Mount Logan Capital Q4 and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call - Yieldstreet Deal to Nearly Double SOFIX and Add ~30% to FRE
Summary
Mount Logan spent 2025 remaking itself: redomiciled to the US, moved to Nasdaq under ticker MLCI, converted to US GAAP, closed the 180 Degree Capital business combination, and built a credit-focused platform with insurance and asset management that now manages about $2.1 billion. The quarter showed heavy one-time accounting hits that produced a GAAP loss, but management frames 2026 as the year recurring fee earnings and insurance spread income start to compound, led by an announced acquisition of the Yieldstreet Alternative Income Fund into SOFIX and capital moves that include a $40 million bond, tender activity, and a $10 million buyback authorization.
Reality check: the headlines are optimism; the numbers are noisy. Total revenue was up modestly, but a post-tax net loss of $60.8 million was driven by impairments and transaction costs. Management expects material FRE accretion from the Yieldstreet deal, direct-writing ambitions at Ability Insurance to lower liability costs, and additional inorganic deals in a busy pipeline. Execution risk is high but so is optionality, and investors should watch the close of the Yieldstreet transaction, Ability's rating and direct write timeline, and the conversion of announced AUM into steady FRE and SRE in 2026.
Key Takeaways
- 2025 was transformational: Mount Logan redomiciled to the US, converted from IFRS to US GAAP, listed on Nasdaq (MLCI), and completed the 180 Degree Capital business combination, creating a credit-focused asset management and insurance platform.
- Company-reported total assets under management are about $2.1 billion, with insurance or insurance-related AUM around $1.1 billion after repositioning Ability.
- Management announced a definitive agreement for SOFIX to acquire the Yieldstreet Alternative Income Fund portfolio, a deal expected to add over $100 million to SOFIX net assets and nearly double that vehicle.
- Mount Logan estimates the Yieldstreet acquisition will increase Fee Related Earnings, FRE, by at least $2.8 million annually, which management frames as over 30% growth on 2025 FRE, and says the deal will be immediately accretive to EPS upon close.
- Structure of the Yieldstreet consideration includes cash and newly issued MLCI common stock subject to a two-year lockup; fund has a 5% quarterly redemption window, so assets are quasi-permanent capital, not fully locked.
- 2025 consolidated results: total revenue $53.6 million, post-tax net loss $60.8 million, driven by non-recurring and mostly non-cash items including transaction and integration costs, intangible impairments, goodwill impairment tied to the legacy long-term care block, and legal expenses.
- Core earnings: Fee Related Earnings (FRE) were $85 million for the full year, down modestly year-over-year; Spread Related Earnings (SRE) dropped to breakeven from $13.7 million in 2024, due to lower investment income and higher cost of funds within the LTC block.
- Asset management full-year revenue was $21.5 million, up 44% year-over-year, but that increase included one-time items: a $4.5 million gain on acquisition of 180 Degree Capital and a $1.4 million unrealized gain on Runway Growth Capital.
- Investment portfolio yields have declined: full-year portfolio yield 6.9% (7.7% excluding funds withheld) versus 8.5%/8.8% in 2024; Q4 insurance net investment income was $14.8 million, down 21% YoY, reflecting lower rates and higher cost of funds.
- Balance sheet and liquidity: total capital approximately $185 million at year-end, cash of $15 million in asset management and corporate, total debt $93.5 million; subsequent actions include a $40 million bond issuance priced at about 8% and management says the company now has investment grade rating.
- Capital allocation moves: management closed tender activity and cited both a $50 million tender offer and later references to a $15 million tender, and authorized a $10 million share repurchase program through December 2027; board declared a $0.03 per share quarterly dividend.
- Ability Insurance recapitalization: Mount Logan contributed meaningful capital into Ability (CFO referenced $37.2 million cumulative including $19 million in the last year), raising RBC to over 500% and positioning Ability to pursue direct writing of annuities rather than only reinsurance.
- Management expects Ability to start direct-writing after obtaining a rating, targeted roughly in the 3-4 month window from the call, with anticipated SRE benefits materializing in the second half of 2026.
- BDC and ecosystem consolidation: minority investment in Runway Growth Capital, Runway merger with SWK, Portman Ridge and Logan Ridge combined to form BCP Investment Corporation (BCIC), and Mount Logan expects benefit via Sierra Crest profit-sharing distributions as synergies realize.
