First Uranium has concluded their recapitalization proposal by issuing $150 million worth of notes due to mature on March 31, 2013.
This is a very bitter pill for the equity holders to swallow – they will be heavily diluted by virtue of the conversion privilege attached with the notes, at $1.30/share. Assuming conversion occurs, this will result in 115.4 million shares outstanding more than their existing 166.8 million. In addition, to settle the contractual arrangements with another partner, they will be issuing 14 million shares extra.
All of this means that First Uranium’s existing stockholders, assuming full conversion, will have their holdings reduced to about 56% of the company. However, a significant shareholder (Simmer and Jack with 37% of the prior equity ownership) will also have $40 million of the issue of the notes, which if fully converted, will leave them with approximately a 31% stake.
Probably the only reason why they got into this offering to begin with was to salvage their ownership in the company, which was clearly going to slip away in an upcoming and very messy bankruptcy proceeding.
Gold Wheaton, a company that has purchased a fractional interest in the gold mined from First Uranium, also will be investing $20M and receiving 14 million shares as a result of a settlement on a contract that First Uranium failed to live up to. Assuming full conversion, this will give them about 10% of the company.
The Notes are guaranteed by the subsidiaries of the Company, secured by second ranking security over all assets currently encumbered by Gold Wheaton and first security over all other current and future assets of the Company, not be redeemable until maturity.
Assuming First Uranium will remain above $1.30/share, their recapitalization should be half done.
The other medium term issue for First Uranium, other than the establishment of its mining operations (and subsequent cash flow that would be produced by such operations) is that they have a $150 million issue of unsecured debentures that are due to mature on June 30, 2012, which I so happen to be holding.
First Uranium has a few options.
One is that they should be prioritizing their operations to be cash flow positive, which will make it easier to float another equity or debt offering that the market will be receptive to, enabling them to pay the subordinated debentures.
Another option, concurrent to the above, is that they have the option of paying off the debentures in shares of common stock at 95% of market price; at current market prices of $1.45/share, it would involve issuing another 109 million shares, for a grand total of another 27% dilution of common shareholders. This option will be progressively more attractive as the common share price goes higher. Such an action would be done in 2012.
Another solution is to renegotiate directly with the debtholders and sweeten the terms of debt (i.e. increase the coupon, lower the conversion price) in exchange for an extension of maturity date. This would require ratification of 2/3rds of the debtholders.
Ultimately if the company doesn’t pay up, the unsecured debtholders can force the company into bankruptcy. While their rank in the company, by virtue of subordination to this new issue of debt, will lead to low recovery, it is unlikely the owners of the company would want to proceed with this action and thus it is more likely than not that between now and the 2.2 years to maturity that there will be a way found to make the June 2012 debtholders whole. Simmers and Jack would not want the subordinated debtholders to pursue the “nuclear bankruptcy” option and thus it is more likely than not there will be a solution.
I do not believe First Uranium equity is a good risk at present prices, while I think the June 2012 debentures have probably priced in the right amount of risk and would present themselves as a speculative high risk opportunity.
