Good day, and welcome to the Prospect Capital Third Fiscal Quarter Earnings Release and Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Barry, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Sarah. Joining me on the call today are my friends Grier Eliasek, our President and Chief Operating Officer and Kristin Van Dask, our Chief Financial Officer. Kristin?
Thanks, John. This call is the property of Prospect Capital Corporation. Unauthorized use is prohibited. This call contains forward looking statements within the meaning of the securities laws that are intended to be subject to Safe Harbor protection. Actual outcomes and results could differ materially from those forecasts due to the impact of many factors.
We do not undertake to update our forward looking statements unless required by law. For additional disclosure, please see our earnings release and our 10 Q filed previously and available on the Investor Relations tab on our website, prospectstreet.com. Now, I'll turn the call back over to John.
Thank you, Kristin. Before reviewing the quarterly results, I would like to accentuate the obvious by thanking the multiple teams at Prospect They helped us produce the numbers that everyone sees this quarter. I can start with Kristen and her accounting team, Who worked all weekend to take care of some last minute items that would otherwise be a thankless task, but I'm thanking Kristen and her team, her large team for that, our lawyers led by John Lee, protect our firm and our shareholders Every step of the way, on our investments, on any disagreements we may have with counterparties, fortunately, they're rare, Our investment professionals from structured credit to aircraft leasing to real estate led by Ted Fowler, These business units have been firing on all 8 cylinders the last 10 quarters, which is when our NAV was last at this level. And I want to thank all of the people who work at Prospect for making this happen and for their dedication and devotion to the shareholders that trust us, shareholders many of whom have been with us since our initial public offering in 2004. So on behalf of all shareholders, I am thanking all the people that work at Prospect for a job well done.
Many of them are shareholders along with me and people listening to this call and are benefiting from Their hard work financially. So let's turn to the results for the quarter. In the March quarter, our net investment income was $73,400,000 $0.19 per common share, exceeding our distribution rate per common share by $0.01 Our basic net income attributable to common stockholders was $246,000,000 or $0.64 per common share. As the overall value of our investment portfolio increased for the 4th consecutive quarter due to a combination of positive company specific and macro factors. Our NAV stood at $9.38 per common share in March, up $0.42 and 5% from the prior quarter, our 4th consecutive quarter with NAV Growth.
Our NAV per common share is now at the highest level since June 2019. We have outperformed our peers during the past multiple quarters of macro pressure as a direct result of our previous Derisking from not chasing leverage as well as other risk management controls. We are staying true to the strategy that has served us well since 1988. Controlling and reducing portfolio and balance sheet risk, both to protect the capital entrusted to us and to protect the ability of such capital to generate future earnings for our shareholders. In the March quarter, our net debt to equity ratio was 56 0.5%, down 17 60 basis points from March 2020 and down 460 basis points from our December quarter.
As we continue to run an underleveraged balance sheet, which has been the case for us over multiple quarters. Over the past 3 years, Other listed BDCs overall have increased leverage, with a typical listed BDC now at over 100% Debt to equity were over 40 percentage points higher than for Prospect. Prospect has not increased debt leverage chasing returns, instead electing lower leverage And lower risk at this time in the economic cycle as money printing and inflation, In May 2020, We moved our minimum 1940 Act regulatory asset coverage to 150%, equivalent to 200% debt to equity, which not only increased our cushion, but also gave us flexibility to pursue our recently announced Junior Capital Perpetual Preferred Equity Program, which counts toward 40 Act asset coverage, but which gets significant equity treatment by our rating agencies and which provides significant equity cushion for any leverage. We have no plans to increase our actual drawn debt leverage beyond our historical target of 0.7 to 0.85 debt to equity and we are currently significantly below such target range. Prospect's balance sheet is highly differentiated from peers, With 100% of prospects funding coming from unsecured and non recourse debt since our IPO in 2004.