- Management commentary on credit quality: portfolio described as diversified, underweight sponsor-driven software credit, with no current elevated defaults noted; underwriting conservatively targets 30%-35% loan-to-value and hard maturities to protect downside.
- Execution outlook and pipeline: management says M&A pipeline is large and countercyclical, expects 2-3 more strategic inorganic transactions in 2026, and highlighted an additional $125 million of managed assets signed in March 2026 that should add ~$0.5 million FRE in 2026 and potentially >$1 million in 2027.
- Leadership change: CFO Nikita Klassen announced this was her last earnings call, signaling an imminent finance leadership transition that will matter for execution and reporting consistency going forward.
- Skepticism flag: reported GAAP loss and large non-cash impairments mask the underlying growth story; investors must watch the timing and terms of the Yieldstreet close, Ability rating and direct-write start, realization of expected FRE/SRE accretion, and the inconsistent public references to tender amounts.
Full Transcript
Scott Chan, Head of Investor Relations, Mount Logan Capital: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Mount Logan Capital’s fourth quarter and full year 2025 results conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind listeners that today’s discussion will include forward-looking statements. These statements discuss our current expectations and projections relating to our financial position, results of operations, plans, objectives, future performance, and business. These statements and other comments are not guarantees of future performance, but rather are subject to risk and uncertainty, some of which are beyond our control. These forward-looking statements apply as of today, and you should not rely on them as representing our views in the future. We undertake no obligation to update these statements after this call. For a description of the risk associated with Mount Logan Capital’s business, please see our most recent filings with the SEC.
In addition, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures during this call. Additional details and reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures are in today’s earnings release. This afternoon’s conference call is hosted by Mount Logan’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ted Goldthorpe, President Henry Wang, Chief Financial Officer Nikita Klassen, and Head of Investor Relations Scott Chan. As a reminder, all references to dollar amounts on this call are in US dollars unless otherwise stated. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Goldthorpe. You may begin.
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. 2025 was an active year across Mount Logan’s platform, so I wanted to start by stepping back and telling you what this past year has represented, because the significant actions we took over the last year can get lost in a single quarter’s results. A year ago, Mount Logan Capital was a Canadian-domiciled IFRS reporting company traded on the Cboe Canada. Today, we are a US-domiciled, Nasdaq-listed GAAP reporting and investment-grade alternative asset management and insurance solutions platform with $2.1 billion in assets under management. We are one of the very small number of public companies to combine asset management and insurance solutions businesses into a complementary platform at scale with a focus on credit investing. This foundational structure of our business did not happen by accident.
It was a product of an extraordinary team effort across every function of our organization during 2025, as well as the many years leading up to it. While there’s volatility in the financial results during 2025, including one-time costs to complete our business combination with 180 Degree Capital, we believe the successful execution of our strategic priorities in 2025 sets the foundation for what we expect to be a much cleaner compounding earnings profile going forward. With the combination of 180 Degree Capital behind us, our team immediately got to work on focusing on the next phase of our growth journey. This morning’s announcement of the Yieldstreet transaction that, once closed, is expected to drive material AUM growth in one of our managed funds and thus increase FRE through Mount Logan. This is the first proof point of what our platform can produce.
Concurrent with the release of our earnings, we announced that one of our core asset management vehicles, the Opportunistic Credit Interval Fund, or SOFIX, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of the Yieldstreet Alternative Income Fund managed by Willow Asset Management. This is Mount Logan Capital’s first strategic AUM acquisition since the closing of 180 Degree Capital as a direct expression of the growth strategy we’ve outlined at the time of that transaction. The deal will nearly double SOFIX net assets, adding over $100 million to the fund. Scale and permanent and semi-permanent capital vehicles is an important competitive advantage in the retail marketplace. Lower expense ratios increase portfolio diversity with limited overlapping investments and a larger fund size to support distributions. This transaction delivers all three. The acquired portfolio is also an excellent fit within our broader credit investing framework.
The assets are heavily weighted towards specialty finance and asset-based credit, cash flowing, diversified, and complementary to SOFIX existing holdings. This is exactly the credit exposure we want to grow within SOFIX to continue to grow the fund. We estimate the transaction will increase Mount Logan’s FRE by at least $2.8 million annually, more than 30% growth for our 2025 FRE. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to our earnings per share once closed. I also want to note how we structured the consideration. A portion of the acquisition value will be a newly issued MLCI common stock that will be subject to lockup for two years from closing of the transaction. This reflects something we think is important for our company, important asset for our company, our Nasdaq listing and our equity currency.
