WhiteHorse BDC taps 13 companies, grows Ohio pension JV

H.I.G.’s business development company, WhiteHorse Finance, announced that in fourth quarter of 2019 it completed investments in 13 new portfolio companies totaling approximately $138 million and has invested $33 million within in a joint venture it has with the $80 billion Ohio State Teachers Retirement System (Ohio STRS). The joint venture agreement was done in January 2019 with an agreement to co-manage a joint venture dubbed WHF STRS Ohio Senior Loan Fund LLC to invest in lower middle market and senior secured debt facilities. WhiteHorse and Ohio STRS committed to provide up to $125 million of subordinated notes and equity to the joint venture, with WhiteHorse providing up to $75 million and the pension providing up to $50 million. In addition, the deal was to seek up to $250 million in third-party financing thereby providing WhiteHorse Finance up to $375 million in lending capacity. At the end of 2019, Whitehorse had a $33 million investment in the joint venture and the overall investment portfolio totals $97 million. According to WhiteHorse’s year-end financial documents activity in the Ohio Senior Loan Fund was driven by five full repayments at year-end from: Crews of California Inc, Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Inc, StackPath, London Trust Media Incorporated and Sunteck/TTS Holdings. The main news, however, was the $138 million in new portfolio company investments WhiteHorse completed on top of the joint venture. “During the fourth quarter, we maintained our focus on strong credit quality and successfully originated 13 new first-lien loans,” Stuart Aronson, WhiteHorse Finance's chief executive officer commented. " We continue to transfer qualified assets to our joint venture. At end of the quarter, the joint venture has a total of 10 portfolio companies in its portfolio. Due to the strong deployment in the quarter, our net leverage increased markedly from 68% to 88%, further closing the gap to our target leverage range.” He added that with the uncertainty in global trade environment and potential pandemic risk, the firm will continue leveraging its differentiated three-tiered sourcing infrastructure backed by H.I.G. to prudently deploy capital into high credit quality opportunities, further increase portfolio diversification and ultimately enhance shareholder value." Overall, WhiteHorse’s investment portfolio was $590 million at the end of 2019, reflecting asset growth of $120 million.Officials added that the company overall has 66 positions across 50 companies with a weighted average effective yield of 10.4% on income-producing debt investments.

WhiteHorse BDC taps 13 companies, grows Ohio pension JV

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