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Oct 20 (Reuters) - Africa-focused miner Petra Diamonds
said on Tuesday it had an agreement with its noteholders
and lenders to restructure the group and was abandoning a formal
sale process after receiving no viable offers for the company.
The diamond miner, which put itself up for sale in June as
part of the restructuring process, said the agreement in
principle included taking on new debt and converting debt to
equity.
Noteholders will each contribute $30 million in new money in
the form of senior secured second lien notes - expected to
amount to around $337 million.
The remaining notes would be converted into equity,
resulting in the noteholders together holding 91% of the
expanded shares - leaving 9% with existing shareholders.
Petra said it expects to seal a "lock-up agreement"
cementing these terms with the noteholders group and the South
African lenders in early November. It expects the restructuring
to become effective in the first quarter of 2021.
The agreement also includes new governance arrangements and
cashflow controls.
"We would like to thank both the AHG [ad-hoc group of
noteholders] and South African lender group for their ongoing
support and commitment to the Company, which they have
demonstrated by agreeing in principle to provide meaningful
additional liquidity to the Company during this difficult
period," said Petra Diamonds Chief Executive Richard Duffy.
(Reporting by Helen Reid in Johannesburg and Yadarisa Shabong
in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Louise Heavens)