The ability to use our stock in a disciplined manner as consideration in accretive and strategic transactions is a component for how we intend to grow efficiently going forward, and this transaction is the first example of that action. We expect the transaction to close in late Q2 or Q3 2026, subject to regulatory and Yieldstreet AIF shareholder approvals. As we look at future M&A opportunities, we expect the recent headlines around private credit will provide disciplined, well-capitalized companies like Mount Logan with the potential to add highly strategic assets at attractive valuations. We believe volatility and uncertainty create additional opportunities for our platform. These trends are supported by our experienced management team, the strong backing and alignment of BC Partners, and a proven ability to pursue and close highly accretive permanent and semi-permanent capital acquisitions to scale our AUM book base while unlocking fund level synergies.
We’ve been leaders in executing these type of opportunities since Mount Logan Capital’s founding in 2018, and we believe we are viewed as an ideal partner in the private credit consolidation marketplace. Returning to our 2025 business achievements, I want to walk through the key milestones to provide a clear picture on what our platform looks like as we exited the year. In addition, there have been several subsequent items after the fourth quarter, which further demonstrate the unique nature and embedded value within our platform and the positive tailwinds we are experiencing. First, during 2025, we completed the transformational combination with 180 Degree Capital. This transaction took approximately 9 months from signing to closing.
It included a conversion from U.S. to U.S. GAAP from IFRS proxy processes in the U.S. and Canada, redomiciliation to the U.S., and a transition of our listing to the Nasdaq under the ticker MLCI. Following the closing of the combination, Mount Logan entered into a new staffing agreement with BC Partners to create a true asset-light entity that is fully aligned with BC Partners, a $40 billion global alternative asset manager. Secondly, we focused on scaling our BDC ecosystem. This included the January 2025 closing of a minority investment in Runway Growth Capital LLC, giving us exposure to a $1 billion-plus permanent capital vehicle focused on venture lending, an area where we previously held limited expertise.
In October, it was announced that Runway would be merging with SWK Holdings, significantly increasing the AUM and FRE of Runway, while providing further diversification into healthcare and life sciences lending. During July 2025, Portman Ridge and Logan Ridge, the two other BDCs within our ecosystem, merged to create BCP Investment Corporation, or BCIC. Today, BCIC is a larger, more efficient vehicle, with Sierra Crest Investment Management now advising a significantly scaled BDC. Mount Logan Capital, through our minority stake in profit-sharing interest in Sierra Crest, are expected to accrete to the benefit of our FRE base in 2026. These examples demonstrate our focus on consolidation across our funds to benefit shareholders of Mount Logan and the managed vehicles themselves. Finally, we made significant investments into our organic growth engine, Ability Insurance Company.
We invested a meaningful portion of the proceeds received from the turnover in the legacy 180 Degree Capital portfolio to enhance Ability’s capital base in support of our efforts to expand our suite of insurance capabilities during 2026. This investment was both strategic and financial. It positions Ability to take on additional volume and underpins our longer-term ambition to move Ability towards direct insurance writing, not just reinsurance. We believe this strategy will be more capital efficient and accretive to margin over time. It will benefit investors via improved spread earnings and drive AUM growth that we control. During 2025, we also continued to add new reinsurance business by a new treaty relationship, and we are constantly evaluating additional reinsurance partners and product diversification opportunities to benefit policyholders.
The long-term care block remains stable, although we wrote down a meaningful portion of this legacy part of the business at year-end, as the value of our insurance business is now oriented around our growing retirement solutions business. 2026 has seen a continuation of the momentum from 2025. We took advantage of the variable market conditions and executed a $40 million bond offering, helping extend our maturity profile at an attractive rate of 8%, reducing our secured indebtedness and lowering our cash interest expense while providing financial flexibility as we accessed a new source of capital. We believe diverse sources of capital are integral to fueling growth. As such, we are incredibly pleased with the market’s reception to our inaugural US-listed notes offering and view our access to the capital markets as another differentiating factor for our business.
Additionally, in line with our stated capital allocation framework, we closed a $50 million tender offer at a meaningful premium to where market prices were, and our board has subsequently authorized a new $10 million share repurchase program through December of 2027. This authorization provides us with ongoing flexibility to opportunistically repurchase shares, which accretes to the benefit of all of our shareholders. With respect to our dividend, we’re excited to announce that our board has approved a dividend of $0.03 per share for the quarter. Our dividend policy is built on the belief that our investors should receive the benefit of our stable fee paying earnings model. We hope today’s declaration and our historical track record demonstrates our focus on returning capital to shareholders.
