PennantPark Investment Corporation Q2 FY2026 Earnings Call - Defense Tech Co-Investment Drives 15x Return Amid Disciplined Middle Market Lending

Conference Call Operator: Good afternoon, welcome to the PennantPark Investment Corporation’s second fiscal quarter 2026 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’d like to ask a question at that time, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 2 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 your conference.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining PennantPark Investment Corporation’s second fiscal quarter 2026 earnings call. I’m joined today by Jose Briones, Senior Partner at PennantPark. Rick Allorto, our CFO, is unable to be with us today due to a prior commitment. Jose, please start off by disclosing some general conference call information and include a discussion about forward-looking statements.

Jose Briones, Senior Partner, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Thank you, Art. I’d like to remind everyone that today’s call is being recorded and is the property of PennantPark Investment Corporation. Any unauthorized broadcast of this call in any form is strictly prohibited. An audio replay of the call will be available on our website. I’d also like to call your attention to the customary safe harbor disclosure in our press release regarding forward-looking information. Our remarks today may include forward-looking statements and projections. Please refer to our most recent SEC filings 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.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Thanks, Jose. I’ll begin with an overview of our 2nd quarter results, including a review of the portfolio. I’ll then share our perspective on the current market environment and how we believe PNNT is positioned going forward. Jose will follow up with a detailed review of our financial results, after which we will open up the call for questions. For the quarter ended March 31st, core NII was $0.14 per share. As of March 31st, our portfolio totaled $1.2 billion. During the quarter, we continued to originate attractive investment opportunities and invested a total of $108 million, including 6 new platform investments with a median debt-to-EBITDA of 3 times, interest coverage of 3.4 times, and loan-to-value of only 28%.

Our portfolio remains conservatively positioned with median leverage of 4.7 times, median interest coverage of 2 times, and median loan-to-value of 45%. We ended the quarter with 4 non-accrual investments, representing 2.7% of the portfolio at cost and 1.3% at market value. Our PSLF joint venture portfolio continues to be a significant contributor to our core NII. At March 31st, the JV portfolio totaled $1.3 billion, and over the last 12 months, PNNT’s average NII yield on invested capital in the JV was 15.8%. The JV has the capacity to increase its portfolio to $1.5 billion, and we expect that with this additional growth, the JV investment will enhance PNNT’s earnings momentum into the future.

Turning to software exposure, which has been an area of recent market focus, our exposure remains limited at approximately 4.6% of the portfolio and is structured consistently with our core middle market strategy. These investments are primarily cash-pay, covenant-protected loans with moderate leverage and shorter durations. Importantly, they are concentrated in mission-critical enterprise software serving regulated industries such as defense, healthcare, and financial institutions. We believe this represents a meaningful point of differentiation relative to our peers. Turning to the market environment, we believe that the current environment favors lenders with strong private equity sponsor relationships and disciplined underwriting, areas where we have a clear competitive advantage. In the core middle market, the pricing on high-quality first lien term loans remains attractive, typically ranging from SOFR plus 500 to 550 basis points with leverage of approximately 4.5x EBITDA.

Importantly, we continue to get meaningful covenant protections in contrast to the covenant-light structures prevalent in the upper middle market. M&A activity has increased over the past 6 to 9 months, although overall conditions remain uneven. Private equity sponsors remain active, and we’re seeing a growing pipeline of attractive opportunities across both new originations and add-on investments. However, activity levels remain below the unusually strong levels observed in 2024 as the market transitions toward a more normalized backdrop. We expect increased transaction activity to drive repayments across the portfolio, including opportunities to monetize equity co-investments, and we’ll redeploy that capital into income-generating investments. Notably, we expect a meaningful realization from our equity co-investment in Aechelon Technology this quarter. Aechelon Technology is a leading defense technology company sponsored by Sagewind Capital, our long-term sponsor relationship.

