Noble

Noble: spent $26m to buy back 21.8m of its shares at $1.1886 each as the commodities supplier seeks to support its share price after it lost more than a quarter of its value last week.
Noble, whose shares fell 26.5% Thursday after it reported a 3Q net loss of US$17.5m because of volatile markets and mark-to-market losses on cotton contracts, said it has a mandate from shareholders to buy back its shares and that it may purchase more from time to time. Thursday's stock market rout wiped $2.73b off the co's mkt cap.
The buyback comes after an investment vehicle associated with Chairman and acting CEO Richard Elman bought 10m of the co's shares at $1.1919 each, raising its interest in Noble Group to 21.53% from 21.37%.

Meanwhile, the co is in talks with Yusuf A. Alireza, a top executive of Goldman Sachs, who is leaving the firm after 19 yrs to replace Leiman, Noble’s ex-CEO who resigned unexpectedly last wk. Alireza spent just 10mths as co-president in the Asia-Pac ex Japan region. Before that, he headed Goldman’s Asia Pac securities division in HK in 2008.

Over the wkend, S&P placed Noble’s ‘BBB-‘ long term corporate credit rating and issue rating on the senior unsecured notes, as well as Noble’s ‘cnA-‘ Greater China scale credit ratings and notes on CreditWatch with negative implications.
S&P noted Noble’s financial strength has weakened after a major acquisition and its profitability trend has weakened due to heightened volatility in the commodities mkt, with cash flow and leverage having breached levels considered weak for the current rating.