Lastly, we finalized an agreement to add approximately $125 million of assets under management to our platform. This agreement became effective in March 2026. We expect these additional managed assets will contribute approximately $500 thousand of incremental FRE in 2026, with the potential to eclipse $1 million of incremental FRE for the full year of 2027. This is further proof of our investors’ trust in the Mount Logan platform and offers another example of the organic growth momentum we are seeing. These events, taken together, organic and inorganic, in 2025 and thus far in 2026, reflect compounding output of the platform we’ve built. Proud of the team for executing on each of these strategic initiatives. These accomplishments demonstrate the efficiency of our platform with the benefit of BC Partners’ resources and support.
The organization we are supporting today is leaner, more focused, and better aligned than at any point in my experience. I will now turn the call over to Nikita to walk through our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025.
Nikita Klassen, Chief Financial Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Thanks, Ted. Good afternoon, everyone. As Ted mentioned, 2025 was a transformational year for Mount Logan. Following the completion of our business combination and renewed focus on building a durable core earnings base across both asset management and insurance. It also has been a year in which we’ve deliberately front-loaded investment in capital, in infrastructure, and in strategic transactions with a clear expectation that the recurring earnings benefit would materialize from 2026 onwards. The financial results we are reporting today reflect this sequencing. We want to be transparent about what is structural versus intentional and transitory. While our GAAP results reflect several one-time items, the underlying business made important progress, particularly in establishing a foundation for recurring fee earnings and improving the long-term earnings power of the insurance platform. I’ll focus my remarks today on three areas, consolidated performance, segment results, and our core earnings metrics.
For the full year 2025, total revenue was $53.6 million, up approximately 8% year-over-year. We reported a post-tax net loss of $60.8 million for the period. These results were primarily driven by non-recurring and mostly non-cash items, including transaction and integration costs related to the business combination, impairment of legacy intangible assets within the asset management segment, goodwill impairment within insurance, and certain legal expenses. Excluding these items, the underlying performance of the business was significantly more stable. Moving on to segment results. In our asset management segment, fourth quarter 2025 revenue, including investment income, was $2.6 million, compared to $3.8 million in the prior year.
The decline is largely due to declines in management and incentive fees in non-core vehicles and some accounting noise created by the merger of Logan Ridge and Portman Ridge, which occurred in the third quarter of 2025. Mount Logan now receives distributions from BCIC through its minority stake in Sierra Crest and the profit-sharing interest. However, the distributions do not directly flow through the income statement, which accounts for a large component of the decline in revenues. Overall, we anticipate this merger will result in greater fees and distributable earnings going forward as synergies are realized in the combined vehicle. In our asset management segment, full-year revenue, including investment income, was $21.5 million, up 44% year-over-year.
This top-line increase was mainly driven by two one-time items, the $4.5 million gain on acquisition of 180 Degree Capital and the $1.4 million unrealized gain on our minority stake in Runway Growth Capital. Turning to our management fees. Management fees were down 14% year-over-year, primarily related to non-core fee vehicles. Specifically, the AIF Fund and CLOs have continued to wind down. Similarly, incentive fees were down 50%, which relate to the AIF Fund’s continued wind down and management’s decision to voluntarily waive fees at SOFIX as we continue to invest in the growth of the fund. Overall, our performance reflects the continued wind down of legacy strategies and transition to a more scalable and recurring revenue base.
Importantly, we are beginning to replace those fees with new fee streams, including the aforementioned profit-sharing arrangement with the parent entity of Sierra Crest and transaction and advisory fees, which contributed approximately $800,000 in 2025. Turning to insurance solutions. Net investment income was $14.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, down 21% from the fourth quarter of 2024. When we exclude funds withheld, net investment income was $13.4 million for the same period. The investment portfolio generated a 6.3% yield for this period, or 7.3% excluding funds withheld, and our asset management or insurance AUM increased to approximately $1.1 billion. These yields are compared to yields of 8.6% and 8.7%, respectively, in 2024. Full-year net investment income was $79 million, down 15% year-over-year.
