ARCC - Ares Capital Corporation (ARCC) RBC Capital Markets Global Financial Institutions Conference (Transcript)
2024-03-06 18:49:16 ET
Ares Capital Corporation (ARCC)
RBC Capital Markets Global Financial Institutions Conference
March 07, 2024 02:40 PM ET
Company Participants
Kort Schnabel - Co-President, Ares Capital Corporation
Craig Packer - CEO, Blue Owl Capital
Jonathan Bock - Co-CEO, Blackstone Secured Lending Fund
Josh Easterly - Chairman and CEO, Sixth Street Specialty Lending
Conference Call Participants
Kenneth Lee - RBC Capital Markets
Presentation
Kenneth Lee
[Call Starts Abruptly] …Financial Institutions Conference. My name is Kenneth Lee. I'm senior equity analyst covering the business development companies or BDC sector, and welcome to our industry panel. In conversation with leading BDCs, I'm very pleased to have with us our panelists, Kort Schnabel, Co-President of Ares Capital Corporation. Kort is also a partner in the Ares Credit Group and Co-Head of the U.S. Direct Lending. Then to his left, we have Craig Packer, CEO of each of the Blue Owl BDCs, including Blue Owl Capital Corporation. Craig is also the Co-President of Blue Owl. Then to his left, we have Jonathan Bock, Co-CEO of Blackstone Secured Lending Fund, as well as the Blackstone Private Credit Funds. John is also a Global Head of Market Research for Blackstone Credit. And then to his left, we have Josh Easterly, Chairman and CEO of Sixth Street Specialty Lending and also Co-CIO, the investment adviser. Welcome, everyone. Thanks for having us.
Before we dive in, perhaps each of our panels can give a quick overview of their respective companies, and we'll start off with you, Kort.
Kort Schnabel
Sure. Thanks everybody for coming. Ares Capital Corporation is a $22 billion publicly traded business development company with the largest publicly traded BDC that exists out there. We had our IPO back in 2004, so we've got a 20-year public track record out there delivering industry leading results. Ares Capital sits within the broader direct lending business at Ares Management, which is about a $120 billion of AUM. But Ares Capital is the flagship direct lending vehicle for us at Ares, the most flexible vehicle that we that we operate.
Craig Packer
Hi. I'm Craig Packer. I cofounded a business called Blue Owl Capital about eight years ago. Eventually, we merged that and became Blue Owl Capital, publicly traded alternative asset manager with about a $160 billion-ish of AUM. About half of that is the credit business that we originally started which I run, primarily an upper middle market direct lending business. The very first fund is now our second largest fund is OBDC, which is our publicly traded BDC, which, again, primarily upper middle market, first lien sponsor backed, lending, second largest by market cap depending upon what day. You measure it, about $13 billion worth of assets. We have six other BDCs, four in the diversified space and then three in the in the tech space, software lending primarily.
Jonathan Bock
Hi. Jonathan Bock. I'm at Blackstone Secured Lending, and so we have both have a public BDC, BXSL. Also the Co-CEO of BCRED, Blackstone Private Credit Fund, which is a non-traded BDC. So there will be some questions on that. Blackstone is a $300 billion credit franchise, roughly half of that in private credit strategies. And of that, roughly half is tied to the BDCs. So pleasure to be here.
Josh Easterly
I'm Josh Easterly. I'm the Co-Founder of Sixth Street as we talked about. Sixth Street is about $75 billion of assets under management, focused predominantly on credit and credit like investing. And we have, I don't know, $14 billion of AUM in jack lending, and SLX has been, TSLX has been public for 10 years now, which has about $3.5 million of assets....
Ares Capital Corporation (ARCC) RBC Capital Markets Global Financial Institutions Conference (Transcript)