Great Elm Group Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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November 12, 2024

There are 3 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Great Elm Group Fiscal 2025 First Quarter Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Adam Yates, Managing Director.

Operator

Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Great Elm Group's fiscal Q1 2025 earnings conference call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded on Tuesday, November 12, 2024. If you would like to be added to our distribution list, you can e mail geginvestorrelations@greatelmcap.com or you can sign up for alerts directly on our website, www.greatelmcroup.com. The slide presentation accompanying today's conference call and webcast can be found on our website under Events and Presentations.

Speaker 1

A link to the webcast is also available on our website as well as in the press release that was disseminated to announce the quarterly results. Today's conference call includes forward looking statements and we ask that you refer to Great Elm Group's filings with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. Great Elm Group does not undertake to update its forward looking statements unless required by law. In addition, during today's call, management will refer to certain non GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable financial measures are included in our earnings release.

Speaker 1

To obtain copies of our SEC filings, please visit Great Elm Group's website under Financial Information and select SEC Filings. Today's comments do not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy interest in any investment vehicle managed by Great Elm or its affiliates. Any such offer or solicitation will only be made pursuant to the applicable offering documents for such investment vehicle. On the call today, we have Jason Rees, CEO Adam Kleinman, President and General Counsel Nicole Mills, COO and Kerry Davis, CFO. I will now turn the call over to Jason Rees, CEO.

Speaker 1

Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us today. We delivered a solid start to fiscal 2025 building on momentum from last fiscal year as we continue to evolve as a streamlined pure play asset management business. This quarter was marked by significant growth in both assets under management and revenue across our businesses. Our strong foundation enables us to actively grow our core credit and real estate platforms and execute on our long term growth strategy. As we begin fiscal 2025, our highlights are we continue to grow our assets under management, increasing our fee paying assets under management by over 20% on a year over year basis in the quarter.

Speaker 1

We generated total revenue of $4,000,000 growing 21% year over year. We proved out our real estate built to suit concept with Monomoy BTS completing construction of its first property with a successful exit. We surpassed double digit net returns in our recently ceded credit fund just prior to its 1 year anniversary. Our buyback authorization was expanded to up to $20,000,000 and we continue to repurchase shares at a significant discount to book value. We ended the quarter in a strong financial position with over $50,000,000 in cash and marketable securities available to facilitate continued growth across our asset management platforms.

Speaker 1

Diving into the quarter in more detail, fee paying assets under management continued to grow and reached approximately $545,000,000 representing a 21% increase over the prior year period. The main driver of this growth is our BDC Great Elm Capital Corp. Notably from February through October 2024, GECC completed numerous equity and debt issuances exceeding $130,000,000 Importantly, GEG has demonstrated its commitment to scaling GECC by participating in 2 prior equity raises at the then current NAV. GECC also delivered a strong quarter achieving record total investment income with NII exceeding its quarterly distribution. This performance was primarily driven by increased cash flows from the early success of GECC's CLO joint venture.

Speaker 1

The portfolio remains solid and I invite you to listen to the latest GECC conference call available on its website for additional information on the continued transformation at the BDC. Overall, these issuances and portfolio enhancements at GECC are integral to our business. They strengthen our ability to grow fee paying assets under management, while also expanding GEG's fee earning potential through both substantial recurring asset management fees and potential incentive fees from the incremental capital. Notable, Great Elm's base management fee from GECC increased by 34% year over year to $1,200,000 and in the quarter we earned $900,000 of incentive fees from GECC. Our real estate platform also continues to expand as we are nearing completion of our 2nd build to suit property.

Speaker 1

Moreover, we expect continued profitability in fiscal 2025 as the team focuses on selling its second property and begins development on its 3rd contracted design build project. The build to suit pipeline remains robust. We will continue to execute on these development opportunities to further enhance profits at GEG and create value for both our tenants and shareholders. Monomoy BTS Construction Management, which offers consulting and owner representative services for in house construction projects also continue to ramp up. We began earning fees from this business in fiscal 2024 and given strong initial demand and growth prospects, we are excited about expanding this vertical as we progress through fiscal 2025.

