Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Saratoga Investment Corporation's Fiscal Second Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. Please note that today's call is being recorded. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen only mode.
Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. Financial and compliance Officer, Mr. Henry Stankop. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you. I would like to welcome everyone to Saratoga Investment Corp. Fiscal Q2 2022 earnings conference call. Today's conference call includes forward looking statements and projections. Call.
We ask you to refer to our most recent filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward looking statements expectations. We do not undertake to update our forward looking statements unless required to do so by law. Today, we will be referencing a presentation during our call. You can find our fiscal Q2 2022 shareholder presentation in the Events and Presentations section of our Investor Relations website. Conference call.
A replay of this conference call will also be available from 1 p. M. Today through October 13. Please refer to our earnings press release for details. Call.
I would now like to turn the call over to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Christian Oberbeck, who will be making a few introductory remarks.
Thank you, Henry, and welcome, everyone. As we reflect on the Q2, we continue to be pleased with the strength and resilience of our financial position and Portfolio Companies. Despite the unprecedented global impact and continuance of COVID-nineteen, we feel very fortunate to have overcome its challenges thus SPAR and to be in a position where we can leverage the upside of the ongoing recovery and substantial ramp up in market activity. Existing portfolio companies continue to perform well and our current business development activities allow us to find and evaluate a healthy level of new investments. Our AUM contracted slightly this quarter to $666,000,000 We originated $116,000,000 in new platforms with $135,000,000 redeemed, including the recognition of the $6,400,000 realized gain on our passageways equity investment.
We have often discussed how our long term growth in assets could be accompanied temporarily by lumpy substantial repayments, of which this quarter was an example. We continue to bring new platform investments into the portfolio with 4 added this fiscal quarter And all our originations were made while maintaining the extremely high credit quality bar we have set for our investments. The performance of our existing portfolio also grew our NAV per share by 1% this quarter to $28.97 Again, a historical record for us with this quarter increase being the 14th increase in the past 17 quarters. Our latest 12 months return on equity as of this quarter was 14.4%. To briefly recap the past quarter on Slide 2, first, we continue to strengthen our financial foundation in Q2 by maintaining a high level of investment credit quality with over 93% of our loan investments retaining our highest credit rating at quarter end, generating return on equity of 14.4 percent on a trailing 12 month basis and registering a gross unlevered IRR of 12.7% 16.1% on total realizations of 698,000,000 Our assets under management decreased slightly to $666,000,000 this quarter, a 2% decrease from $678,000,000 as of last quarter due to record repayments, but a 31% increase from $508,000,000 as of the same time last year and a 20% increase from $554,000,000 as of year end.
Despite this net reduction, our new originations included 4 new portfolio company Investments as well as 6 follow on investments and our current pipeline remains robust. 3rd, despite improving economic conditions, balance sheet strength, liquidity and NAV preservation remain paramount for us. Our current capital structure at quarter end was strong. $324,000,000 of mark to market equity supports $238,000,000 of long term covenant free non SBIC debt and $172,000,000 of long term covenant free SBIC debentures. Our quarter end regulatory leverage of 2 36% substantially exceeds our 150% requirement.
We have $229,000,000 of liquidity at quarter end available to support our portfolio companies with $111,000,000 total dedicated to new opportunities in our SBIC II fund. The all in cost of this new SBIC II debt is currently less than 2%, and the total committed undrawn lending commitments outstanding to existing portfolio companies are $16,000,000 In July, we issued an additional $125,000,000 5 year unsecured bonds with an effective yield of 4.125 percent that strengthens both our capital and liquidity position. In August, we repaid our existing $60,000,000 6.25 percent SAF baby bonds, which importantly reduces our current cost of non SBIC capital by more than 200 basis points. And just this week, we closed a new $50,000,000 facility with Encina Lender Finance, reducing our existing facility's cost of capital by 100 basis points. Finally, reflecting on our recent note issuance and improved liquidity and the overall portfolio and financial performance, The Board of Directors increased our quarterly dividend by $0.08 to $0.52 per share for the quarter ended August 31, 2021 paid on September 28, 2021.
We'll continue to reassess the amount of our dividends on a quarterly basis as we gain better visibility on the economy and fundamental business performance. This quarter saw strong performance key performance indicators as compared to the quarters ended August 31, 2020 May 31, 2021. Our adjusted NII $6,300,000 last quarter. Our adjusted NII per share is $0.63 this quarter, up from $0.49 last year and up from $0.56 last quarter. Latest 12 months return on equity is 14.4%, earnings call up from 14.3% last year, but down from 19.4% last quarter.