Unsecured debt was 84.3% of Prospect's total debt In March 2021, we're about 28 percentage points higher then around 56% for the typical listed BDC. Our unsecured and diversified funding profile provides us significantly lower risk and significantly more investment On the cash shareholder distribution front, we are pleased to report the Board's declaration of continued steady monthly distribution. We are announcing monthly Cash, common shareholder distributions of $0.06 per share for each of May, June, July August. These 4 months represent the 45th, 46th, 47th and 48th Consecutive $0.06 per share dividend, monthly dividend, meaning we have now reached the 4 year mark for stable monthly cash shareholder distributions. Consistent with Pat's practice, we plan on our next set of shareholder distributions in August.
Our goal over the long term is to maintain and ideally grow this steady monthly cash shareholder distribution as we seek to provide low volatility, income stability to our shareholders amidst a macro market backdrop that delivers greater volatility elsewhere. Since our IPO nearly 17 years ago through our August 2021 distribution at per common share to original shareholders, aggregating approximately 3,400,000,000 and cumulative distributions to all common shareholders. Since October 2017, our net investment income per common share has aggregated $2.74 while our shareholder distributions per share have aggregated $2.52 resulting in our net investment income exceeding distributions during this period by $0.22 per share. Our net investment income Covered distributions in the June 2020 fiscal year and have exceeded distributions in the 2021 fiscal year to date by $0.02 per share. We are also announcing more preferred shareholder distributions following launch of our $1,000,000,000 5.5 percent preferred program.
We've raised over $80,000,000 and our preferred stock program to date from institutions, family offices, including the recent addition of a top 5 independent broker dealer system. Looking forward, we are currently focused on multiple initiatives to enhance our net investment income and NAV and return on investment in an accretive fashion, including: 1st, our recently announced $1,000,000,000 perpetual preferred Stock Equity Program. Number 2, greater utilization of our cost efficient Revolving credit facility, which provides us an incremental cost of capital of approximately 1.46% at today's 1 month LIBOR. Number 3, Retirement of higher cost liabilities, including multiple recent Successful tender offers and repurchases. Number 4, issuing lower cost notes, including recent 5 year senior unsecured notes with coupons of approximately 3% to 3.7% and number 5, increased originations in senior secured debt and selected equity investments to deliver targeted risk adjusted yields and total returns as we deploy available capital from our current under leverage balance sheet.
We believe there is no greater alignment between management and shareholders than for management to purchase In the market, a significant amount of stock, particularly when management has purchased Every share on the same basis as other shareholders in the open market as we have. Prospect Management is the largest shareholder in Prospect and has never sold a share. Senior management and employee insider ownership is currently approximately 28% of shares outstanding, representing over $1,000,000,000 of our net asset value. We are trying to think of a management team at any other company that eats its own cooking to the extent we have. Thank you.
I'll now turn the call over to Grier.
Thank you, John. Our scale platform with over $6,400,000,000 of assets and undrawn credit Continues to deliver solid performance in the current challenging environment. Our experienced team consists of around 100 professionals, representing 1 of the largest middle market investment groups in the industry. With our scale, longevity, experience and deep bench, we continue to focus on a diversified investment strategy that spans 3rd party private equity sponsor related lending, direct non sponsor lending, Prospect sponsored operating and financial buyout, structured credit and real estate yield investing. Consistent with past cycles, we expect during the next downturn to see an increase in secondary opportunities, coupled with wider spread primary opportunities, with a pullback from other investment groups, particularly highly leveraged ones.
This diversity allows us to source a broad range in high volume of opportunity, then select in a disciplined bottoms up manner The opportunities we deem to be the most attractive on a risk adjusted basis. Our team typically evaluates Thousands of opportunities annually and invests in a disciplined manner in a low single digit percentage of such opportunities. Our non bank structure gives us the flexibility to invest in multiple levels of the corporate capital stack with a preference for secured lending and senior loans. As of March 2021, Our portfolio at fair value comprised 51.8% secured 1st lien, up 4.5% from December, 15.2 percent other senior secured debt, 12.8% subordinated structured notes with underlying secured 1st lien collateral, 0.1 percent unsecured and other debt, and 20 percent equity investment, resulting in a stable 79.8 percent of our investments being assets with underlying secured debt Benefiting from borrower pledge collateral. Prospect's approach is one that generates attractive risk adjusted yield and our performing interest bearing investments were generating an annualized yield of 11.8% as of March.
