Noble Group

Noble Group: A foreign broker hosted a conference call with Noble’s management, in a bid to gain further insights into Noble’s business plans as well as to address recent allegations made by Iceberg Research.

Noble’s management highlighted that 2014 was a year of transformation, where the group divested some of its main intensive assets in a bid to pursue an asset light strategy, while operationally, the group had a record year in some business segments, like its energy solutions, power & gas, metals, and ores.

In regards to allegations by Iceberg Research in relation to its fair values of unrealised commodities contracts, Noble highlighted that to simply think that fair value assets would end up as earnings is simply incorrect, sharing examples of net hedging effects.

Noble added that its impairment losses which dragged down on its FY14 performance was mostly done, and that the premium paid by COFCO for its agri business was justified, given the entity’s ability to generate significant profits.

Going forward, management intends to improve transparency and believes that they are entering 2015 on a strong footing, and will utilize its cash hoard of US$903.8m if they see opportunities.