MG Capital Issues Letter to the Board of Directors of Contura Energy Inc.

MG Capital Management, Ltd. (together with its affiliates, “MG Capital” or “we"), a long-term stockholder of Contura Energy, Inc. (NYSE: CTRA) (“Contura” or the “Company”) and owner of approximately 5.8% of the Company’s outstanding common stock, today issued the below letter to the Company’s Board of Directors and filed a Schedule 13D with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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VIA EMAIL

October 7, 2020

The Board of Directors
Contura Energy, Inc.
340 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Bristol, TN 37620

Dear Members of the Board of Directors:

MG Capital Management, Ltd. (together with its affiliates, “MG Capital” or “we") is a long-term stockholder of Contura Energy, Inc. (“Contura” or the “Company”), with ownership of approximately 5.8% of the Company’s outstanding common stock. Since making our initial investment in Contura in 2016, MG Capital has continuously assessed the Company’s assets, corporate governance, strategic decisions and market positioning against the backdrop of our country’s rapidly-changing energy economy. We are writing to you today because it has become abundantly clear to us in recent months that Contura cannot begin to fully reverse its years-long tailspin until it accelerates its intended exit from the thermal coal business and refreshes half of the Company’s six-member Board of Directors (the “Board”).

We are very concerned that Contura, which only two years ago had a market capitalization of more than $1 billion and a stock price of more than $75, continuously trades at a staggering discount to its intrinsic value. As the country’s largest producer of coking products (a critical input into the steel production supply chain), Contura is part of the lifeblood of our economy and has a critical role to play with respect to infrastructure and national security. Notably, during the last cyclical high in 2011, Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. (Contura’s predecessor company) reached more than $12 billion in enterprise value and generated annual EBITDA in excess of $1 billion. In stark contrast, Contura’s estimated enterprise value is currently below $550 million.

After recently assessing all of our concerns pertaining to Contura’s trajectory, we concluded that the Company’s Board – in particular, legacy directors John Lushefski, Daniel Geiger and Albert Ferrara, Jr. – lacks the expertise and skills to support a turnaround in today’s new energy economy. We explain why our team came to this conclusion in the next section of this letter.