Aechelon announced that it has agreed to be acquired by Shield AI, another cutting-edge defense technology company. Upon closing, we expect our $1.1 million equity co-investment to generate approximately $16 million in total proceeds. Proceeds will consist of $14 million of cash and $2 million of value in Shield AI stock. This represents nearly 15 times multiple on invested capital and demonstrates the value of our equity co-investment program. Given the current geopolitical environment and the Aechelon news, it’s important to highlight that approximately 12% of our portfolio is exposed to government services and defense. Now I’d like to speak about why we believe that our focus on the core middle market provides us with attractive investment opportunities where we provide important strategic capital to our borrowers.

The core middle market, companies with $10 million-$50 million of EBITDA, is below the threshold and does not compete with the broadly syndicated loan or high yield markets, unlike our peers in the upper middle market. In the core middle market, because we are an important strategic lending partner, the process and package of terms we receive is attractive. We have many weeks to do our diligence with care. We thoughtfully structure transactions with sensible credit statistics, meaningful covenants, substantial equity cushions to protect our capital, attractive spreads, and equity co-investment. From a monitoring perspective, we receive monthly financial statements to help us stay on top of the companies. Our rigorous underwriting standards remain central to our investment philosophy. Nearly all of our originated first lien loans include meaningful covenant protections, a key differentiator versus the upper middle market where covenant-light structures are more common.

Since our inception nearly 19 years ago, PNNT has invested $9.3 billion at an average yield of 11.2% while maintaining a loss ratio on invested capital of roughly 20 basis points annually, a testament to our consistent and disciplined approach through multiple market cycles. As a provider of strategic capital who fuels the growth of our portfolio companies, in many cases, we participate in the upside of the company by making an equity co-investment. Our returns on these equity co-investments have been excellent over time. Overall, for our platform, from inception through March 31st, we’ve invested over $618 million in equity co-investments and have generated an IRR of 25% at a multiple on invested capital of 2x. Looking ahead, our experienced team and broad origination platform position us well to generate attractive deal flow.

We remain steadfast in our commitment to capital preservation and maintaining a disciplined, patient investment approach. We continue to focus on investing in high-quality middle market companies with strong free cash flow generation. We capture that value through first lien senior secured loans, and we pay out those contractual cash flows in the form of dividends to our shareholders. With that overview, I’ll turn the call over to Jose for a more detailed review of our financial results.

Jose Briones, Senior Partner, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Thank you, Art. For the quarter ended March 31st, both GAAP net investment income and core net investment income were $0.14 per share. Operating expenses for the quarter were as follows: interest and credit facility expenses were $8.1 million, base management incentive fees were $5.6 million, general and administrative expenses were $1.5 million, and provision for excise taxes were $0.5 million. For the quarter end March 31st, net realized and unrealized change on investments and debt, including provision for taxes, was a loss of $11.7 million. As of March 31st, our NAV was $6.73 per share, which is down 3.9% from $7.00 per share in the prior quarter.

At March 31st, our debt-to-equity ratio was 1.35 times, and our capital structure was diversified across multiple funding sources, including both secured and unsecured debt. In January, we raised $75 million of new unsecured debt, which was used to repay our unsecured debt that matured on May 1st. As of March 31st, our key portfolio statistics were as follows: Our portfolio remains highly diversified with 160 companies across 38 different industries. The weighted average yield on our debt investment was 10.9%. The portfolio is comprised of 48% first-lien senior secured debt, 2% second lien secured debt, 14% supported notes to PSLF, 7% of other subordinated debt, 5% equity in PSLF, and 24% in other preferred and common equity co-investments. 88% of our debt portfolio is floating rate.

Debt-to-EBITDA on the portfolio is 4.7 times, and interest coverage is two point times. With that, I’ll turn the call back to Art for closing remarks.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Jose, in conclusion, we remain committed to delivering consistent performance, preserving capital, and creating long-term value for all stakeholders. Thank you to our team for their dedication and our shareholders for their continued partnership and confidence in PennantPark. That concludes our remarks. At this time, I’d like to open up the call to questions.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. If you’d 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 Robert Dodd with Raymond James.

