Ares Capital (NASDAQ:ARCC) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Good afternoon. Welcome to Ares Capital Corporation's Second Quarter Ended 06/30/2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Wednesday, 07/29/2026. I will now turn the call over to Mr. John Stilmar, Partner of Ares Public Markets Investor Relations. Thank you. Now let me start with some important reminders. Comments made during the course of this conference call and webcast as well as accompanying documents contain forward looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results could differ materially from those expressed in such forward looking statements for any reason, including those listed in its SEC filings.

0:47 Ares Capital Corporation assumes no obligation to update any such forward looking statements. Please also note that past performance or market information is not a guarantee future results. During this conference call, the company may discuss certain non GAAP measures as defined by SEC Regulation G, which encompasses measures such as core earnings or core EPS. The company believes that core EPS provides useful information to investors regarding financial performance because it's one method the company uses to measure its financial condition and results of operation. A reconciliation of GAAP net income per share, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, to core EPS can be found in the accompanying slide presentation for this call. In addition, a reconciliation of these measures may also be found in our earnings release filed this morning with the SEC on Form eight ks.

1:35 Certain information discussed in this conference call and the accompanying slide presentation, including credit ratings and information relating to portfolio companies, was derived or obtained from third party sources and has not been independently verified, and accordingly, the company makes no representation or warranty in respect to this information. The company's second quarter ended 06/30/2026, presentation can be found on the company's website at www.arcc.ares.com by clicking on the second quarter earnings presentation link on the Events and Presentations page of the Investor Resources section of the Ares Capital Corporation's earnings release and in the Form 10 Q, which are also available on the company's website.

2:21 I'd like to now turn the call over to Mr. Cort Schnabel, Ares Capital Corporation's Chief Executive Officer. Cort? Thanks, John, and hello, everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings call today. I'm joined by Jim Miller, our President Jana Markowitz, our Chief Operating Officer Scott Lem, our Chief Financial Officer and other members of the management team who will be available during our Q and A session. This morning, we reported solid second quarter results with core earnings of $0.47 per share, representing an annualized return on equity of 9.7% consistent with the prior quarter. We also continued to see healthy overall portfolio performance with attractive organic EBITDA growth and historically low levels of non accruing loans and problem assets.

3:07 As Scott will discuss later, we continued to enhance our already strong balance sheet during the quarter, and we are well positioned with significant available capital for new investment opportunities and no meaningful near term maturities. Let me begin with a few observations on the market environment. We saw fewer deals close across the market in the second quarter as sponsors and borrowers continued to navigate a more uncertain macroeconomic backdrop. This was particularly evident in a lack of sponsor backed M and A activity. As the quarter progressed, we became more active. We reviewed over 25% more transactions than in the prior quarter, and June marked one of our strongest months for new transactions reviewed in the past two years.

3:54 We believe this momentum reflects the value borrowers and sponsors place on the stability and scale of our capital in a more selective financing environment, particularly as we have seen some managers more heavily indexed to retail capital become less active. As uncertainty persists, borrowers and sponsors are increasingly focused not only on execution, but also on partnering with lenders they are confident can provide incremental capital throughout the cycle. We believe Ares and ARCC remain meaningfully differentiated in this regard. Ares' institutionally focused fund complex is supported by stable, long term capital and substantial dry powder, providing borrowers with confidence that we can support their financing needs across market cycles.

4:44 Those advantages reinforce ARCC's position as the largest publicly traded BDC and the highest rated BDC across the three major credit rating agencies, supporting differentiated access to capital and financing flexibility. We believe these strengths continue to set ARCC apart and position the company to capitalize on opportunities across market cycles while delivering attractive long term performance to our shareholders. Another key differentiator for our business is the strength of our relationships with existing borrowers. In the second quarter, 75% of our transactions were with incumbent borrowers, highlighting the sourcing advantages created by our borrower and sponsor relationships. The value of those relationships is reflected in our ability to increase our share of financing commitments across many of our new originations, allowing us to deepen our exposure to some of our best performing borrowers.

5:43 With six nineteen portfolio companies, we believe our incumbent relationships will continue to be a meaningful driver of origination activity and long term value creation for our shareholders. We are also seeing attractive opportunities emerge, particularly in the upper middle market where the scale of our capital is driving enhanced economics, stronger terms, and more compelling risk adjusted returns than we saw a year ago, particularly relative to segments such as the lower middle market. We are one of only a few lenders with the scale, certainty and flexibility to serve borrowers across the entire middle market, which allows us to focus our capital where we see the most compelling relative value. We believe those advantages continue to differentiate ARCC and support strong risk adjusted returns over time.