We achieved this increase despite a headwind from the past year decline in LIBOR, though we expect reasonable stability now due to our LIBOR floors. We also hold equity positions in certain investments that can act as yield enhancers or Capital gains contributors as such positions generate distribution. We continue to prioritize senior and secured debt with our originations to protect against downside risk, while still achieving above market yield through credit selection discipline and a differentiated origination approach. As of March, We held 123 portfolio companies, up 1 from the prior quarter with a fair value of 5,880,000,000 an increase of $258,000,000 from the prior quarter. We also continue to invest in a Diversified fashion across many different portfolio company industries with a preference for avoiding cyclicality and with no significant industry concentration.
The largest is 16.7%. As of March, our asset concentration in the energy industry stood at 1.3%. Our concentration in the hotel, restaurant and leisure sector stood at 0.4% And our concentration in the retail industry stood at 0%. Non accruals as a percentage of total assets stood at approximately 0.7% in March 2021, flat from the prior quarter. Our weighted average middle market portfolio net leverage stood at 5.05 times EBITDA, substantially below our reporting peers.
Our weighted average EBITDA per portfolio company stood at 82,000,000 in March 2021. Originations in the March quarter aggregated $258,000,000 We also experienced $182,000,000 of repayments and exits as a validation of our capital preservation objectives and sell down of larger credit exposures, resulting in net originations of $76,000,000 During the March quarter, our originations comprised 77.2 percent middle market lending, 17.8 percent real estate, and 5% middle market lending and buyout. To date, we've deployed significant capital in the real estate arena through our private REIT strategy, largely focused on multifamily workforce stabilized yield acquisitions with attractive 10 year plus financing. NPRC, our private REIT, has real estate properties that have benefited over the last several years from rising rents, Strong occupancies, high returning value added renovation programs and attractive financing recapitalization, resulting in an increase in cash yield as a validation of this income growth business alongside our corporate credit businesses. NPRC as of March has exited completely 34 properties at an average IRR of 23.4 percent with an objective to redeploy capital into new property acquisitions, including with repeat property manager relationships.
We continue to monitor our rent collections, which are holding up well in the current environment. Our structured credit business has delivered attractive cash yield, demonstrating the benefits of pursuing majority stakes, Working with world class management team, providing strong collateral underwriting through primary issuance and focusing on attractive risk adjusted opportunities. As of March, we held $751,000,000 across 39 non recourse subordinated structured notes investments. These underlying structured credit portfolios comprised around 1700 loans and a total asset base of around 17,000,000,000 As of March, the structured credit portfolio experienced a trailing 12 month default rate of 171 basis points, down 35 basis points from the prior quarter and representing 144 basis points less than the broadly syndicated market default rate of 315 basis points. In the March quarter, This portfolio generated an annualized cash yield of 18.6% and GAAP yield of 15.2%.
As of March, our subordinated structured credit portfolio has generated $1,290,000,000 in cumulative cash distributions to us, representing around 92% of our original investment. During March, we've also exited 9 investments, totaling $263,000,000 with an average realized IRR of 16.7 percent and cash on cash multiple of 1.5 times. Our subordinated structured credit portfolio consists entirely of majority owned position. Such positions can enjoy significant benefits compared to minority holdings in the same tranche. In many cases, we receive fee rebates because of our majority position.
As majority holder, we control the ability to call a transaction in our sole discretion in the future, and we believe such options add substantial value to our portfolio. We have the option of waiting years to call a transaction In an optimal fashion, rather than when loan asset valuations might be temporarily low. We as majority investor can refinance liabilities in more advantageous terms, remove bond baskets in exchange for better terms from debt investors in the deal and extend or reset the investment period to enhance value. We've completed 28 refinancings and resets since December 2017. So far in the current June 2021 quarter, we booked $67,000,000 in originations and experienced $85,000,000 of repayments for $18,000,000 of net repayments.
Originations have comprised 91.9 percent middle market lending and 8% subordinated structured notes. Thank you. I'll now turn the call over to Kristin. Kristin?
