understand. My other question, Art, your debt investment in PRA Events has marked nicely. Does that reflect an expectation for prepayment, or is it from something else like the company's performance or market multiples?
Yeah. You know, this is an events company. It's called PRA Events. Obviously, during COVID, it was kind of shut down. Company's bouncing back very nicely here, thankfully. You know, mostly corporate events, and companies are booking those corporate events again. You know, we're optimistic that, you know, we'll have, they'll have a nice bounce here into 2022.
Terrific. That's it for me, and I'd like to also congratulate you on the patience of your portfolio management in this quarter's results. Thanks a lot. That's it for me.
Thank you, Mickey.
Go to our next question from Kyle Joseph with Jefferies.
Hey, thanks for having me on and taking my questions, and let me echo the sentiment on congrats on the positive developments we've seen. Most of my questions have been asked. I just wanted to follow up and just kinda get a sense for from a high level in terms of portfolio performance and what sort of trends you're seeing in terms of EBITDA growth and specifically margins, given the inflationary environment we find ourselves in.
Yeah. Look, we've seen nice EBITDA growth overall in the quarter. It's year over year. You know, I'm gonna guess around 10%. Most of the companies have had, you know, a good situation in terms of being able to raise their prices. By definition, you know, we're always asking ourselves the question, does this company have a real reason to exist? Who cares if they go away? Which means the EBITDA margins are typically in excess of 20%, which means when there's inflationary pressures, their cost of goods are going up, their labor's going up, the supply chain issues, they have a better shot of increasing their prices because they're so important to their customers.
In addition, in this environment, you have the additional fact pattern of it's in the news, everyone sees, everyone sees inflation, everyone sees costs going up. It has not been hard for, you know, our portfolio companies to raise prices to protect themselves. Some more earlier than others. The ones who did it earlier have performed better, but others are catching up and, you know, we'll catch up ultimately. Like anything, sometimes quick action in these environments is helpful and, you know, most of our companies were relatively quick, you know, in making that part of that price increase.
Got it. Very helpful. Thanks for answering my question.
Thank you, Kyle.
Our next question from Melissa Wedel with JP Morgan.
Good morning. I appreciate you taking my questions today. A couple things I wanted to circle back on. First, on the dividend, when we think about the portfolio rotation that's sort of occurring real time, increasing the dividend to a $0.14 per share level, should we think about that as reflecting maybe a little bit of margin in terms of sort of ongoing NII earnings power of the portfolio? Maybe a steady state earnings power somewhere a little bit above that.
Yeah. I mean, it's a good question, Melissa. We feel very comfortable going to the $0.14. We think it's, you know, almost a no-brainer. We run comfortably covered with NII. We'll see where we go. You know, we'll see what the earnings power of PNNT and then the JV is. We'll see about the equity rotation. We'll see about leverage going up and what, you know, what kind of impact that's gonna have on the NII. Lots of different things going on. For us, this was the first move and hopefully not the last move over time as we hopefully continue to grow NII.
Okay. Got it. That's very helpful. Appreciate that. Then on, in thinking about further equity rotation, we talked about a couple of names today. There are some equity positions in the portfolio that, while maybe had a volatile mark in the December quarter versus the September quarter preceding it, you still have a large unrealized gain in the position even if the mark came down sequentially. Given the size of the exit that's about to occur and the cash that that will generate, does this impact how you're thinking about the pace of rotation on other names?
It's a good question. Most of the time, we don't really have control, right? PT, we have control, right? We have control. I have control. Will not have control, hopefully, in the near future. Ikano, which is a big name, that's been, you know, the stock's been up, it's been down. It kind of got hurt because it was kind of related to SPACs, but now it's been bouncing back the last week or two. We don't have control there. That's a public stock, and it just gets valued, you know, remaining in the stock market. You know, at the right time, at the right price, of course, we would, we'd love to, you know, convert that to cash and invest in real instruments.
That's a big name that we don't have control over. There's JNF, Johnson Frank. That's a big name. Again, we're a partner with Frank Equity Fund there. We're the minority shareholder. We don't have control of that one. We can rattle off the names, you know, it's clearly identified in the SOI where we have control and where we don't. You know, we do have control of Land, of course. We do have control of Land. I believe we've touched on that. It's a mixed bag, you know, we're gonna do everything in our power to have the balancing act of getting to our long-term goal of exiting the equity positions while at the same time trying to optimize the exit proceeds.
Land is a great example of that, and we've talked about that for a long time. You know, trying to find the balance of optimizing proceeds at the same time as having the goal of exiting is a challenge, but it's kind of, you know, I guess what we're supposed to be doing.
Thanks, Art.
today's question and answer session. Mr. Penn, at this time, I'll turn the call back to you for any additional or closing remarks.
Just wanna thank everybody for being on the call today. Our next call will be in early May for the March quarter. Thank you for your interest in our company, and have a great day.
Today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.