Robert Dodd, Analyst, Raymond James: Hi, guys. A question about the market outlook, if I could in kind of so three segments overall. You know, you gave some color obviously, you know, conditions are still below what they were last year, et cetera. I mean, is there any, you know, meaningful scenario where that really meaningfully accelerates as we go through the year, given the level of uncertainty. Then within two subsectors there, like, what are your thoughts on software right now? ’Cause spreads are widening, but it’s not an area you’ve typically done a lot of. On the other hand, an area where you have done a lot is government, and contracting, et cetera, which you’ve just got a really nice gain lining up.

Do you expect the competitive dynamics to change in that segment of the market given how stable and budget talk for, you know, for defense, et cetera, is, you know, looking going forward? I mean, that’s a lot of a question there, so.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Thanks, Robert. I’ll try to cover the market outlook and software, and I’ll kick it over to Jose to talk about government services. Look, on M&A flows, we’re certainly hopeful. We’re seeing some green shoots or more than green shoots. It’s just not as robust as it was. Certainly, you know, it takes a real kind of a more stable market to, we think, to see more volume. We hope there is. Last year, we had Liberation Day kind of spike the punch bowl. This year, you know, whether it’s the war or, you know, some of the other issues, we’re certainly hopeful that we’ll see a more normalized environment. We’re hearing that it will be, but we’ve heard that before, so the proof will be in the pudding.

You know, Aechelon and some other deals we’re seeing, you know, are good indications that there is still deal flow. With regard to software, you know, we never really did much in software primarily because the leverage multiples were higher than we were comfortable with. You know, the software that we do have, which is relatively small, it’s kind of 4 or 5 times leverage. It’s certainly not levered 6, 7, 8 times or levered against ARR. Even though, you know, we’re just still not seeing, you know, a market, and certainly with AI coming on, there’s just probably too much secular risk on the system. We’re open-minded. We always wanna learn, and maybe there will be opportunities in this reassessment of the technology stack.

We’re open to it, but as always, we wanna make sure leverage is reasonable, that we can get comfortable that the companies have a strong moat and that the companies have a real reason to exist long term. With that, Jose, you wanna comment on government services and defense?

Jose Briones, Senior Partner, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Sure, sure. Hey, Robert. Great to hear from you.

Robert Dodd, Analyst, Raymond James: Hey.

Jose Briones, Senior Partner, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Yeah, look, government services is a sector that we’ve been involved for quite some time. It’s a very nuanced space that we like, where we have, you know, very, you know, strong relationships with private equity sponsors that know that space really well. We think that’s an area of growth and an area of opportunity for us. You know, Shield AI’s the acquisition of Aechelon Technology by Shield AI is a great example of that. You know, to the market in general, the first quarter is seasonally slow for our business, and then it usually picks up.

With regards to the government services and government contracting, clearly, you know, given the conflict in the Middle East, you know, there’s a lot of emphasis on that, and we’re still seeing, you know, interesting opportunities in that part of the market. Another area that we do spend a lot of time with is healthcare and healthcare services, as you know. That’s an area that we do like, and we do see interesting opportunities. You know, pricing, you know, for the market generally has been in that sort of 500 to 550. We haven’t seen, you know, much change of that in the past couple of quarters. Our expectation, to Art’s point earlier, is to continue to focus on the areas where, you know, we like and the areas where we have expertise in.

Robert Dodd, Analyst, Raymond James: Got it. Thank you. One more if I can. I mean, it seems like every quarter we’re asking like, "Oh, what’s your exposure to or the risk from this?" It was software, a year ago. To your point, it was tariffs, a lot of things. Now I gotta ask about oil and commodity prices. I mean, the uncertainty in the oil markets and the supply there, I don’t think you have a ton of exposure anymore. What’s kind of the portfolio exposure, if oil were to go meaningfully higher for a sustained period, or supply issues for that matter, right?