Thank you, Greer. We believe our prudent leverage, diversified access to match book Funding, substantial maturity of unencumbered assets, weighting toward unsecured fixed rate debt, Avoidance of unfunded asset commitments and lack of near term maturities demonstrate both balance sheet strength as well as substantial liquidity capitalize on attractive opportunities. Our company has locked in a ladder of liabilities extending 22 years into the future. Today, we have 0 debt maturing until July 2022. Our total unfunded eligible commitments to non control for portfolio companies totals approximately $24,000,000 or 0.4 percent of our assets.
Our combined balance sheet cash and undrawn revolving credit facility commitments currently stand at approximately 814,000,000 We are a leader and innovator in our marketplace. We were the 1st company in our industry to issue a convertible bond, develop a notes program, issue under a bond ATM, acquire another BDC and many other lists of firsts. In 2020, we've also added our programmatic perpetual preferred issuance to that list of firsts. Shareholders and unsecured creditors alike should appreciate the thoughtful approach differentiated in our industry, which we have taken toward construction of the right hand side of the balance sheet. As of March 2021, we held approximately 4 point The remaining assets are pledged to Prospect Capital Funding, where in April 2021, we completed an up an extension of our revolver to a refreshed 5 year maturity.
We currently have 1.08 from the lender community. The facility revolves until April 2025, followed by a year of amortization with interest distributions continuing to be allowed to us. Our drawn pricing is now LIBOR plus 2.05%, a decrease of 15 basis points from before. Our undrawn pricing between 35 our borrowing base due to a change in concentration baskets, which we estimate has increased our borrowing base by approximately 150,000,000 Of our floating rate assets, 91.2% have LIBOR floors with a weighted average floor of 1.62%. Outside of our revolver and benefiting from our unencumbered assets, we have issued at Prospect Capital Corporation, including in the past few years, multiple types of investment grade unsecured debt, including convertible bonds, institutional bonds, baby bonds and program notes.
All of these types of unsecured debt have no financial covenants, No asset restrictions and no cross defaults with our revolver. We enjoy An investment grade BBB negative rating from Kroll, an investment grade BBB rating from Egan Jones and an investment grade BBB low rating from DBRS. We recently received the latter investment grade rating, taking us 5 investment grade ratings more than any other company in our industry. We have now tapped The unsecured term debt market on multiple occasions to ladder our maturities and to extend our liability duration up 22 years. Our debt maturities extend through 2,043.
With so many banks and debt investors across so many debt tranches, We have substantially reduced our counterparty risk over the years. In the March 2021 quarter, we completed successful Tender offerings, repayments and repurchases retiring around $52,000,000 of our 2022 notes, $5,000,000 of our 2023 notes, dollars 8,000,000 of our 6.375 percent 20 24 notes, $234,000,000 of our 2024 notes $45,000,000 of our 2025 notes. In the current June quarter through tender offerings, we have retired $1,000,000 of our 2023 notes. In the March 2021 quarter, we issued $400,000,000 in unsecured debt maturing in January 2026 with a coupon of 3.7%. We have continued to substitute more expensive term debt with significantly lower cost revolving credit with an incremental 1.46 percent cost and our newly issued 2026 notes.
We also have continued with our weekly programmatic intranet issuance on an efficient funding basis. To date, we have raised approximately $80,000,000 in aggregate issuance of our perpetual preferred stock. We now have 7 separate unsecured debt issuances aggregating $1,200,000,000 not including our program notes, with maturities extending until June 2029. As of March 2021, We had $673,000,000 of program notes outstanding with staggered maturities through October 2043. We have added a shareholder liability benefit to our dividend reinvestment plan or DRIP that allows for a 5% discount to the market price for As many brokerage firms either do not make drips automatic or they have their own synthetic drips with no such 5 Make sure to specify you wish to participate in the Prospect Capital Corporation DRIP plan through DTC at a 5% discount and obtain confirmation of same from your broker.
Our preferred holders can also elect to DRIP at a
Thank you, Kristen. We can now answer any questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question comes from Robert Dodd with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning and congrats The quarter, a couple of questions about specific assets, if I can. 1st, on First Power, it was one of your bigger write ups this quarter, Not a lot of disclosure in the queue about why I mean, just financial performance was better. Can you give us any Metrics there, revenue growth, receivables outstanding, any kind of metrics to Give us some information on how much the financial improvement was better, etcetera?