6:34 Underlying these advantages is our institutionalized credit process and disciplined investment approach, which keep us highly selective. While industry transaction volumes remain below what many had expected, we believe some lenders are facing increased pressure to deploy capital, leading them to compromise on quality. By contrast, our second quarter closing ratio was moderately below our historical average of approximately 5%, underscoring the discipline that has been a hallmark of our long term investment performance. The strength of our investment process is reinforced by the experience and tenure of our leadership team, which remain important differentiators for ARCC. Every member of ARCC's executive leadership team has spent roughly two decades at Ares, and our investment committee members have been with the firm for over eighteen years on average.

7:30 That continuity has helped foster a deeply ingrained credit culture across our U. S. Direct lending platform and has been an important contributor to our long term investment performance. Over our history, our differentiated approach has enabled us to maximize outcomes on challenging credits while capturing additional upside through our equity co investments. Importantly, our equity co investment vintages over the last decade have generated an average gross IRR of more than 20%, helping to generate more than $1,000,000,000 cumulative net realized gains in excess of realized losses since inception. Turning to the portfolio, our diverse, high quality portfolio continues to perform well.

8:17 We ended the quarter with investments of $29,700,000,000 at cost, with no single investment representing more than 1.3% of the portfolio, excluding our investments in Ivy Hill and the SDLP, which offer diversified exposures to senior loans. We believe our level of diversification is an important advantage, particularly as dispersion across the market continues to increase, helping to limit company specific risk while supporting more consistent portfolio performance over time. The performance of our borrowers also remains healthy overall. Our borrowers generated organic weighted average LTM EBITDA growth of approximately 8% through the end of the second quarter, which is consistent with ARCC's ten year average and remains well in excess of the broader syndicated loan benchmark.

9:09 We're also seeing that strength show up in other key credit indicators as interest coverage, leverage levels, and revolving credit facility utilization remain in line with historical averages for our portfolio. Alongside these performance trends, our portfolio companies on average continue to maintain equity capital cushions of more than 50% beneath our investments, which we believe provides meaningful downside protection and supports the resilience of the portfolio. As we discussed in detail last quarter, we believe the potential impact of AI varies meaningfully across different businesses and risk profiles. Nearly all of our software investments are focused on what we view as foundational infrastructure for complex businesses, often serving as systems of record in regulated end markets with high switching costs and significant embedded value.

10:06 Importantly, we continue to see strong operating performance across our software investments, with organic LTM EBITDA growth accelerating during the second quarter and exceeding the broader portfolio average. Within our software portfolio, only one small loan is currently on non accrual, and our debt investments remain supported by loan to value ratios in the low 40% range, providing substantial equity value beneath our positions. As a reminder, as we mentioned on last quarter's call, we recently completed an independent assessment of our software oriented portfolio companies by a top tier global management consulting firm. Consistent with the last quarter, we continue to believe AI risk across our software oriented portfolio remains limited overall, with less than 50 basis points of ARCC's total portfolio at fair value attributable to higher AI risk software investments, and less than 4% attributable to medium or higher AI risk software investments.

11:13 Importantly, medium risk companies are performing well today, with credit statistics comparable to the overall portfolio. While we believe businesses in this category will need to continue investing considerably in AI to maintain their competitive positions, we have not seen that translate into weaker credit performance. Overall, we continue to feel good about our current positioning as it relates to potential AI related risks, while recognizing the importance of remaining vigilant in our ongoing portfolio monitoring and thoughtful in how we allocate new capital to the sector. Turning to our dividend outlook, we continue to believe ARCC's current regular dividend appropriately reflects our long run underlying earnings power.

12:00 Our earnings and dividend profile is further supported by substantial spillover income, modest leverage, a more stable interest rate environment, and continued overall healthy credit performance. Our significant spillover income provides an additional layer of flexibility and can help bridge during periods of slower transaction activity. In addition, over the last twelve months, core earnings have exceeded our regular dividend, while an additional $0.15 per share of net realized gains has provided further support for our overall dividend paying capacity. Taken together, these factors support our outlook for relative stability in earnings and our decision to maintain a stable quarterly dividend, building on our track record of stable or growing regular quarterly dividends for seventeen consecutive years.

12:54 With that, I will turn the call over to Scott to take us through our financial results and balance sheet. Thanks, Gord. I will begin by reviewing several key financial metrics from the second quarter, then discuss the steps we took to further strengthen our balance sheet and conclude with an update on our dividend and the taxable spillover income Court referenced earlier. This morning, we reported GAAP net income per share of $0.24 up from $0.13 in the first quarter of twenty twenty six. The sequential improvement was largely driven by lower net unrealized depreciation. As a reminder, and consistent with the first quarter, this unrealized depreciation was primarily due to mark to market changes. Core earnings of $0.47 per share in the second quarter of twenty twenty six were consistent with the prior quarter, reflecting continued healthy portfolio performance and stable earnings generation despite a more subdued transaction environment.

