Noble Group Ltd.’s earnings were salvaged by a surge in alumina prices but its core coal trading business struggled to make money in the third quarter, highlighting the challenge the company faces as it emerges from a marathon debt restructuring, Bloomberg News reported. The company is pinning its hopes on Asia-focused coal, alumina and liquefied natural gas trading businesses to help it make money once the restructuring is completed this month. Noble reported a third-quarter operating loss from supply chains of $12 million in its energy unit, which includes thermal coal and LNG trading.
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Noble Group Ltd is set to appoint Ian Potter, a former senior banker at Morgan Stanley, as its next chairman in a few weeks, just as the commodities trader seeks to complete its $3.5 billion debt restructuring, sources with knowledge of the matter said on Monday, Reuters reported. Singapore-based Potter has been working with Noble in an advisory capacity for the past few months, said one of the sources, who declined to be named as Singapore-listed Noble has not made any official announcement about its next chairman.
Noble Group Ltd. warned of another quarterly loss, driven by restructuring and finance costs, as the embattled commodity trader moves toward completing a $3.5 billion rescue deal that’ll hand control to creditors, Bloomberg News reported. The net loss for the three months to September will be $90 million to $115 million, according to a filing on Monday. It expects to incur restructuring costs of about $35 million, after spending more than $100 million in the first half. Once Asia’s largest commodity trader, Noble Group’s crisis has escalated in recent years as losses and defaults mounted.
Developers in Hong Kong are offering perks such as free rail tickets and early move-in dates in a further sign one of the world’s hottest property markets may finally be cooling, Bloomberg News reported. In a bid to shift apartments, CK Asset Holdings Ltd. is giving away high-speed rail holiday and travel packages, including accommodation, worth HK$280,000 ($35,700) for people who agree to purchase one of its four-bedroom units at a development in Hong Kong’s west.
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Hong Kong-based private-equity firm Baring Private Equity Asia has agreed to invest roughly half a billion dollars in Pioneer Corp., likely becoming the controlling shareholder, in another example of overseas investors taking a role in restructuring venerable Japanese brands, The Wall Street Journal reported. Pioneer, a struggling maker of car audio and navigation equipment, is trying to compete in the quickly changing market for internet-connected vehicles with autonomous-driving functions. In June, a group led by U.S.
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Noble Group Ltd.’s foes aren’t going away. Less than 24 hours after the commodity trader won shareholder approval for its $3.5 billion debt-for-equity deal, long-standing critic Michael Dee said the revamped company will struggle to recover and shouldn’t be allowed to list shares in Singapore, Bloomberg News reported. “I really don’t believe that we’re going to be in any different situation,” Dee, a former senior managing director at Singapore state investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte, said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Tuesday.
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Noble Group Ltd won approval from shareholders on Monday for a $3.5 billion debt restructuring plan that should ensure the survival of what was once Asia’s biggest commodity trader, Reuters reported. Faced with the prospect of the company’s insolvency, shareholders reluctantly backed a debt-for-equity swap that will leave them owning just 20 percent of the business, while handing majority control to a group of creditors comprised mainly of hedge funds.
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The main contractor of M+, the West Kowloon Cultural District’s contemporary art museum, was fired by the government-appointed management authority on Friday owing to alleged insolvency, Hong Kong Free Press reported. In a press statement, the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) said it has terminated its contract with Hsin Chong Construction Company Limited over the troubled project. Hsin Chong was awarded the HK$5.9 billion contract for multiple buildings in September 2015 after a selective tendering process.
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Arnaud Vagner has been a mystery for more than three years. Noble Group, once one of the world’s biggest commodity trading houses, characterized him as a disgruntled former junior employee behind a series of reports by Iceberg Research, an anonymous group that began attacking its accounting practices in 2015, Bloomberg News reported. Even as the combined value of Noble’s equity and debt plunged by about $10 billion since then, Vagner declined to comment publicly or even confirm he was behind Iceberg. With the company now on the brink of a restructuring, he’s ready to talk.
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Struggling commodity trader Noble Group, which is trying to push through a debt-for-equity restructuring in a bid to secure its survival, slumped to another quarterly loss in the second quarter of this year as the Asia-focused commodity house paid out bumper fees to its advisers, banks and creditors, the Financial Times reported.
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