Speaker 1

Additionally, Monomoy REIT after solid performance over fiscal 2024 continues to execute. We have several value added acquisitions under contract that we expect to close in the first half of our fiscal year. We are excited about Monomoy's performance and growth prospects as fiscal 2025 progresses. Also, as you may recall, we launched the Great Elm Credit Income Fund or GSIB in November of 'twenty three. I am pleased to report that the fund has delivered a solid return of over 11% net of fees and expenses through its 1st 11 months.

Speaker 1

With these strong returns and newly established track record, we are well situated to attract new capital and further scale the platform. Outside of our core businesses, GEG's Board of Directors authorized an additional $10,000,000 of stock repurchases this quarter, expanding the program's total capacity up to $20,000,000 Through November 8, 2024, Great Elm has repurchased approximately 2,500,000 shares for $4,600,000 or $1.85 per share, a meaningful discount to book value of $2.22 per share. GEG continues to maintain a strong balance sheet and capital position with over $50,000,000 of cash and marketable securities. This strong liquidity position enables us to support further growth initiatives across our alternative asset management platform. In sum, we are pleased with the continued performance of our credit and real estate segments in the fiscal Q1.

Speaker 1

We are focused on accelerating this momentum as we continue repositioning Great Elm in the alternative asset management space. Further, we remain committed to our 3 core objectives enhancing financial performance, expanding our platform and growing assets under management. Additionally, we continue to actively evaluate multiple strategic initiatives alongside other opportunities to add accretive differentiated products. Moving ahead, we maintain our steadfast commitment to pursuing opportunities to expand our businesses and allocate capital to promising new platforms offering attractive risk adjusted returns. Before turning the call over to Kerry to review our financial details, I would like to address our net income for the quarter.

Speaker 1

Net income benefited from the reversal of approximately $3,500,000 in previously recorded unrealized losses related to GEG's investment in special purpose vehicles. On our last call, we highlighted that these SPVs were marked to a material lesser value. While we anticipated the losses to reverse over time, we saw a substantial portion of the reversal this quarter. Our total aggregate net unrealized loss in these investments is approximately $300,000 life to date. As we continue to execute, we expect these investments will begin to deliver positive returns for shareholders over time.

Speaker 1

With that, I'll turn it over to Keri.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jason. I'll provide a brief overview of the quarter and of course welcome all of you to review our filings in greater detail or reach out to our team with any questions. Fiscal Q1 revenues grew 21% to $4,000,000 from the prior year period, primarily driven by additional proceeds related to our June 2024 property sale, along with a pickup in management fees. Pro form a AUM and fee paying AUM, reflecting GECC's refinancing and extinguishment of its GECCM notes, totaled approximately $741,000,000 $545,000,000 up 16% and 21%, respectively, from the prior year quarter end. Great Elm Group generated net income from continuing operations of $3,000,000 for the quarter as compared to $2,800,000 for the prior year period.

Speaker 2

As previously mentioned, this quarter's gain was driven by the reversal of approximately $3,500,000 in previously recorded unrealized losses related to the company's investments in special purpose vehicles. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $1,300,000 compared to $1,700,000 in the prior year period. As of September 30, we had approximately $52,000,000 of combined cash and marketable securities on our balance sheet to deploy across our growing alternative asset management platform. Please refer to Slide 7 that provides an overview of our financial position and highlights our book value per share of approximately $2.22 This concludes my financial review of the quarter. With that, we will turn the call over to the operator to open for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now conduct a question and answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the call back to Jason Reiss for closing comments.

Speaker 1

Thank you for joining us today and we look forward to speaking with you in the future.

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Great Elm Group Q1 2025
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