13:56 Now turning to the balance sheet. Our total portfolio at fair value at the end of the second quarter was 29,300,000,000 down slightly from $29,500,000,000 from the first quarter, primarily reflecting the mark to market valuation adjustments and healthy net repayment activity. Our net asset value ended the quarter at $13,900,000,000 or $19.35 per share, which represents a decrease of $0.24 per share from a quarter ago. While NAV declined modestly during the second quarter, this should be viewed in the context of ARCC's long track record of generating NAV growth while paying stable and attractive dividends to shareholders. Consistent with that track record, ARCC has grown NAV per share by more than 30% since inception.

14:48 Importantly, our leverage of 1.12 times debt to equity, net of available cash, was effectively stable quarter over quarter and we ended the quarter with approximately $6,000,000,000 of available liquidity, after giving effect to the repayment of $1,000,000,000 of unsecured notes earlier this month. Our maturity profile also remains well laddered with no additional unsecured note maturities in 2026 and only $1,400,000,000 maturing in 2027. This combination of modest leverage, substantial liquidity and a well laddered maturity profile continues to support significant investment capacity and financial flexibility. During the second quarter, we continue to benefit from our broad and diversified access to capital.

15:39 In total, we've done approximately $1,200,000,000 of additional financing for the issuance of $800,000,000 of unsecured notes and approximately $370,000,000 of additional commitments across two of our secured revolving credit facilities, all at what we believe continue to reflect industry leading pricing and terms. We also continue to lower our borrowing costs while further diversifying our funding sources. Most notably, we launched the first commercial paper program in the BDC sector. The $1,000,000,000 program provides access to a lower cost funding source and is effectively backed by our recently renewed, fully committed, long dated $5,500,000,000 revolving credit facility.

16:27 At current market levels, issuing commercial paper has the potential to reduce our funding costs by approximately 50 to 100 basis points relative to our average secured borrowings. Importantly, should the commercial paper market become less favorable, we have the flexibility to instead fund through our long term committed bank credit facilities. We believe this structure provides greater durability than programs supported by shorter dated three sixty four day facilities. As a reminder, we currently have $10,800,000,000 of fully committed revolving credit facilities with a weighted average remaining maturity of more than four years. More broadly, the commercial paper program aligns with our balance sheet philosophy of lowering funding costs and improving efficiency while preserving the durability, flexibility, and resilience of our liability structure.

17:26 We also further advanced these objectives during the second quarter by reducing the borrowing costs in our largest revolving credit facility by 10 basis points and extending its maturity to May 2031. After quarter end, we also took advantage of favorable market dynamics to reset our inaugural $476,000,000 debt securitization, reducing its weighted average spread by 35 basis points while extending its reinvestment period by three years and its final maturity by two years. Together, these actions further improve the efficiency of our funding profile while reinforcing the strength and durability of our balance sheet. Looking ahead, while some market participants may face tighter credit conditions and reduce access to capital in this environment, we believe investors and lenders will continue to favor scale platforms with broad capabilities, proven track records, and deep market relationships.

18:29 As the highest rated BDC across all three major rating agencies, we believe ARCC is particularly well positioned in this environment, supporting our investment capabilities and strong long term performance through cycles. Finally, our third quarter twenty twenty six regular dividend of $0.48 per share is payable on September 30, as stockholders of record as of September 15. ARCC has now paid stable or increasing regular quarterly dividends for sixty eight consecutive quarters. Turning to our taxable income spillover, we currently estimate that we will carry forward approximately $9.00 $8,000,000 or $1.38 per share available for distribution to stockholders in future periods.

19:15 I will now turn the call over to Jim to walk through our investment activities. Thank you, Scott. I'll start with some additional context on our investment approach in the current environment, and then walk through our investment activity, portfolio performance, and overall positioning. While overall market activity remains subdued during the quarter, we believe this environment reinforces the value of ARCC's scale, committed capital, longstanding borrower and sponsor relationships, and highly selective approach. In the second quarter, we originated $2,600,000,000 of new investment commitments, while maintaining broad exposure across 20 industries and 38 sub industries. We completed approximately 75% of our transactions with existing borrowers, underscoring the value of our incumbent relationships and the embedded opportunity set within our portfolio.

20:13 In a slower market, we were able to remain selective and direct capital towards companies we know well. Importantly, we have continued to strengthen these positions of incumbency, as the number of companies in our portfolio has grown by approximately 10% over the past year. Our competitive position and disciplined investment approach are also evident in the terms we are able to achieve. On our new senior loan commitments this quarter, average spreads were 20 basis points wider than in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty five, while average upfront fees increased by 50 basis points over the same period. These improvements reflect our ability to remain selective and leverage our scale to achieve more attractive risk adjusted economics for our shareholders.

21:05 We ended the quarter with a portfolio of $29,300,000,000 at fair value, down modestly quarter over quarter due to healthy net repayments and fair value changes. Importantly, we believe the majority of the change in fair value across our debt and preferred equity investments was primarily driven by changes in market spreads and valuations, rather than changes in the underlying credit performance of our portfolio companies. Borrower fundamentals also remain solid. Interest coverage and leverage levels were generally consistent with our five year average. Our debt investments continue to benefit from meaningful equity cushions, with average loan to value in the mid-forty percent range.

