Atlas Iron shareholders have breathed life back into the troubled miner, approving a $180 million capital raising.
But some question whether the junior iron ore producer could have made deeper cost cuts before it began fighting for survival two months ago.
Atlas suspended mining operations and trading in its shares after the iron ore price dropped below $US50 a tonne in April.
Managing director David Flanagan, who has personally lost around $13 million over the past year, said he had expected to field criticism from shareholders about the timing of cost cutting.
"You can't cut costs when the prices are high because contractors say we're giving all of our margin to you, we need to see shared pain and shared gain and that's what we've been able to achieve recently," Mr Flanagan told reporters after the company's annual meeting.
Atlas expects to generate $180 million by issuing new shares at five cents each as part of the capital raising.
Buoyed by the backing of shareholders and contractors, Mr Flanagan believes the company's stock has a good chance of returning to its last traded price of 12 cents.
"It's much easier for a five cent company to go to 10 cents and then to 15 cents, but in the absence of these deals, this capital raising, the consequences for shareholders were far worse," he said.
A packed meeting of shareholders heard complaints about Atlas' iron ore price forecasts and high debt levels.
"The timeline you took to reduce costs seems ridiculous," shareholder Ken Howard told the meeting.
"The failure of this management and board to address that slide is unforgivable."
He said the company had a large debt pile and should have started deep cost cutting months earlier.
Atlas hopes to extend the length of its $340 million debt with US bond holders beyond December 2017, and has taken advice from Fortescue Metals chairman Andrew Forrest about US debt markets.
"Andrew is very well experienced in dealing with bond holders and we've had a few discussions about that, learning from his experience," Mr Flanagan said.
Mr Forrest had encouraged him to keep going during the hard times, Mr Flanagan said.
"That helps and he has agreed to invest in the placement personally," he said.
Mr Flanagan will now embark on an international roadshow to drum up more support, and continue talks with its four lenders to restructure its debt.
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