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Yeah. It’s a good question. As you know, in our history, we did oil and gas, and that’s why we don’t do it today. Enough said there. I guess you could think of kind of, you know, other areas it could impact. Could it impact the American consumer if gas prices are higher? For sure. Consumer is a sector of ours. Now, in most cases, we’re doing consumer services that we think are a little less discretionary, like HVAC, when your air conditioning breaks, you know, other services around the home. Consumer is a piece of the portfolio. It’s not an overweight piece of the portfolio, but it is.

You can certainly, you know, think about all the, you know, We don’t do much in manufacturing, so kind of none of that plastics kind of manufacturing, paper packaging. We don’t really have any exposure there. I’d say it’s really the American consumer, which, by the way, the American consumer is a big, big chunk of the overall economy, so if the American consumer.

Robert Dodd, Analyst, Raymond James: Yeah

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: is weaker, that has a lot of, you know, other impacts that may happen. I would say that’s the closest thing we have to oil exposure.

Robert Dodd, Analyst, Raymond James: Got it. Got it. Thank you.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: We’ll go next to Aaron Saykanich with Truist Securities.

Aaron Saykanich, Analyst, Truist Securities: Thanks. The Aechelon transaction that’s gonna close in the second quarter, I think. Is that what you said?

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Yeah

Aaron Saykanich, Analyst, Truist Securities: Is the sale price, you know, consistent with where it was marked at 3/31?

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Yes. We think it’ll close in the next 60 days, and it’s marked, you know, as fair value at the deal price.

Aaron Saykanich, Analyst, Truist Securities: Okay. Yeah, just wanted to clarify that. Any other, you know, equity positions that, you know, are in talks or anything you can identify that, you know, might potentially move over the next quarter or two?

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Yeah, no. These are less impactful. There’s a company called Guild Garage, which was marked at fair value at 3/31, which has since exited. There’s an equity co-invest there, which is, you know, a few million dollars. We have others that are kind of in the wings. Nothing as impactful as Aechelon, you know, getting some singles and doubles here and there, you know, should be helpful.

Aaron Saykanich, Analyst, Truist Securities: Great. Thank you.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: We’ll take our next question from Rick Shane with J.P. Morgan.

Rick Shane, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Guess I’m glad that we’re not revisiting the whole oil and gas thing. It seems like the last time we were talking, that was a big issue years ago. The question we’ve been asking everybody this quarter, and I’m curious, given your focus, is sort of where in the continuum we are in terms of pricing and more importantly, deal structure. I took your comments to mean that you just don’t ever see the sort of variance that we might see in the BSL market. How should we think about this?

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Well, we should, you have the upper market where many of the large peers play above 50 of EBITDA. That’s been covenant-lite for a while because those borrowers, you know, have options in the broadly syndicated loan market. That market also similarly as, you know, the companies there, only report to those lenders every 3 months. They don’t get co-invest, even if they wanted it. They may or may not want it, they don’t get co-invest. Just kind of the deal decision-making is much tighter, you know. Our prototypical deal is we’re working on a company where a founder, a family, or an entrepreneur is selling to the middle market private equity sponsor, and the company does $10 million or $20 million of EBITDA.

The game plan is to take that company and grow it and do add-on acquisitions and get it to 30, 40, 50, 60, so that it can then be sold or financed, you know, in the upper market. As a result, in our world, our capital is strategic capital. It’s there usually with the late draw term loan to help fuel the growth. We become very much a strategic partner of that company. We become the strategic partner of that management team, strategic partner of the sponsor, and our loan is the fuel. Because we’re the strategic partner, we have plenty of time to do our diligence. We really understand, and we need to understand what we’re lending to.

We, of course, get maintenance covenants, quarterly tests that need to be met contractually. We get monthly financial statements. We have the option, in many cases, we take the option to co-invest in the equity because, of course, if we’re helping to create the equity value with our loan, why wouldn’t we help participate in the participate in that upside? You see the benefit of that. Aechelon’s an excellent example. You can see the benefit of having something in this portfolio or these portfolios that’s got some lift that can offset, in the inevitable non-accruals you have. We all have non-accruals. There’s no private credit manager that’s perfect. You try to develop a diversified book, minimize non-accruals, but you’re gonna have non-accruals.