21:54 We believe these metrics demonstrate the underlying resilience of the portfolio and provide important downside protection in a more uncertain macro environment. Supported by these underlying portfolio trends, the credit performance of our portfolio remains solid. Our non accruals at cost ended the quarter at 2.4%, still well below our approximate 3% historical average since the global financial crisis, and the BDC historical average of approximately 4% over the same timeframe. Our non accrual rated fair value of 1.4% also remained well below our historical levels. Our overall risk ratings remain stable.

22:41 The share of our portfolio companies in our higher risk categories, grades one and two, remain comfortably below our ten year average, and meaningfully lower than the portion of our portfolio companies in grade four, which are outperforming our original underwriting expectations. While we continue to expect credit quality and non accruals across the industry to trend towards historical norms, we believe increasing dispersion among managers will further highlight the value of our platform's scale, disciplined underwriting, and active portfolio management. In this environment, we believe ARCC is particularly well positioned. One of the key drivers of our long term track record is our dedicated portfolio management team, which includes more than 50 professionals, and in our view, is the largest and most experienced in the industry.

23:35 The team is led by three partners with an average of twenty seven years of experience, including one who serves as a voting member of our investment committee. This helps to ensure the portfolio management perspectives remain fully integrated into our investment decision making process. Our long term credit performance is also underpinned by our life of loan philosophy. Early in our history, we recognized the inherent conflicts that exist in lending models, which reward originators solely for sourcing new investments. At Ares, our investment professionals are responsible not only for sourcing and underwriting new opportunities, but also for partnering closely with our portfolio management team throughout the life of each investment to help drive strong credit outcomes, particularly when situations do not unfold as expected.

24:28 In our experience, this approach strengthens sponsor and borrower relationships over the years and drives more effective outcomes on challenging credits. We believe our institutionalized credit process and the close integration of our investment and portfolio management teams have been important drivers for our long term track record of generating net realized gains in excess of losses, which Corus referenced earlier. In summary, the main attributes that have long differentiated ARCC, including our scale, the experience, and stability of our team, our deep relationships with borrowers and sponsors, and the strength of our platform, resources, and capital base are even more important in today's market.

25:18 While industry credit metrics may continue to normalize, we believe increasing dispersion creates an environment where these advantages matter even more. Supported by a high quality portfolio and meaningful liquidity, we believe ARCC is well positioned to navigate the current environment and capitalize on attractive opportunities as market activity improves. As always, we appreciate you joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter. With that, operator, please open up the line for questions. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2.

26:07 Please note as a courtesy to those who may wish to ask a question, please limit yourself to one question and a single follow on. If you have additional questions, you may reenter the queue. The Investor Relations team will be available to address any further questions at the conclusion of today's call. And our first question today will come from Rick Shane with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Hey, everybody. Thanks for taking my question this morning. Look, you guys discussed the fact that over the history of ARCC, you guys have accreted book value, and that's really been, I would argue, a function of three things: accretive issuance, which obviously at the moment is challenging two, investment gains and three, two, significant acquisitions where you accretively exchanged stock.

27:01 You talk right now a great deal about your advantages in terms of your debt ratings. So from a pure financial engineering perspective, and given where peers are trading, the setup for that type of acquisition or that type of merger on paper makes a great deal of sense. I am curious whether or not given the asset quality issues in the space, this makes sense for you now, and whether or not you actually think that there are motivated sellers in the market who would be looking to unlock value for their shareholders in this way? Yeah.

27:47 Thanks for the question, Rick. I need to be obviously careful in the way we answer it because we're always evaluating various strategic alternatives. I guess I would just say, given the dispersion performance that we're seeing across managers in the space, and some of the weakness that is coming out to the fore, the likelihood of a transaction like that occurring is probably higher than it's been in the past. You know, but other than saying that, I'm not really sure that we can speak too much more about anything that we're working on or giving too much more forward guidance about what might or might not occur. But I think your point is a good one, and it highlights our relative performance to others.

28:39 And the fact that, you know, while we are seeing some normalization of credit performance back to historical means, we are not seeing excuse me, we are not seeing the same kind of sort of spikes in non accruals and further weakening that maybe some of our competitors are seeing. Got it. And if I can ask one follow-up. When you know, one thing that would make that type of transaction challenging is if you thought that systematically marks in the industry were off and that the valuations you're looking at aren't really the valuations that you think you would realize. Are you, in general, constructive on how the industry is valuing their portfolios at the moment?

