MSC Income Fund, Inc. 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Thank you operator. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for MSC Income Fund's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me today with prepared comments are Dwayne Hyzak, Chief Executive Officer; Nick Meserve, Managing Director and Head of the Private Credit Investment Group; David Magdol, President and Chief Investment Officer; and Cory Gilbert, Chief Financial Officer. MSC Income Fund issued a press release yesterday afternoon that details the fund's second quarter financial and operating results. The document is available on the investor relations section of the fund's website at mscincomefund.com. A replay of today's call will be available beginning an hour after the completion of the call and will remain available until August 14th. Information on how to access the replay was included in yesterday's earnings release.

We also advise you that this conference call is being broadcast live through the Internet and can be accessed on the fund's homepage. Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, August 7th, 2026. Therefore, you are advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of any replay listening or transcript reading. Today's call may contain forward-looking statements. Many of these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as anticipates, believes, expects, intends, will, should, may, or similar expressions. Statements are based on management's estimates, assumptions, and projections as of the date of this call. There are no guarantees of future performance.

Actual results may differ materially from the results expressed or implied in these statements as a result of risks, uncertainties, and other factors, including, but not limited to, the factors set forth in the fund's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be found on the fund's website or at sec.gov. MSC Income Fund assumes no obligation to update any of these statements unless required by law. During today's call, management will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted net investment income, or ANII, and ANII before taxes. ANII is net investment income, or NII, as determined in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, excluding the impact of capital gains incentive fee. ANII before taxes is NII, as determined in accordance with GAAP, excluding the impact of the capital gains incentive fee and any tax expenses included in NII.

MSC Income believes that presenting ANII and ANII before taxes and the related per share amounts is a useful and appropriate supplemental disclosure for analyzing the fund's financial performance, since the calculation of the capital gains incentive fee is based on realized gains and losses and unrealized fair value appreciation and depreciation, none of which are included in NII, and tax expenses included in NII may include excise tax expense, which is not solely attributable to NII, and deferred taxes, which are not payable in the current period. Please refer to yesterday's press release for reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. Two additional key performance indicators that management will be discussing on this call are net asset value, or NAV, and return on equity, or ROE.

NAV is defined as total assets minus total liabilities and is also reported on a per share basis. The Income Fund defines ROE as the net increase in net assets resulting from operations divided by the average quarterly NAV. Please note that certain information discussed on this call, including information related to portfolio companies, was derived from third-party sources and has not been independently verified. Now I'll turn the call over to MSC Income Fund Chief Executive Officer, Dwayne Hyzak.

Thanks, Zach. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us. We appreciate your participation on this morning's call. We hope that everyone's doing well. On today's call, we will provide you with the fund's key quarterly updates, after which we'll be happy to take your questions. Before we provide our normal quarterly updates, I want to start by congratulating Nick Meserve on the recent announcement of his planned transition to Chief Executive Officer of the fund in the fourth quarter of this year. Nick is uniquely qualified to assume the role of the fund's CEO. He has led the fund's private loan investment strategy since the inception of the fund and has been part of Main Street's private loan investment strategy and activities since he joined the Main Street investment team in 2012.

Nick has been a highly valuable member of our organization as we have grown the fund historically, taken it public in 2025, and focused its investment strategy on private loans. I look forward to continuing to work closely with Nick in my planned future role as the fund's Executive Chairman. Now turning to the fund's most recent operating results. We are pleased with the fund's performance in the second quarter, which resulted in an annualized return on equity of 15.9% and a significant net fair value appreciation in the fund's investment portfolio. Based upon the quality of the fund's existing investment portfolio, together with the favorable liquidity position and the current investment pipeline, we remain excited about our future expectations for the fund. The fund generated adjusted net investment income, or ANII, of $0.33 per share in the quarter, or $0.36 per share on a before taxes basis.

These results, combined with our positive outlook for the future, resulted in the fund's most recent dividend announcements, which I will discuss in more detail later. The fund finished the quarter with an NAV per share of $16.51, a 4% increase from prior quarter, and we continue to be pleased with the performance of the fund's investment portfolio. Cory will discuss our financial results in more detail. The fund's private loan investment activity improved significantly in the second quarter, but the fund also experienced increased levels of repayments, resulting in a net increase in private loan investments of $10 million. The fund remains highly focused on executing new investment opportunities that are consistent with its historical private loan investments as we work to grow the fund's investment portfolio.

The fund is also focused on maximizing the benefits from its legacy lower middle market investment portfolio, and eventually recycling this capital into private loan investments as investments are exited or repaid. Reflecting on this priority, we're pleased that the fund exited its investments in one high-performing lower middle market portfolio company, Centre Technologies, in the second quarter at a realized gain of over $11 million and a meaningful premium to its March 31st fair value. The fund also continues to benefit from attractive follow-on investments in existing lower middle market portfolio companies, which we believe are beneficial to both current investment income and future value creation on those existing investments. Nick and David will cover the fund's investment activity in more detail.

Based upon the fund's results for the second quarter, the fund's board of directors declared regular monthly dividends for the fourth quarter of $0.11 per share, payable in each of October, November, and December, and a supplemental dividend of $0.03 per share payable in December, resulting in total dividends payable in the fourth quarter at $0.36 per share, consistent with the fund's total quarterly dividends for each quarter since the fund's listing in January 2025. Going forward, the fund expects to maintain a dividend policy that provides for its total quarterly dividends, which are expected to include regular monthly dividends and a supplemental dividend to be set at a level generally consistent with the fund's ANII before taxes per share. Based upon the total dividends payable for the fourth quarter and the current stock price, the fund is providing shareholders a current dividend yield of over 12%.

As we look forward to the fund's near-term investment activities, as of today, I would characterize the private loan investment pipeline as average. We're excited about the current pipeline of new investment opportunities and follow-on investment opportunities in existing portfolio companies, we remain confident in our ability to generate attractive new private loan investment opportunities and grow the fund's investment portfolio over the next several quarters. Turning to other opportunities intended to add value to the fund shareholders, we're pleased to announce that the fund's board of directors recently authorized a new open market share repurchase plan, under which the fund may repurchase up to $20 million of fund shares beginning in September 2026 and ending in February 2027, at times when the fund shares are trading at predetermined levels below the fund's NAV per share.

As I noted earlier, we have a high level of comfort about the quality of the fund's investment portfolio, as a result, believe that this repurchase plan can be used to create additional value for the fund shareholders. My last few comments are reminders of the continued support the fund has received from Main Street Capital Corporation. Since Main Street's wholly owned subsidiary was appointed the sole advisor to the fund in October 2020, Main Street has purchased over $30 million of the fund's common stock.

In conjunction with the fund's new repurchase plan, Main Street also authorized a new share purchase plan to purchase up to $20 million of the fund shares, with the terms of such plan being identical to the fund's new open market share repurchase plan, resulting in a total of $40 million of potential purchases between the fund and Main Street under such plans, with any open market share purchases being split by the fund and Main Street on a pro-rata basis. As an additional show of support for the fund, Main Street, through its wholly owned investment advisor, voluntarily agreed to permanently waive approximately $260,000 of incentive fees earned for the second quarter to support the fund's resulting ANII before taxes per share, resulting in total incentive fee waivers of $1.4 million over the last year.