Business Development Companies (BDCs) continue to provide big steady yields (income) to investors despite a challenging BDC environment, including interest rate volatility, increasing competition and economic uncertainty. Although BDC strategies are varied, they generally provide loans to riskier private business where traditional bank lending is less suitable, and then reduce aggregate risks by doing so through a diversified portfolio (within their areas of expertise). Many are facing selling pressure (see 14-day money flow index) and some trade below book value (generally an indication of fear, depending the the particular BDC strategy). Increasingly compelling contrarian yield opportunities in an otherwise greedy market environment.
Attractive 9.9% Yield BDC, VC/Pre-IPO Growth
One of my biggest concerns for income-focused investors is opportunity cost. Specifically, they often concentrate their nest eggs in lower-growth sectors of the economy (because that’s where the dividends are) and/or in distressed companies (because that’s where the high-yield/junk bonds are at) and thereby sacrifice total returns. However, the internally-managed BDC I review in this report offers a healthy 9.9% dividend yield by investing in growth-focused sectors and companies (by providing financing to them during their early, pre-IPO, venture capital phase). In this report, I review the business, growth, dividend, valuation and risks, and then conclude with my strong opinion on investing.
Hercules: Big Yield BDC, Very High Valuation
Hercules is a big-dividend (9.4% yield, not counting supplemental dividends) business development company (“BDC”) that we purchased in March and that has now experienced significant share price gains since the Silicon Valley Bank panic at that time (Hercules provides financing in the same high-growth / venture-backed lending space). And the shares now trade at a very high price-to-book valuation. In this report, we review the business, current market conditions, the company’s financial position, dividend, valuation and risks. We conclude with our opinion on investing.
Two (2) New Buys: 1 Income Equity, 1 (More) Disciplined Growth
We do NOT buy or sell often, but this is just a quick update to let readers know we have made two more new purchases (the second and third new buys this week). One in our Income Equity Portfolio and now a second buy this week in our Disciplined Growth Portfolio. We’ll be completing our monthly portfolio tracker sheet updates shortly after April begins, but wanted to let readers know right away of these two additional new purchases.
BDCs: Financially Strong, Despite Deteriorating Market
Fed Rate Hikes To Impact Top Big-Dividend BDCs
With the Fed set to raise interest rates another 75 basis points on Wednesday (following its 2-day open market committee meeting which kicks off today), it’s worthwhile to revisit big-dividend BDC and how they are impacted by rising rates. This note shares data on how many of the most popular publicly-traded BDCs are impacted differently by rising rates depending on the structure of their balance sheets (floating-versus-fixed-rate assets and liabilities, as well as leverage levels). We also highlight a few of our favorite BDCs (two we own and one we are considering) that yield 9.1%, 10.0% and 10.2%, respectively.