29:36 I guess, are we asking about how we feel about other managers' marks? You know, I think it's, again, something that I probably want to stay away from just, commenting on other managers and their marks. I think as has been pointed out historically, and I think the media's, certainly written about this, there is some dispersion in valuation, especially when you get into some more stressed credits and you look across different managers. And that can occur for, you know, a variety of different reasons. And I guess I would just say, on our side, we have been proven to be on the more conservative end of the spectrum as it pertains to that. But Rick, I'm sorry, I just I really kind of want to avoid just getting into, opinions about other managers' parts. Yeah, course. Totally fair. I realize as I asked the question that it's probably not framed in the right way. So I appreciate the answer to the first, and I appreciate the discretion on the second.

30:46 Great. Thank you. Our next question will come from Finian O'Shea with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Hey everyone, good morning. Just sticking with the big picture sort of industry question on credit. This is much less so for Ares but NAVs have clearly been trending down and even without some of the more severe names that you just touched on with Rick. So how would you describe like the why or like the drivers underneath of credit headwinds for the industry? And are they items that, you know, will sort of run their course?

31:35 Or does this sort of reflect a new normal where we should expect BDCs to revert back to those sort of longer term non accrual ratios and such? Thanks. Hey, Ben, it's Jim here. Thanks for the question. You know, it's hard to look into across the industry and give a great perspective on where each manager is going. So I'll keep it probably more macro and market level. As you know, we've been operating for an extended period of time where non accrual rates and default experience has been below the long term average.

32:22 And we've been saying for a bit that we think there is a reversion towards the mean there, and that's still our expectation across the industry. What we are also seeing, and it's been highlighted, is just a wider dispersion amongst managers on performance there. So, what we think is happening is there's a a general maturing of portfolios. So, you have a handful of managers who have ramped, invested their time it takes time for those investments to mature and settle, and then you start to see where the long term performance really is. And I think that's what's really going on right now and why the average has been below. It's also been, obviously, a very benign credit environment, so it's a little bit of both.

33:10 And, you know, so I do think, you know, the industry is really kind of going through a normalization period right now. And, you know, we're still working our way through that. Yeah, maybe I'll add one more thing on FIN, which is that, you know, we get the question a lot, are there any industries in particular that are driving that normalization? And I think the answer to that is, from our perspective and our portfolio, no. And when you look at the four names that we added, we added four new names to non accrual, which took it from 2.1 to 2.4 this quarter. All four names are, you know, companies that do different things not related to each other. We are not able to discern, you know, any trends yet around certain industries that are experiencing any kind of outsized weakness or leading us down this path toward more credit normalization.

34:10 Very helpful, thank you. Follow-up on the SDLP, a lot of movement there, looks like a lot of movement toward diversification by borrower names and such. Any implication and correct me if I'm wrong on that, of course. Any implications on like the earnings power? Does that allow you to lever more origination fee, cap structuring fees? Or should we think about it as just, you know, simply more diversifying? Yeah, no, I'm glad you pointed out. I think you should think about it as more diversification, and better utilization of that specific joint venture. And the driver there, Fin, just so everybody is aware, we did recently receive some co investment relief that allows SDLP to invest alongside other Ares funds, and that historically was not the case. So historically, we would put an asset into SDLP only, or it would go into the other, you know, other areas of funds. And now we can co invest alongside.

35:23 So what that does is it just expands SDLP's opportunity set and fairway. And that creates that diversification that you're referencing. So, you know, expanded the number of borrowers at SELP from 28 to 72 in the last quarter alone, and we're expecting and hoping that that continues to diversify going forward. Thank you. Thank you. And our next question comes from Aaron Cyganovich with Truist Securities. Your line is now open. Thanks. Court, in your commentary you had kind of noted a couple of push and pull in the marketplace.

36:13 One being that some retail heavy competitors might be less active that you're seeing, but also that you had kind of a lower closing rate because folks were maybe being a little bit more aggressive in terms of I don't know if it was either a price or structure, but maybe you could just talk a little bit about the kind of competing dynamics there. Yeah, hey, Aaron, it's Jim again. I'll maybe just give a little more commentary around the market generally, so I think that'll help answer the question. What we saw over the last, call it, sixty, ninety days is a, you know, competition is different in the lower end of the market than it is in the upper end of the market.

37:04 That's always been the case, but with some of the dynamics going on with the larger players who are more driven by capital flows from the retail channel. We've seen less competition in the larger company market, and maybe more competition in the smaller company market. And, you know, I think both markets are healthy, and we saw spreads widen, we saw leverage levels decline, we saw fees improve. We mentioned all that in the narrative. But it was more pronounced, interestingly, in the large end of the market. The terms in that end of the market are just slightly more attractive, the relative value is better. And, you know, the number of players that can compete with scale, like in Ares, has shrunk a bit, and it's just become a better hunting ground for us.