Excluding funds withheld, net investment income was $55 million, down 5% year-over-year. The decrease was driven by a declining interest rate environment, which has reduced yields on our investment portfolio, increased interest expense driven by the interest rate swap, which we started paying on in 2025, and higher investment expenses and certain credit-related impacts within the portfolio. For the full year, the investment portfolio generated a 6.9% yield or 7.7% excluding funds withheld. These yields are compared to yields of 8.5% and 8.8%, respectively, in 2024. During the fourth quarter, we also recognized a $25 million goodwill impairment related to the legacy long-term care block. Importantly, we do not view this impairment as indicative of the underlying performance or long-term value of the broader insurance platform.
Rather, it reflects updated assumptions specific to that legacy business, which is not central to our growth strategy. From a strategic standpoint, 2025 was focused on repositioning the insurance platform, including rotating out of underperforming assets and contributing capital to support future growth. Additionally, the significant equity contribution into Ability in 2025 was a key enabler. It expanded Ability’s capital base, supporting our reinsurance growth and positions us for the longer-term direct writing goals Ted described. Looking at core earnings. Fee-related earnings, or FRE, were $85 million for the full year, down modestly year-over-year as the decline reflects the fee waivers at Sopheak and changes in our overall revenue mix as we focus the core earnings power of the asset management segment. SRE—spread related earnings, or SREs, were approximately breakeven compared to $13.7 million in 2024.
The decline was driven by lower investment income and higher cost of funds, particularly within the long-term care or LTC block, as assumption updates unfavorably impacted the cost of funds. The break-even SRE led segment income to be $8.5 million, down from $22.8 million in the prior year. Importantly, both FRE and SRE reflect businesses that are being actively repositioned rather than steady state earnings power. We ended the year with a solid capital position, reporting total capital of approximately $185 million, a decrease of $11.9 million compared to fiscal 2024. Our balance sheet is well-positioned entering 2026. As Ted noted, the investment grade rating and $40 million bond issuance completed subsequent to year-end provide meaningful incremental financial flexibility and reflect the quality of our platform.
We ended the year with $15 million in cash and cash equivalents within our asset management and corporate segments, and total debt across the company stood at $93.5 million, consistent with our internal targets. The $15 million tender and the $10 million share repurchase authorization are both part of the coherent capital allocation framework. Return capital when it creates value for investors, invest when the economics of growth are compelling, and maintain the balance sheet flexibility to do both. We believe we have the right balance today, and the post-quarter milestones Ted has outlined reinforce that. The board has also approved a dividend of $0.03 per share for the quarter, continuing our 26th consecutive quarter dividend track record spanning both our Canadian and U.S. listing histories. Overall, we view this as a floor that grows as our FRE and SRE scale.
Looking forward to 2026, expense discipline and operational efficiency are priorities. Recurring revenues are building, one-time headwinds are behind us, and the pipeline of growth initiatives is incredibly strong. The directional picture for FRE and SRE is clearly improved versus where we exited 2025. Now, before I hand the call back to Ted, I did want to take a brief personal moment. As many of you are aware, this will be my last earnings call as Chief Financial Officer of Mount Logan Capital. It has genuinely been a privilege to be part of this team through what has been the most consequential period in the company’s history. The domiciling, relisting, transitioning to US GAAP, and completing the 180 Degree Capital foundation, laying the foundation for what I believe to be a very exciting next chapter. I leave feeling proud of what we have accomplished together.
I wish Ted and Henry and the entire team every success. It has been an honor.
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Thank you, Nikita, and thank you again for your contributions to the company, and we wish you all the best. Before we open for questions, I want to leave you with a clear picture of how we think about the opportunity in front of us. Mount Logan today has three engines powering the flywheel of our business. The first is our private credit asset management business. Scalable, fee generating, anchored in permanent and semi-permanent capital, with a robust pipeline of organic and inorganic growth opportunities. The Yieldstreet transaction is the first inorganic step and will not be the last. The second is our insurance platform. Ability is well capitalized and positioned for meaningful expansion, which we envision will include a transition away from reinsurance and into direct writing in the near term. As we make investments in Ability, Mount Logan benefits from the corresponding increase in AUM, FRE, and SRE.
Third is our approach to product credit origination and investing. We employ a rigorous and disciplined process around the underwriting of investments we manage on behalf of our investors and policy holders. We maintain expansive credit and product capabilities that support our differentiated origination funnel, ensuring Mount Logan is not overly reliant or correlated to any single product or market. Today, we have diverse expertise that spans the credit spectrum, enabling us to be opportunistic as we seek attractive risk-adjusted returns across market environments. We’ve built a scaled public alternative asset manager with insurance and a compounding fee earnings and own liability origination. This model that we believe will trade at a meaningful premium to where Mount Logan is valued today. To close that valuation gap requires strong execution, which we expect to demonstrate in 2026 and beyond. This concludes our prepared remarks.
