Pentwater Calls For Turquoise Hill to Provide an Update to the Potential Funding Shortfall For Construction of the Oyu Tolgoi...
July 06 2020 - 10:54AM
Pentwater Capital Management LP ("
Pentwater"), the
largest minority shareholder of Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd.
("
Turquoise Hill" or the
"
Company") (TSX:TRQ) (NYSE:TRQ), twice in the past
two weeks has written to Turquoise Hill highlighting the Company’s
inadequate and misleading disclosure of important financial
information. Turquoise Hill’s announcement last Thursday
served as another opportunity for the Company to be transparent
with its shareholders and tell the truth about its improved
liquidity position. Instead, once again, the Board and
management failed to be honest and transparent. Pentwater
must ask at this point: is the Board and management team deaf,
corrupt, or mindless?
Last Thursday’s press release states, “Turquoise
Hill now expects to have liquidity available to fund operations and
underground development beyond Q3 2021”. This compares to
guidance of “into Q1” given on 11/12/19, guidance of “into Q2”
given on 3/21/20, and guidance of “into Q3” given on 5/13/20.
The Company also admitted that it has, “decided to defer further
discussions with Rio Tinto regarding possible interim funding
arrangements.” Any other publicly traded company would have
highlighted the improving liquidity of the Company at the top of
its press release. Instead, the first mention of this
material and positive update on liquidity is on page 11 of the
press release.
The Company’s current guidance of a $4 billion
funding shortfall is clearly FALSE. Why
would the Company decide “to defer further discussions with Rio
Tinto regarding possible interim funding arrangements” if it truly
were facing a $4 billion funding shortfall? The truth is that
the Company would only defer discussions on interim financing if it
believed that it could finance any remaining funding shortfall with
incremental debt financing. When will the Company answer the
following questions:
- Isn’t it true that the $4bn funding shortfall estimate is
FALSE?
- Isn’t it true that without needing to finance the construction
of a power plant, the capital funding shortfall is less than $3.1
billion?
- Isn’t it true that more than $1.9 billion of the $3.1 billion
is debt amortization payments?
- Isn’t it true that if the debt amortization payments are
contractually extended, the capital funding shortfall is less than
$1.2 billion?
- Isn’t it true that the existing project financing arrangements
at OT provide the Company the ability “to raise additional
supplemental debt of up to $1.6 billion at the same attractive
terms,” as its existing financing?
- Isn’t it true that if the Company raises the supplemental
financing and extends the amortization payments, then there is NO
capital funding shortfall?
Thursday’s press release by the Company exhibits
a pattern from the Board and management: purposely relegating the
positive liquidity update to the last two paragraphs of an 11 page
release in pursuit of the goal of obfuscating and concealing the
Company’s true financial situation. Once again, the Board and
management choose to not be honest and transparent with their
minority shareholders.
Pentwater believes that the funding shortfall estimate is a
material piece of information, and if the estimate has materially
changed, it is imperative that the Company update its shareholders
immediately, as opposed to waiting until the Q2 2020 earnings
release, AFTER the annual and special meeting. The fact that
Pentwater is forced to remind the Company of this, without
receiving any response, underscores why it is so important that
shareholders vote for the election of a minority shareholder
representative to the Board and why shareholders support
Pentwater’s proposal to amend the bylaws to allow minority
shareholders to have full time representatives on the Company’s
Board.
We Need Your Support
We are seeking your support at the Company's
upcoming annual and special meeting of shareholders to be held on
July 24, 2020 to restore accountability at Turquoise Hill and give
minority shareholders back their voice.
We encourage our fellow shareholders to consider
the facts and take action against the current culture of
entrenchment, value destruction and misconduct at Turquoise Hill.
The interests of the Company's minority shareholders have been
disregarded for far too long. Your vote is critical to initiate
much-needed change, to restore accountability and to safeguard
minority shareholder interests in Turquoise Hill.
Shareholders are urged to vote only the GOLD
proxy:
- FOR the election of Matthew Halbower to the board of directors
of the Company;
- WITHHOLD in respect of the election of all of the management
nominees to the board of directors of the Company; and
- FOR the adoption of the shareholder proposal submitted by
Pentwater to amend the Company's articles to provide minority
shareholders of the Company with the exclusive right to nominate
and elect three of seven directors to the Board.
Shareholders are urged to read the full text of
Pentwater's proxy circular and related press releases, which have
been filed and made available under Turquoise Hill's issuer profile
at www.sedar.com.
For further information contact:
MacKenzie Partners, Inc. Daniel Burch – 1-212-929-5748 Jeanne
Carr – 1-917-648-4478Email: SaveTRQ@mackenziepartners.com
Turquoise Hill Resources (NYSE:TRQ)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Turquoise Hill Resources (NYSE:TRQ)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024