38:00 We are seeing smaller players in smaller companies remain competitive, and so that part of the market is a little healthier and maybe a little bit more active as it relates to M and A. So those dynamics are really sort of what's going on more broadly in the market. Both remain healthy, though. And I think, you know, what we saw was, in terms of just backlog and buildup of transactions, Reviewed a lot of transactions, and that's continuing to ramp. We saw a big lift in June, about 50% increase month over month in terms of the number of transactions we reviewed at Ares. So we're seeing what is the thawing of the market on the M and A side and the lag effect of that thawing start to really flow through.

38:50 And so we're optimistic around where the pipeline is headed. And, you know, we're seeing larger transactions become more prevalent. What we saw is more activity, as I mentioned, in the smaller end of the market, just because those were probably a little easier to execute on, and maybe followed a little quicker than in the larger end. Yeah. I'll add maybe one or two more things. I think on the question around quality and selectivity, I think that's really important to expand upon a little bit because, again, we talked about in the prepared remarks, but we are always extremely disciplined in trying to make sure that we are always selective. You know, in this slower environment, we did see the quality of the flow dip down a little bit as well. That is absolutely improving as we see the transaction volume pick up. And Jim mentioned the huge month of June, the volume that we saw, that's continuing into July.

39:51 But the quality was a bit lower in the second quarter. And so we chose to close on less deals as a percent of what we reviewed. So that also hampered the overall volume. But I think it also speaks to our strengths, as well, which is just that we are not going to chase deal flow just because things are slow. We're okay sort of waiting it out and waiting for things to come back and for the quality to improve a little bit. And then maybe just one more point. Jim made great comments about the larger end of the market being more attractive. I think there's a very unique opportunity for Ares as a platform in this market environment, where the other larger lenders are lower on capital right now. And a good example of that is we actually committed to a nearly $2,000,000,000 credit facility in the second quarter, and we committed to that facility entirely at Ares 100% of the deal.

40:55 We did lighten up a little bit afterwards, but still had a big hold on that credit. And the ability to stand up in this market for a $2,000,000,000 commitment allows us to generate significantly outside fees and economics on that kind of a deal. And that's a benefit that I think is unique to Ares right now. So, we're hopeful that the deal flow picks back up, and we see some of these larger deals start to come back in, and the competitive environment stays where it is, that'll be a really another really nice benefit that I think we can tap into. Thanks. I really appreciate the color from both of you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Kenneth Lee with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

41:42 Hey, good afternoon and thanks for taking my question. Just one on prepayments and I realize it's difficult to predict there. But any sense of what the level of prepayment activity could be like over the near term? Thanks. Hard to answer, Ken. I mean, generally, what we've seen is the repayment activity moves relatively in tandem with new deal activity. So, you know, as new deal volume picks up, I would expect that also could lead to some repayment activity picking up. It's not always, you know, correlated in that respect, but that's kind of what we've seen over the long term.

42:32 And so, I guess that's how I would answer the question. But there's no other specific driver that I can think of. I'm not sure if you're alluding to any certain drivers that, you know, that are in your mind, but there's nothing that's jumping out to me that would say repayments would be abnormally higher, abnormally low, you know, going forward. Got you. Very helpful there. And just one follow-up, if I may. I think earlier in the call you mentioned still having some capacity around leverage. And obviously, it's going to be predicated on the deal activity. But would you plan to be operating is there anything within your target range that you could target to operate within just going forward? Thanks.

43:22 Yeah, thanks, James. Think our stated range is still the same, 0.9 to 1.25 times. We're still, I mean, in the middle of that range now, so I think there's probably a little room to go. We are sensitive to a leverage impact, you know, from the valuations, so that is all part of our you know, we'll keep an eye out for that. But, know, we do think there's a lot of room to grow on leverage. Got you. Very helpful there. Thanks again. Thank you. We'll go next to Chris Moeller with Citizens Capital Markets. Hey, guys. Good to be on with you today. So I wanted to ask about interest rates and the impact on the pipeline. And I guess this is a two part question. But how does the absolute level of rates versus volatility of rates impacts the pipeline?

44:16 And I guess which scenario would create a better opportunity for lenders like you guys? Yeah, interesting question. I guess I would say, I think volatility of rates is a greater impact and a hampering impact on transaction volume than the absolute level of rates. I think the difficulty for buyers and sellers to sort of transact often occurs when the buyer doesn't know what rate to put in his model a year or two out. And so there's a when you have to model in downside scenarios based on a wider dispersion of rate outcomes, that it's harder to lean in on price, and you have to sort of build in some cushion. So that can hamper transaction volume.

45:11 I think what we've seen is, know, historically, rates when rates went up, there was a period of time where deal flow was a little bit you know, gummed up. But then even when rates settled out, you know, base rates settled out in the fives, then all of a sudden, was a fair amount of transaction activity that occurred, you know, last year, for instance, even with rates being higher in 2024, because people settle in and they know what to put in their model. So, I think that's a tie I'd answer it. And I obviously, with the rate picture today, you know, it feels certainly more stable than we've seen in a while. You know, I mean, the rates have been stabilized where they are now, obviously, you know, even a little bit of an outlook toward a slight widening of base rates going forward, which, you know, should be a benefit to us, but not a negative in terms of transaction flow, because it seems like people are, you know, settling in to a pretty clear picture as to what that looks like.

