Echo Energy, the Latin American focused upstream oil and gas company, is delighted to announce that at the adjourned meeting of the holders of the Company's Luxembourg listed EUR 20.0m 8.0% secured notes (the "Notes") held earlier (the "Noteholder Meeting") to consider the Company's proposals for the restructuring of the Notes (the "Proposals"), the Proposals were duly approved by the requisite majority.
At the Noteholder Meeting voting instructions representing EUR 12.5m of the Notes were lodged by holders of the Notes ("Noteholders") with 84 per cent. of votes cast in favour of the Proposals. As a result:
• Maturity of the Notes will be extended by three years to 15 May 2025 (the "Maturity Date"); and
• All cash interest payments on the Notes rolled to the Maturity Date.
Further details of the Proposals were set out in the Company's announcement of 22 February 2021.
As a result of Noteholder approval of the Proposals, the previously announced conditional restructuring of the Company's EUR 5.0m 8.0% secured convertible debt facility (the "Debt Facility"), details of which were announced by the Company on 1 December 2020, will now also become effective.
The restructuring of the Debt Facility will, inter alia, see its final maturity extended to April 2025, with no further cash interest payments required prior to final maturity.
Martin Hull, Echo's Chief Executive Officer, commented:
"I am delighted that Echo has now successfully completed the restructuring of its debt obligations. The new arrangements result in no cash payments to Noteholders until maturity in 2025. This enables the Board to focus on rapidly delivering on its strategy to improve shareholder returns.
Commodity price strength, including the very material increases in gas price recently announced, combined with the more than doubling of oil production following the ongoing infrastructure upgrades, provide a markedly improved and positive outlook for shareholders.
This is a landmark moment for Echo and I am confident that we can now drive forward and reward shareholders in the future."
With the Proposals approved by Noteholders, the Company will issue a total of 11,473,929 new ordinary shares in the Company (representing c.0.9% of the Company's current issued ordinary share capital) to Noteholders pro rata to their voting instructions cast in favour of the Proposals at the Noteholder meeting (the "New Ordinary Shares").
Application has been made for the 11,473,929 New Ordinary Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM ("Admission") and it is expected that Admission will occur at 8.00 a.m. on or around 1 April 2021. Following Admission of the New Ordinary Shares, the Company's issued ordinary share capital will comprise 1,219,367,987 Ordinary Shares, none of which are held in treasury.
Therefore, following Admission of the New Ordinary Shares, the total number of Ordinary Shares with voting rights in the Company will be 1,219,367,987, which may be used by Shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company under the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.
