NewLead Holdings: Preliminary Agreement for Debt Reduction (Greece)

NewLead Holdings Ltd. yesterday announced that the Company reached a preliminary agreement with Lemissoler Maritime Company W.L.L. (“Lemissoler”) regarding the termination of the sale and leaseback of the four dry bulk vessels previously redelivered to Lemissoler.

Under this agreement, Lemissoler will unconditionally release NewLead from all obligations in exchange for 174.0 million shares of NewLead’s common stock. It is anticipated that this will result in a reduction of $81.2 million of indebtedness from NewLead’s consolidated balance sheets. This agreement is subject to customary closing conditions.

Upon the completion of this transaction, it is expected that NewLead will have a total of 482,252,385 shares of common stock outstanding and four vessels under its control.

Michael Zolotas, President and Chief Executive Officer of NewLead, stated: “The preliminary agreement with Lemissoler to convert debt to equity is another significant milestone in NewLead’s restructuring process. Since July 2011, we have reduced NewLead’s indebtedness by an aggregate of approximately $628.3 million.”

Michael Zolotas continued, “Following the successful completion of our restructuring efforts, which we anticipate will take place in the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2012, we expect that we will have reduced the amount of debt on our balance sheet to around $58.0 million.”

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Source: NewLead, July 31, 2012