And our NAV per share is $28.97 up 9% from $26.68 last year and up 1% from $28.70 last quarter. This is the highest NAV per share for Saratoga Investment since inception of our management in 2010. And we will provide more detail later. As you can see on Slide 3, our assets under management has steadily and consistently risen since we took over the BDC more than 11 years ago, The quality of our credits remain high with no non accruals currently. We are currently working diligently to continue this positive trend as we deploy our available capital into our growing pipeline, while at the same time being appropriately cautious in this evolving credit environment.
With that, I would like to now turn the call back over to Henry to review our financial results as well as the composition and performance of our portfolio.
Thank you, Chris. Slide 4 highlights our key performance metrics for the quarter ended August 31, 2021. Call. When adjusting for the incentive fee accrual related to net capital gains in the 2nd incentive fee calculation and the interest On the redeemed SAF baby bonds during the call period, adjusted NII of $7,000,000 was up 11.6 percent from $6,300,000 last quarter and up 27.5 percent from $5,500,000 as compared to last year's Q2. Adjusted NII per share was $0.63 up $0.14 from $0.49 per share last year and up $0.07 from $0.56 per share last quarter.
Across the 3 quarters, weighted average common shares outstanding remained largely unchanged at 11,200,000 shares for each quarter. The increase in adjusted NII from last year primarily reflects higher level of investments and result in higher interest and other income with AUM up 31% from last year. Of a $600,000 interest reserve release to interest income related to our TacoMac investment that has been removed from non accrual this quarter. Adjusted NII yield was 8.7%. This yield is up 70 basis points from 8.0% last year operations of $7,900,000 or $0.71 per share.
The $3,100,000 net Gain on investments was comprised of $1,500,000 in net realized gains and $3,400,000 in net unrealized depreciation on investments, expense on unrealized depreciation in our Blocket subsidiaries. The $1,500,000 net realized gain primarily comprises a $6,400,000 realized gain on the sale of the company's passageways investment offset by the recognition of a $4,900,000 realized loss on the final write down of the company's My Alarm Center investment. The $3,400,000 unrealized appreciation reflects 1, the $6,500,000 reversal of previously recognized depreciation and the $4,900,000 reversal of previously recognized depreciation on the passageways realization and the My Alarm Center write off respectively And 2, a 1.1 percent increase in the total value of the remaining portfolio, primarily related to improvements in market spreads, EBITDA multiples and or revised portfolio company performance. All of the net reduction and the value of the non CLO portfolio Return on equity remains an important performance indicator for us, which includes both realized and unrealized gains. Our return on equity was 14.4 percent for the last 12 months.
Total expenses excluding interest and debt financing expenses, Site management fees and incentive management fees and income taxes increased from $1,400,000 as of the quarter ended August 31, 2020 to $1,800,000 this quarter. This represents 1.1% of average total assets unchanged over these same periods. We We've also again added the KPI slides starting from Slides 26 through 29 in the appendix at the end of the presentation A particular note is Slide 29, highlighting how our net interest margin run rate has almost quadrupled since Saratoga took over management of the BDC, Has increased by 8% the past 12 months and has continued to increase in Q2. Moving on to Slide 5, NAV was $324,100,000 as of this quarter end, a $3,800,000 increase from last quarter and a $25,900,000 increase from the same quarter last year, primarily driven by realized and unrealized gains. During Q2, 9,623 shares were repurchased at a cost of $200,000 at an average price of $25.85 per share, While 5,441 shares were sold for net proceeds of $200,000 at an average price of $28.86 NAV per share was $28.97 as of quarter end, up from $28.70 as of last quarter and from 26 68 as of 12 months ago.
NAV per share has increased 14 of the past 17 quarters. Our net asset value has steadily increased since 2011 and this growth has been accretive as demonstrated by the increase in NAV per share. We continue to benefit from our history of consistent, realized and unrealized gains. On Slide 6, you will see a simple reconciliation of the major changes in NII and NAV per share on a sequential quarterly basis. Starting at the top, adjusted NII per share increased from $0.56 per share last quarter to $0.63 per share this quarter, A $0.06 increase in non CLO net interest income, a $0.01 increase in both CLO interest income and other income and a $0.01 benefit from lower operating expenses were partially offset by a $0.02 decrease due to higher base management fees.
Moving on to the lower half of the slide, this reconciles the $0.27 NAV per share increase for the quarter. The $0.57 of GAAP NII and 0.44 of net realized gains and unrealized depreciation on investments were partially offset by $0.16 net expense related to income and deferred taxes on gains, the $0.44 dividend paid in Q2 and a $0.14 realized loss on extinguishment of debt. Slide 7 outlines the dry powder available to us as of quarter end, which totaled $229,300,000 spread between our available cash, undrawn SBA debentures and undrawn secured credit facility. This quarter end level of available liquidity allows us to grow our assets by an additional 54% without the need for external financing With $73,000,000 of it being cash and that's fully accretive to NII when deployed and $111,000,000 of its SBA debentures with an all in cost of less than 2%, also very