We’ll now transition the call to a Q&A session if the operator would please coordinate.
Scott Chan, Head of Investor Relations, Mount Logan Capital: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Matthew Lee with Canaccord Genuity. You may proceed.
Matthew Lee, Investor/Analyst, Canaccord Genuity: Hey, morning, Ted. FRE numbers have been running a bit lower than prior year levels. When do we get back to kind of growth on that front, on the FRE side as well as the AUM side?
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Yeah, no, I appreciate your question. I mean, I think last year was really a year of transition. So, you know, we were in the process of obviously doing our Portman Logan management contract conversion. You know, we had the Ovation wind down. We had certain fee waivers within SOFIX, which got us, you know, to growing again. We’ve entered into a bunch of new things that’ll grow earnings. Obviously expect Ability to kind of reignite growth this year. We entered into a Vista Life mandate that’ll give us another $125 million of assets. Obviously the deal we announced this morning, which closed probably in the third quarter, should lead to additional FRE growth as well.
I think between everything we’re doing, between our BDCs and kind of our core businesses, it should set us up for growth this year.
Matthew Lee, Investor/Analyst, Canaccord Genuity: Okay, great. Maybe on the deal, if we can dive into it a bit. It’s definitely a bit complex. You know what? You kind of mentioned permanent capital here, but, you know, are there any things in the structure that allow the new assets to, you know, prevent distributions or redemptions rather? Is that similar or dissimilar to how SOFIX operates currently?
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Yeah. I mean, it’s a pretty synergistic acquisition for us. You know, a huge part of the headlines right now are focused on big cap sponsor credit, which we don’t really do. The big growth area for us is really in asset-based finance, which is kind of what Yieldstreet does. The assets fit us really well. We have expertise in it, and it’s really an asset purchase. To your point, that fund has the ability to redeem up to 5%. We have to honor 5% of redemptions every quarter. It’s not. It’s what I’d call, like, quasi-permanent capital. Historically, it’s rare that people over-redeem for what the 5% is. Obviously, the retail channel’s challenged right now, just given some of the headlines.
It gives us a growth in that vehicle, whereby we think we can kind of get it onto some of the wirehouse, do some other things with it. But again, the people do have the ability to get some liquidity out of those assets.
Matthew Lee, Investor/Analyst, Canaccord Genuity: All right, thanks. I’ll pass the line.
Scott Chan, Head of Investor Relations, Mount Logan Capital: Thank you. Our next question comes from Francis Lau with Lucida Capital. You may proceed.
Francis Lau, Investor/Analyst, Lucida Capital: Hey, Ted. Broader question: how are you thinking about the macro and competitive environment for private credit and insurance in 2026? Like, how are you guys positioning to either benefit or face headwinds from the current conditions?
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, there’s just a big disconnect between what you’re reading in the press and what we’re seeing. Like, our portfolio is actually in really good shape. We don’t have elevated defaults. Our companies are still doing well. We don’t really have a lot of new watchlist assets. And a lot of the things that people are talking about in the press, you know, our business is mostly exposed to non-sponsor specialty finance and other areas that are probably less topical. You know, again, like, if you look at risk premium in the credit markets, which obviously correlated to some of these default metrics, you know, obviously high yield is near all-time tights, investment grade spreads all-time tights. The liquid markets are telling you that they’re not expecting a massive default cycle.
Even if it does, you know, on the ground, you know, private lending is still incredibly competitive. Spreads are wider, but maybe by like 25 basis points. Again, the big topical question is always around software. You know, we’re very underweight software vis-à-vis the overall market. Again, I think we think that a lot of our software businesses will actually benefit, not be hurt by AI, but it’s right now being treated like every single software company is gonna be a loser and, you know, I think there’s gonna be some winners and some losers.
Francis Lau, Investor/Analyst, Lucida Capital: Okay, thanks. Maybe the second question is, you know, following up on Matt’s question. You know, you guys are continuing to, you know, consolidate opportunities in the pipeline like OCIF, BCPO, other BDC consolidations. How active is the pipeline? Like right now, are you seeing a lot of, or are you seeing any kind of valuation opportunities that you can pick off because of whatever reason the seller has? Like, how are you looking at that side of things?
