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The Rapu Rapu Group of Companies has filed a petition
for rehabilitation, as it awaits negotiations with a Korean investor
and its parent firm for the infusion of much needed capital.
Bayani Agabin, the group’s
spokesman, said the company filed the petition to allow it to
conserve its assets, and work out a fair and orderly management of
its creditors.
He said the company deemed this
necessary to protect local interests since negotiations with a
Korean group and the Australian administrator that is now
supervising the project’s mother company, Lafayette Mining Ltd.,
might take some time.
“There are several interested
parties but the Korean group has the inside track,” he said
without naming any of them.
Australian-listed Lafayette
earlier entered voluntary administration or bankruptcy protection
after it found that it could no longer meet its financial
obligations.
The potential agreement between
Lafayette and the Korean group will require the investor to put in
more funds for equity, operations, and debt restructuring.
“When the new investments come
in and our debts are restructured, then we can resume debt payments.
For now, it is in the interest of Albay, the Rapu Rapu community,
our employees and other stakeholders, and the environment to make
sure our revenues go into funding our operations first,” Agabin
said.
The spokesman said that the Rapu
Rapu group’s rehabilitation does not mean that it is going broke.
“We are a viable project and
continue to operate and employ our people. All we need is a little
time to enable the investor to complete its negotiations with the
administrator, and put in place a financial plan that will ensure
the sustained operations of the project,” he said.
The group runs the Rapu Rapu
polymetallic project, an open pit mine producing gold and is also
said to contain silver, copper and zinc deposits in Albay. The
company maintains a 1,000-strong workforce.
--Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo
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