Private credit funds are in the spotlight these days, as concerns about software companies meeting their obligations have picked up lately.
Cion Investment (NYSE: CION) is a business development company, or BDC, that lends money to privately held businesses. It doesn’t list what percentage of its portfolio is made up of technology or software companies. Business services, which may contain those types of companies, is the largest percentage of the portfolio at 17%.
For this analysis of dividend safety, I’m not going to assume those loans are in trouble, as the company has not given any indication that they are.
Cion has 91 companies in its portfolio, and 80% of the loans are first-lien senior secured, which means they are first in line to get paid and the loans are backed by collateral.
The company recently switched from a quarterly dividend to monthly. It pays $0.10 each month, which comes out to a 14% yield.
Can Cion continue to generate such a large yield for its shareholders?
The company will likely report fourth quarter 2025 results in mid-March. In 2024, Cion generated $96 million in net investment income – down from $105 million the prior year. (Net investment income is our cash flow measure for BDCs.) It paid out $89.5 million in dividends.
Through the first three quarters of 2025, Cion paid investors $59.5 million, while net investment income totaled $74.8 million. That was down from $77.2 million in the first three quarters of 2024.
The payout ratios for both years are below my 100% threshold for BDCs, which is encouraging. But it’s not a great sign that net investment income was lower through the first three quarters of 2025 and was down for the full year in 2024.
There are no net investment income estimates for 2025 or the next few years, but there are earnings per share estimates. While earnings are not the same as net investment income, they give us an indication of where the business may be headed.
And it’s not good.
In 2025, earnings are forecast to have dipped 2%, but in 2026 and 2027, they are projected to drop 25% and 21%, respectively. Should that occur, net investment income will probably be lower as well.
When Cion changed to a monthly dividend in 2026, it reduced the payout from $0.36 per quarter to $0.10 per month (or $0.30 quarterly).
It also briefly eliminated the dividend during the pandemic.
Considering that net investment income has been going the wrong way, earnings are projected to fall significantly, and the company cut the payout to shareholders twice in the past six years, the dividend cannot be considered safe.
Dividend Safety Rating: F
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