Noble Grp

Noble Grp: Share Price could come under slight pressure today, after Co. announced that it has entered a placement agreement with China Investment Corp, and will issue, 306.5m new shares at a placement price of $2.07, representing approximately 6.77% to the last Weighted average price of $2.22 and a 5% discount to the closing price of $2.18 on 3rd Mar 11. Total amt raised will be approximately $625m, and proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes……

Placement shares represent 5.1% of the existing paid-upshare capital of Co. and post placement will represent 4.8% of the enlarged share capital. For illustration purposes, assuming issue of placement shares was done at 1 Jan11, placement shares will increase grp’s NTA from US$0.583 to US$0.6325 / share…..

RBS and UBS maintain their Buy Call with $3.00 and $2.70 respectively. We note that Street is generally very bullish on Noble, and any pullback represents a good opportunity to reenter into share price, with grp primarily a key beneficiary of global rising commodity and energy prices.