46:15 Got it. That's very helpful. And then just a quick clarification follow-up. You guys mentioned expecting nonaccruals trending back towards historical norms. Is there anything in your portfolio that you're starting to see bubble up? Or is that more just a comment on like a mean reversion type observation? It's the latter. You know, as I mentioned, my commentary was really around the industry and, you know, just maturation of the portfolios from the competitor set and how performance has really been below the long term average. So, I think that's really all it is. Got it. Makes a lot of sense. Appreciate you guys taking the questions today. Thanks.

47:02 Thank you. We'll go next to Melissa Wedel with UBS. Your line is now open. Thanks for taking my questions today. I wanted to follow-up on the CP program. Interesting development there. I noticed that while you announced that there weren't any outstanding by the end of the quarter, I'm just curious how long you think it would take you to ramp to, I believe it was $1,000,000,000 in capacity you had there. How big could that get? Yeah, thanks, Melissa, and congrats on your new role. We, you know, we're the purpose behind it was really just the efficiency. I don't think we're going to use the full billing anytime soon. We do want just test it out a little bit to see how it goes, and that's your response.

47:52 We did do our first issuance post quarter end, so we're going to start seeing some of those savings come through, but, you know, if I had to get this maybe a few $100,000,000 or so that we would issue on that program and then kind of take it from there. Okay. Makes sense. And then I wanted to shift gears also to the post quarter end investment activity, and I know that's only maybe a month, if that, and those things can fluctuate a lot every quarter that you report. But it does strike me in the July activity to date that a couple of things. There's a real increase in sort of fixed subordinated fixed rate, I think subordinated, but also fixed rate allocations.

48:42 And then also the spread between the new investment yield and the yield on what you budgeted so far this quarter widened out quite a bit, and it seems like that could be a tailwind. I'm curious if that is something that is a sustainable trend or is that more of a function of just individual investments that we paid? Thank you. Yeah, maybe I'll start with the latter. As I mentioned before, there has been an improvement in market terms, and we certainly saw that last quarter. I think the question is how long will that sustain itself and where? We're optimistic that the market is less competitive now, particularly, as I mentioned, in the larger end of the market. I don't think there's going to be any major changes, you know, month over month, quarter over quarter.

49:36 And so I think our ability to go generate higher returns for high quality businesses in those in the larger end of the market, we're pretty optimistic that sustains itself. There definitely is a you know, it was a period of time in the last quarter where it was more severely dislocated, and I think it's now more healthy and stable, and that leads to more transaction volume. So you want to have that balance where you're not seeing as much competition, but you're also, you know, able to price risk a little better. And I think that's kind of what we're facing right now. Hard to say how long that'll last, but, you know, it feels pretty good at the moment. Yeah, and then on the mix of the fixed rate, I just think, Melissa, that's just small numbers in a small period of time. I don't think there's any trend to read into there. Scott was just showing me that it's like two deals. And again, it's just small numbers.

50:37 You know, there actually was there's one deal that was an existing AIM software name, which I'm sure everybody's interested to hear about, where there's a refinancing of an existing second lien position that we had. And the bond market actually refinanced that second lien position. And we took a small piece of that new bond deal. So we downsized our position, derisked from a pretty large company, actually a large software company, and thought it's still a nice piece of paper to, you know, take a small piece of that bond deal. So, there was a fixed rate security there, just as one example, but, you know, a little bit of randomness in the numbers. Fair enough. Thanks very much.

51:24 Thank you. Our next question will come from Robert Dodd with Raymond James. Your line is now open. Hi, guys. On the credit quality in the book, right, I mean, non accruals on a cost basis, they're they're not high, but they're not low low anymore. And you you have a number of of more troubled assets that you've talked about. Right? Your track record on getting recoveries on assets is, based on my math at least, meaningfully better than industry average, but it's also better than industry average if you get control sooner. So is there there any prospect for you, maybe being more aggressive? Obviously, you can't force a sponsor's hand necessarily, but maybe being more aggressive on taking control of some of these things and putting your workout group more fully in control given the historic track record of performance there?

52:34 Yeah, I appreciate the question, Robert. I would say, as much as we enjoy the higher returns that can often come from those type of situations, It's not our strategy to go in and aggressively take control of companies from owners of businesses when there's weakness. We would much, much rather the owner of the business put in capital and support that company and work together as a team to help those companies get through the other side. Really, ability we are fortunate, and I think it's an important competitive advantage that we are willing to take control and that we have the skills and the know how to do that.