Having some equity co-invest in these portfolios we found helpful to help fill in for some of those gaps. We’re operating in an entirely different world than the upper market. You know, it just doesn’t make sense for the business model of those folks in the upper market to come down and spend their time on companies of this size, given the size of check. If you’re managing $100 billion or $200 billion or whatever you’re managing in private credit, it just doesn’t make sense to be focused on this end of the world. That’s why, you know, there’s only a handful of real competitors that we have in this kind of below $50 million of EBITDA. It’s a long-winded answer, Rick.

I don’t know if I answered your question, but please continue to ask if I didn’t get to it.

Rick Shane, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: No, you did. Again, I think that helps on the asset side. Curious on the funding side, if there’s anything that we should be thinking about here. you know, banks have been very reliable partners in the space, but you always do wonder about sort of selectivity of credit. Curious if you’re seeing any opportunity or any risk on the financing side.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Yeah, no. We, it’s a great question because having started our business right before the global financial crisis, we learned very early that, you know, lender transparency, relationship with lenders, you know, is so key, and they become our partners. We are always reaching out to our lenders and offering to bring them in and transparently go name by name. Interesting. You know, a month or two or three ago when the headlines about private credit started to come out, we proactively reached out to every one of our lenders. We said, "Come on in. We’d be happy to walk through, you know, loan by loan what’s going on with our portfolio.

We feel, you know, really good about it and feel like we’ve underwritten a very solid book." The vast majority of the lenders said to us, "You know what? You don’t have much software exposure. You’re way down on our list of who we’re gonna come visit. We’ve got plenty of other people to go visit." We’re always doing that. We’re always out with our lenders, developing relationships. As you know, in PNNT, we have different types of debt capital. We have good old credit facilities. We have bonds, and we have securitizations that we use. They’re all useful tools, and we have a diversified strategy of using all three.

Rick Shane, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Got it. If there was any credit contraction on that side, you remain at the bottom of their lists in terms of visits as well.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Yeah.

Rick Shane, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Thanks, guys.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Thanks, Rick.

Conference Call Operator: We’ll go next to Christopher Nolan with Ladenburg Thalmann.

Christopher Nolan, Analyst, Ladenburg Thalmann: Hey. Jose, do you know the reason for the drop in total interest income quarter-over-quarter?

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Let me come back to you on that.

Christopher Nolan, Analyst, Ladenburg Thalmann: If you don’t, we.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Let me get back on that.

Christopher Nolan, Analyst, Ladenburg Thalmann: No problem at all. Art,

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Hey, I’m sorry. Eric Leeds is here from our finance department. Eric, do you have anything you’d like to add on that?

Eric Leeds, Finance Department, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Basically, the smaller average portfolio over the quarter, I believe.

Christopher Nolan, Analyst, Ladenburg Thalmann: Great.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: I mean, we ended up generating $0.14. I think consensus was $0.15, we were certainly happy to, you know, go into the detail with you, Chris, if you’d like.

Christopher Nolan, Analyst, Ladenburg Thalmann: No, no. That’s okay. In general, are you seeing a migration of portfolio companies from high tax states to lower tax states, at all? You know, any thoughts?

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Yeah. Yeah, no. We aren’t. You know, we do have a very diversified portfolio geographically around the United States. Certainly, we tend to lend to companies that are growing companies wherever they may be, but we haven’t yet seen, you know, movement of headquarters, you know, given what’s going on.

Christopher Nolan, Analyst, Ladenburg Thalmann: Got it. Okay, thanks.

Conference Call Operator: At this time, there are no further questions. I’ll now turn the call back to Art for any additional or closing remarks.

Art Penn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PennantPark Investment Corporation: Thank you, everybody. Really appreciate everyone’s participation today. Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day. We look forward to speaking to you next in early August at our next earnings report. Thank you very much.

Conference Call Operator: This does conclude today’s conference. We thank you for your participation.