Its still early days given the maturity date. But they would...

Its still early days given the maturity date. But they would certainly need to have their plans very well advanced.

There would be a more compelling need to advise the market if they were aware that there was going to be a problem. No news in this instance should be able to be taken as good news.

I don't think Eramet will be taking any crap from the bond holders.

"ERAMET Group posted much stronger results in 2016, with EBITDA up very significantly at €375 million and positive free cash-flow of €226 million in the second half of 2016. These performances are attributable to the contribution of the very large and ambitious cost reduction and productivity improvement plan across the Group, the achievement of most of our asset disposals program and an improvement in market conditions at the end of 2016.
The ERAMET balance sheet structure has improved considerably. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio has gone from 9.5 at end-2015 to 2.2 at end-2016."

Thats a lot of $ and a stunning second half. First half 17 will be very telling. With that sort of performance they will be looking for acquisitions. I have been told that they have interest in owning
100% of the JV. Having recently committed to a debt for equity swap deal with equity priced at nett asset backing they might just be prepared to pay a decent price.

I was a bit perplexed by Arsenic's earlier comment about the refinancing including the issue of convertible notes given the private nature of the joint venture. That does however make sense if the notes are taken up Eramet and MDL More committed capital from the shareholders could be a necessary precondition to the refinancing as is often the case.


The size of the recent rights issue could be a clue to whats coming up and was most likely driven by what was necessary to pay out Eramets interest debt and maintain the 50% stake and getting the refinancing done with that holding in place.