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Yeah. Well, our M&A pipeline tends to be cyclical, and it’s actually almost like countercyclical, so the more choppy the market is, the bigger our pipeline is. We have a really big pipeline now of inorganic opportunities. It’s something that we’re thinking about. It gives us scale. We’ve done it very effectively. As you know, we’ve made many acquisitions. I would expect us to be very active on the M&A front. We think we have really good inorganic opportunities. I believe we have good organic growth opportunities, particularly in our insurance business. We also think there’s gonna be a big opportunity for inorganic growth.
Like for example, in the retail channel, which obviously is very challenged today, the top 10 interval funds manage around $90 billion, and the next 100 manage $30 billion. There’s a whole bunch of kind of $100 million-$500 million funds that look and feel a lot like the Yieldstreet transaction, and I think we’ll be pretty active in that area on a go-forward basis.
Francis Lau, Investor/Analyst, Lucida Capital: Okay, great. Thank you.
Scott Chan, Head of Investor Relations, Mount Logan Capital: Thank you. Our next question comes from Whit Uguli with River Oaks Capital. You may proceed.
Whit Uguli, Investor/Analyst, River Oaks Capital: All right, Ted, how are you doing? Congrats on the great acquisition, and thank you, Nikita, for all you did for us shareholders. I was just kind of diving back into kind of what you’ve already talked about, but how much does the Yieldstreet deal impact Mount Logan’s FRE from an FRE perspective and by when? ’Cause just from reading the press release and by my own calculations, it’s almost an immediate 30% accretion to FRE on a pretty small investment.
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Yeah. I mean, you’re not far off on your numbers. You know, again, we’re able to buy this at a very accretive multiple. As you guys have read, most of it’s through cash. The assets fit us strategically very, very well. To your point, like, it will lead to a nice bump in our FRE on a run-rate basis. It obviously won’t close for probably 3-4 months. On a run-rate basis, we expect to see the impact and a pretty material impact of this acquisition in the second half of this year.
Whit Uguli, Investor/Analyst, River Oaks Capital: Okay. Thanks. That helps. This was kind of already addressed, but as far as inorganic growth goes, does this type of deal with Yieldstreet reflect the kind of deals that you wanna do in the future? How plentiful is that pipeline? Are there other similar deals out there?
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Yeah, yeah. No, good question. What I would say is we are you know currently evaluating lots of things. I mean, again, we’re gonna stick to our core business, which is credit, and so our credit-related assets. We are you know again there’s just a number of things we’re looking at now. These transactions are very hard to get done because it’s not just about price. There’s a big social component too as well. Again, you know, boards wanna make sure that whoever the buyer is gonna be a good steward of capital. We would expect to announce maybe two or three more of these between now and end of the year. Again, that should be a good tailwind for us in the second half of this year around earnings.
Whit Uguli, Investor/Analyst, River Oaks Capital: Awesome. Thanks so much, Ted.
Scott Chan, Head of Investor Relations, Mount Logan Capital: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Ben Brostoff with Brostoff Capital. You may proceed.
Ben Brostoff, Investor/Analyst, Brostoff Capital: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the capital contributed to Ability, and whether you will need to contribute more going forward. If you could just talk a little bit about, I think in the 10-K you have $37.2 million towards Ability. I’m not sure if that is over the entire life of owning it or this year. If you can just provide a little clarification there, that’d be great. Thank you.
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Yeah, I mean, I think the Ability business model has been largely reinsuring other people’s assets. You know, I think it’s very strategically important for us that we have the ability to write our own annuity policies. We’ve injected a lot of capital largely from the 180 Degree deal into our insurance company. We’re in the process of getting rated, and then soon afterwards we’ll be able to direct write business. That should drive our liability costs lower, and we’re less reliant on third parties for reinsurance. You should see. There’s this weird lull period where, you know, you got to put the capital in before you see the benefits into SRE. We should see an SRE benefit in the second half of this year.
You know, again, like that cash, we need to put it in there first before we can kind of use it to run annuity business. Expect to see the benefits of that flow through kind of second, third, and fourth quarter of this year.
Nikita Klassen, Chief Financial Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Just adding on to that, the number you quoted, the $37 million, that’s inclusive of the $19 that was contributed this past year. You can see also just what the RBC of the company or of Ability is as well. Now it’s well over 500%, which really positions us well for the strategic initiatives Ted mentioned.
Ben Brostoff, Investor/Analyst, Brostoff Capital: Awesome. Thank you so much.