Yes. Grier can do that. Go ahead, Grier.
Sure. Thank you for the question, Robert. So describe the boost in value for First Tower, which was about $48,000,000 for a position has In significant part due to underlying performance and in a partial part due to Improvement in metrics and values for comparable companies, including public comps that help to drive The valuations of these types of companies have been trading quite well in the March quarter. From a fundamental standpoint, which of course is what we focus very hard on, We have seen an improvement in multiple areas. We have seen improvement in same store sales.
We've seen an improvement in charge offs really in all the states In which First Tower operates. And we've also received a benefit in our financing costs, which is Floating rate with a strong and supportive bank group that has been with the business for Years, really decades and know the company well and underwrite. So with LIBOR At a very low level, financing costs have been low for the company as well. Obviously, the macro backdrop is constructive with a strong consumer wallet helped in significant Part by fiscal spending, which has been an important driver in consumer credit across the board. But we credit the management team, led by Frank Lee, whose family founded the company decades ago.
Frank is a wonderful business person, leader and 20% equity Holder has done a strong job along with the rest of the management team in Sustaining and increasing improving performance, including in states where First Towers expanded in recent years and Whenever you expand into a new geography, there's always a micro learning curve associated with the particular nuance of that area and individual management teams at the branch level that need to be managed. So We're very happy with the across the board performance. We've now been an 80% owner of this business and Lenders to the company as well for almost 10 years, about 9 years, And it's been a strong long term hold, cash producer and highly tax efficient As well, taxes as partnership, no taxation downstairs and tax rate compliance, no taxation upstairs. So Very pleased with First Tower.
Got it. Thank you. I mean, just on that, I mean, given the valuation, I mean, it's a very sizable asset Under what can I mean, and a good income contributor as well, very good? Under what conditions would you consider Selling that asset and redeploying the capital into a more diversified pool maybe rather than 1 large single asset?
Well, we view it as a diverse granular pool actually, not a large singular asset. There are 100 of thousands of loans that underpin That book, so it's arguably more diversified than a corporate credit book with 100 to 200 names And geographically diversified as well. So we view it in a look through diversified fashion. We, from a long term hold standpoint, evaluate this asset as we would any other in the book. For example, in our real estate business, we do this regularly where we update On a quarterly basis, NPVs of each asset, should we hold this asset?
Should we divest it? With the foregone IRR from divesting it, should we optimize the financing or in some other fashion? What's the NPV maximizing Strategy and where can we properly redeploy the proceeds? It would take A lot in order to sell this asset because it is so wonderfully tax efficient for us. We are the lowest cost of capital, Most tax efficient owner of this business.
They've already become a standalone public company, which Certainly, it's of scale and stature to do is north of $100,000,000 EBITDA business. It would be a corporate taxpayer and perhaps corporate tax rates are going up. We'll see, but there's certainly non zero Out there, there's 0 for us, taxed as a flow through partnership. So that would be a very challenging endeavor because the buyer eyeballing a public exit would superimpose a higher Cost structure than where we hold the business today. So we're happy with The business, we haven't focused on hyper growth.
We focused on proper underwriting, really using the same Tried and true fundamental old fashioned values of consumer credit underwriting that have underpinned this A loan installment lender that's a bit higher up on the quality spectrum than others in the space And do not have any immediate plans to exit the position.
Okay, got it. Thank you for that. On the REIT, I mean, in the One of the reasons for the markup in the REIT was obviously cap rate compression. John, your prepared remarks, you talked about Obviously enough, the potential for rising inflation. I wouldn't necessarily think that would impact cat baits in the short run, but what's your view The potential for longer term inflation and how would that influence CapEx at the REIT, I'm not only analyst.
Okay. Well, Robert, I'll gladly give Greer a rest for a second. Just before I do, just more on First Tower. It's rare that we can Find a management team and buy a business run, buy a management team that is as experienced and expertise as Frank Lee's team, Daryl Schroeder, Jody McCahon and Frank Lee. Frank Has been running that business with his team for decades through thick and thin.