53:23 Oftentimes, that willingness and the reputation that we have for knowing how to do that incentivizes the equity contribution from the owner, which, again, is what we would prefer. You know, but it's not our it's not our desire. That's sort of a last resort. But if it does occur, then yes, you're rightly pointing out that we've got a good track record in knowing how to do that and cut off the other side. Thank you for that. Just to follow-up to that directly to your response. I mean, of of the assets that are contributing the the majority of the markdowns, how many of those have had incremental capital injections from owners over the last year, call it six months?

54:11 We're sort of looking at each other here. I don't know that we have that number handy, Robert. There has been, I can say it's a meaningful amount. I don't know the dollar amount or how many of the borrowers. But we are, I guess, thematically to answer it, thematically, we are absolutely seeing owners of businesses support their companies with capital on the whole. And that gets back to one of the things we always talk about, which is the LTV in our portfolio overall being sub 50%. There is a lot of cash equity invested in our portfolio companies beneath our loans.

54:57 And that incentivizes the sponsors to step up and kick in money, you know, when there is an issue. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go next to Paul Johnson with KBW. Your line is now open. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I was just curious, you know, where at this point, you're kind of in the cycle, it seems like terms have improved a little bit, but activity is somewhat muted. I'm curious in terms of what you are seeing maybe on the new deal side, granted most of it was kind of existing borrowers this quarter, but where are sponsors at in terms of the position and for asking for pick on new deals? And I would kind of ask more specifically in the upper middle market where you're starting to see more attractive deal flow.

55:59 Yeah, it's hard to say. It's sort of deal by deal right now. We saw a period of time where that really kind of went away from the market for, you know, thirty, sixty days. We've seen it come back again on a few transactions as they more often than not. It's been it hasn't been a term that's been in the market in the last quarter. I'm speculating a bit. I do think that's not going away. I think there's more scrutiny around it. I think there's more sensitivity from competition around it. It's everyone who's managing certain amount of pick in their portfolio, etcetera. I do think we should anticipate that that term or that concept is not going away either.

56:50 It's probably just not going to be as prevalent as it once was. So I think we're in a better place than we were last year and the year before. It's probably how I would describe it. Got it. Appreciate that. And last quarter, you mentioned around approximately 90% of the portfolio was kind of structurally originated pick. I mean, does that roughly hold for this quarter as well? Or has there been any changes to those metrics? No, no, that's holding the same this quarter. Appreciate it. And then one thing real quick on Ivy Hill. You mentioned within the ARCC portfolio, I think it's around one no position accounts for more than 1% or a little more than 1%.

57:39 Is the is that same diversification level roughly held across the funds managed under the Ivy Hill investment vehicle? Or is it typically a little bit more concentrated on the higher end, just kind of due to the transaction size? Just trying to get an idea, I guess, the level of diversification across that vehicle as well. Yeah, no, you should think of it as being equally, if not more diverse, definitely not less diverse. Got it. Appreciate that. That's all the questions for me. Thank you very much. Thank you. And we'll go next to Sean Paul Adams with B. Riley Securities.

58:33 Your line is now open. Hey, good morning. Touching specifically on, you know, two credits that I continue to slide. Cornerstone and Simpler Software, do you have anything to add color wise on those specific names? And on a separate note, on Q3 and Q4, it seems like with volume up but quality down and repayment activity high, are you guys pointing to a flatter half of the year on the back end just due to the mix? On the first question, we unfortunately just can't comment on specific names. We've said that in the past. I think that holds true here, so apologies, but really can't provide any more color on either of those names.

59:24 On the second question, no, we're optimistic. We're seeing, like I said, a lot more deal flow, a lot more activity, more sponsor to sponsor, more early stage books in the market, more just general health in the M and A market. So, I'm not sure that I would translate, you know, some of the market commentary into a concern around, you know, the portfolio running off or being a I actually think we're up in the big currency growth. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to underscore that. I really want to make sure everybody does take that away, which is we are really seeing a building environment for transaction activity. And again, the quality also is improving in the deals that are coming in. So I think that should be an important takeaway.

1:00:19 Maybe the only thing we probably could say about we can't remember the individual performance of those names, but it is the same sponsor owner of those two names you mentioned. And the only thing we can say is we are engaging in a lot of ongoing and constructive dialogue with the sponsor of those two companies that, you know, give us some degree of confidence in our ability to address the near term maturities in those two names. Got it. Appreciate the color. Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Court Schabble for any closing remarks. Okay, great. Thanks.

1:01:06 Yeah, we got through a quarter without any software questions. I don't really have any other closing remarks. Thanks, everybody, for joining us and for your continued support and engagement. And we'll see you next quarter. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our conference call for today. If you missed any part of today's call, an archived replay of the call will be available approximately one hour after the end of the call through 08/29/2026 at 05:00PM eastern time to domestic callers by dialing toll free 1808393736 and to international callers by dialing +1 (402) 220-2978.

1:01:53 An archived replay will also be available on a webcast link located on the homepage of the Investor Resources section of Ares Capital's website.