Thunderbird’s Peru debt restructuring successfully completed

The Group has provided further disclosures on the status of Peru related debt restructurings within its 2011 Annual Report, in a release published last May 6, and in its first quarter 2012 Interim Management Statement.

This new senior loan amortizes over 10 years, matures in 7 years at an interest rate of 8.5%. The Group has used the new senior debt to repay its higher cost, faster amortizing debt. By completing the restructuring, the Group has now successfully reduced Peru-related debt from approximately us$ 47.5 million in November 2011 to approximately us$ 34.3 million.

The Group announced in its Q1 2012 Interim Management Report that its Gross Debt1 was us$ 75.8 million. It now reports that its Gross Debt effective June 2012 is approximately us$ 65.2 million, a reduction of over us$ 10 million since Q1. The Group has now reduced its Gross Debt by over us$ 100 million in the last 30 months.

In its 2011 Audited Financials, the Group reported us$ 11.5 million of Finance Costs for 2011. Because of both Peru-related and Group debt restructurings, Management believes that Finance Costs should be less than us$ 7 million from Q3 2012 on an annualized run rate. This is a positive P&L impact of over us$ 4.5 million as compared to 2011 (excluding FOREX gain or loss).