Scott Chan, Head of Investor Relations, Mount Logan Capital: Thank you. Our next question comes from Masa Sung with TD Securities. You may proceed.
Masa Sung, Investor/Analyst, TD Securities: Thank you for taking my question. Good afternoon, Ted. I just wanted to follow up on Francis’ question earlier. I wanted to, you know, ask about the credit quality across SOFIX and then the broader managed portfolio. You know, you did mention the AI disruption risk in private credit. How should we think about the risk profile of what you manage, and how are you kind of seeing, you know, the current market dynamics play out in the field?
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Yeah. No, that’s a good question. I mean, I would say we run incredibly diversified portfolios. I would say we’re very underweight software, BDC others. I would say, you know, as of now, we really haven’t seen weakness in our broader portfolio. I’m pretty negative, generally speaking. I would say, as of now, we just haven’t seen it show up in our portfolios. Obviously we’re underwriting each of our assets with an eye towards AI. I would say that, you know, a lot of that stuff we just don’t know the answer to. Again, in debt world, you know, we obviously attach at something like 30%-35% loan to value.
Even if there is destruction of value in software verticals, you would need a pretty big destruction in value for us not to kind of get our money back. Then we have hard maturities. We’re not relying on selling businesses, everything else. I actually think that the private credit industry is actually relatively well positioned despite all the headlines and negative press. A lot of the things that people are pointing to as being, you know, indicative of weakness in private credit have largely been, you know, financial services businesses that impacted banks, not private credit.
You know, when people point to First Brands and Tricolor and some of these other big names that have been very topical, most recently MFS, you know, by and large, private credit managers just haven’t been that exposed to those situations.
Masa Sung, Investor/Analyst, TD Securities: That’s helpful. Now maybe switching gears a bit, my first question is on the Ability and then the insurance platform. You did mention that the ambition to move toward more direct writing over time. Can you give us a sense of the timeline and what that transition would look like?
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Yeah, I mean.
Masa Sung, Investor/Analyst, TD Securities: Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: No, go ahead. Go ahead, Masa. Sorry.
Masa Sung, Investor/Analyst, TD Securities: Oh, my. My second question is just on the dividend. You know, how should we think about this?
$0.03 per quarter you announced. Would that be the right run rate going forward, or can we expect growth as FRE scales from here?
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Okay. The second question, I would say, you know, we want to have a dividend yield on our stock because I think it creates capital discipline. We have a lot of growth areas, and so we’ve had a lot of dialogue with our shareholders around dividend policy, and I think we feel pretty good about where our dividend is today. We expect to see pretty material FRE growth over the next 18-24 months. And then we can reassess where we are with our dividend. You know, we have a lot of very creative uses of our cash right now, both on the insurance side and on the inorganic side, as we talked about earlier. I think we’re going to prioritize most likely growing FRE vis-a-vis returning capital to shareholders. Again, we’ve announced a buyback program.
We obviously just did a $15 million tender, and we pay a very competitive dividend yield. I feel like we’re striking a pretty good balance between trying to grow with returning capital to shareholders. On the insurance side, I mean, the timing is, you know, again, we’re working through. We had to recapitalize the insurance company, which, you know, Nikita just walked you through some numbers. We’re in the process of getting a rating, and we expect to get that over the next kind of, like, 4-6 weeks. Then from there, the plan would be to start direct writing and probably in the third quarter.
Masa Sung, Investor/Analyst, TD Securities: Thank you. That’s helpful. I’ll pass the line.
Scott Chan, Head of Investor Relations, Mount Logan Capital: Thank you. I’m not showing any further questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Ted Goldthorpe for any closing remarks.
Ted Goldthorpe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Logan Capital: Thank you. Thank you everyone for your time today, and I wanted to close the way we opened. We spent 2025 building and investing. The heavy lifting is done. In the weeks since December 31, we’ve already announced a transformative AUM acquisition, executed a $40 million bond issuance, completing a $15 million tender offer, authorized a $10 million share repurchase program, and signed an expanded managed account. Despite the broader market volatility, Mount Logan is experiencing positive and strong momentum across our business. We look forward to continuing to execute for your benefit. On behalf of the entire Mount Logan team, I want to say thank you to our shareholders for your continued support. We look forward to speaking with you when we report first quarter results in May. Have a good weekend, and thank you.
Scott Chan, Head of Investor Relations, Mount Logan Capital: Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.