Quintis : Recapitalisation of Quintis

30 October 2018

Recapitalisation of Quintis

A newly recapitalised Quintis ('Company') has today emerged from receivership after receiving A$145 million in funding from its new owners, including funds and accounts under management by BlackRock Advisors, LLC and its affiliates.

With a restructured balance sheet, Quintis is now a well-funded private company which owns and/or manages around 12,500 hectares of Indian Sandalwood plantations and distributes sandalwood products to a variety of end markets.

'The privatised Quintis possesses a robust capital structure, funded by entities with long-term investment horizons,' said Quintis CEO Julius Matthys.

Over the last year, Quintis has been restructured so that the primary issues that contributed to its insolvency have been removed. The new Company has A$145 million of cash to fund its strategy, no debt repayments or cash servicing costs for five years and no plantation owners with put options.

Quintis plans to simplify its strategy to focus on maximising the yield from its plantations, improving operational efficiency and developing end-markets for its wood and oil products. The recapitalised Company will no longer focus and rely on sales of plantations to retail and high net worth investors.

In addition to managing around 3,000 hectares of its own plantations, Quintis is the manager of around 9,500 hectares on behalf of a number of MIS schemes, high net worth individuals and institutional investors. The high net worth individuals and institutional investors have entered into new plantation management agreements with the recapitalised Quintis. There has been no change to the contractual terms with the MIS schemes.

'It is a vote of confidence in our plantation management team and our enhanced financial position that almost all of our high net worth and institutional investors assessed the alternatives and chose to sign new agreements retaining Quintis as their plantation manager,' Mr Matthys said.

'I'm also pleased that this recapitalisation ensures several thousand MIS investors have retained their valuable rights and assets and Quintis can continue offering them deferred management fees.'

In reaching this important milestone, Quintis acknowledges:

• all Quintis' employees who worked professionally and diligently to maintain the plantations and operations and to finalise the recapitalisation. Quintis employs over 200 staff on the plantations in northern Australian, at the Mt Romance distillery in Albany and in the Perth head office, and their commitment and loyalty has helped facilitate the recapitalisation; and
• the creditors who voted for a Deed of Company Arrangement that allowed Quintis to be recapitalised.

Over the past 20 years Quintis has created the world's largest sustainable and continuous supply of this endangered species, with 5.5 million Indian Sandalwood trees covering around 12,500 hectares which are owned by the Company directly, MIS investors, high net worth individuals and institutional investors.

'Quintis and our plantation investors own a valuable and scarce asset. Our focus now is on managing the sandalwood trees to maturity, maximising the yield from each tree, increasing the efficiency of our operations and driving global customer demand for our premium, legal, sustainable supply of Indian Sandalwood,' Mr Matthys said.

END

Media contact:
Cameron Morse
FTI Consulting
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