So knowing how hard it is to find great managers, I would be very slow To vote to sell First Tower and attempt to deploy the proceeds into another business. What we would be more likely to do is hopefully find another great manager like Frank Lee And back that manager and build that business. Under Frank Stutowicz, First Tower has grown significantly. Our internal team, Dennis, Adderley and Edward Have helped Frank do that by optimizing the capital structure, helping to analyze additional Acquisitions, horizontal extensions. And so we have a good situation with our internal team And with the external team.
And so, Robert, if you find a company that we should Buy? We'd love to buy it, but I don't think we are going to need to sell First Tower. As I think you know, we are significantly under levered, At least compared to other BDCs. So we have a war chest of capital That we're just sitting on and waiting for the now I'm getting to your question, right? It's like Alice's restaurant.
I'll finally get there. We see I mean, I think you put your common sense hat on and ask yourself, can the U. S. Government Spend how many trillions, is it $6,000,000,000,000 in less than a year, just mailing checks to people And expect that there would not be inflation. Of course, there will be inflation and we're seeing it everywhere, lumber, Commodities, housing prices, bitcoin.
So we are sitting on a war chest Because we believe this will be very similar to what happened during the Carter years and the Fed The stewards of our shareholders' capital is to see reality for what it is, not for what people want to tell us it is. And yes, investors' worst enemy is at the door, inflation, because what happens is, First, you are being taxed on Returns that are that may not even be positive on a real basis. Fortunately, investors in our company are receiving High real as well as nominal returns. But investors in some of these tech companies are going to see inflation And higher interest rates significantly erode the out year value as discount rates Compound up and diminish the value of the gold at the end of the rainbow 10 years from now. So the way we see it, our war chest of capital, our low leverage, Our expertise and dedicated really devoted origination team is Ready for what comes next.
We believe that there will be companies in distress as there have been in the past and that we will be able to purchase those companies at distressed prices. So that's why we've been keeping Our leverage low, even though some people would argue, well, if you can borrow at 1.76% and reinvest at 10, Why aren't you doing more of that? Well, if you read the book, Built to Last, you'll see that If you want to build a company to last, you remain disciplined through all cycles And get ready for the next one. So that's why I added to my remarks, my concern about upcoming inflation And the need for really all investors to be ready for it. Is your view different, Robert?
I wouldn't say it's substantially different, but you're the one running the company. So I just wanted to get your opinion on that point. I just have to evaluate it, not run it.
Just so you had asked about real estate, Robert, and real estate is a classic inflation hedge, especially multifamily. And why is that? Well, because one can reprice the rents frequently, Because the leases are 1 year typical duration. At the same time, Financing costs are locked in for the long term and we have essentially Almost entirely fixed rate long term financed book. So your financing costs and debt service Payments are fixed, while rents go up in an inflationary environment and net operating income It is possible there is a giveback to your question about cap rates if The Fed responds as inflation fighting in terms of increasing short term Rate, to the extent that increases a typical benchmark like a 10 year treasury to which financing costs would often be pegged, And it is possible that there could be some cap rate increases that occur as a result, But the net operating income will surely be growing in that inflationary environment.
So likely those are significant offsetting trends, maybe NOI growth is actually Greater because you get an investor rotation into the sector Fleeing fixed income and other areas that are having issues. So you may not have a change in cap rates at all And you get the NOI boost, so the best of Bose world. So we view that as a leading light And really bright star in the portfolio that differentiates us substantially from Our peers in an inflationary environment or potential for substantial increase in Inflation due to the Fed's printing of money and are very, very happy With the performance of our real estate book, it also Diversification benefit relative to the rest of the book, low correlation, Dampens volatility, Efficient Frontier, attractive addition to the investment portfolio construction. So we're quite pleased with that business and we continue to make new investments And we continue to exit investments selectively, utilizing that quarterly NPV maximization Disciplined capital allocation methodology that articulated previously.
I appreciate all those comments. Thanks.
So, Robert, if you remember in the 1970s early 80s, The real estate investors were the people that survived the huge inflation then With more of their capital than anyone else. So we do regard our large multifamily book
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.