Debt

PanAust (PNA), an ASX listed cooper and gold mining company, has refinanced its debt worth $US 80 million with Goldman Sachs JBWere which is due next month. Even though the refinancing extension was expensive, the move increased the share price by 9 cents to 17.5 cents per share. PNA has issued the lender options worth of $75 million and would be forced to issue another $75 million if it fails to repay the debt within 31st of July.

HFA Holdings (HFA), an Australian hedge-fund manager has said; negative media coverage was the cause for its drop in share price and not its financial position. The share price dropped 98 per cent since its peak last July. The share price of HFA closed at 4.9 cents last week which was well down on its $1.10 April 2006 listing price. It is said that, HFA could be compelled to write down $604 million worth of goodwill and management rights from its balance sheet.

Commonwealth Bank (CBA), the largest bank in Australia, defends its highly ranked executives in breach of disclosure rules during the issue of $2 billion capital raising. CBA disagreed by saying that, rules were not broken when it warned a small group of shareholders regarding the bad debt raise before a public announcement. The bank said that the information was not materially significant so there was no need to warn the public earlier.

Rio Tinto (RIO), the third largest mining company in the world has planned to reduce its net debt by $10 billion over 2009. The company has also planned to reduce the controllable operating costs by $2.5 billion within 2010. These plans aim at preserving value by maintaining cashflow and cutting the level of debt.

James Packer's Crown has persuaded the banks that, it has the capability to repay the debts. It has managed to arrange a bilateral facility from 10 banks to repay the syndicated debt facility which is due on August 2010.The facility has arranged them at least 1.1 billion Australian dollars or 355 million US dollars approximately.