Tuesday September 22, 04:29 AM
FACTBOX-Key facts on commodities trader Noble
Sept 22 (Reuters) - Singapore-listed Noble Group Ltd said China Investment Corp (CIC (CC.NX - news) ), a $200 billion
sovereign wealth
fund, bought a 14.5 percent stake in the trading
firm for $850 million.
Following is a summary of what Noble (NYSE: NE - news) is all about:
HISTORY:
- Founded in 1987 by Richard S. Elman and headquartered in
Hong Kong.
- Listed in Hong Kong in 1994. Delisted in 1996 after an
independent third party purchased 60 percent of the free float.
Re-listed in Singapore in March 1997.
BUSINESS:
- Engaged in managing the global supply chain/trading of
agricultural, industrial and energy products. Also involved in
ship ownership, chartering and the provision of technical ship
management services, trade finance, coal mining, soybean and
sugar-cane crushing activities, and ethanol production in Brazil.
CAPACITY:
- Installed soy crush capacity of 11,300 tonnes per day.
Processes 9,600 tonnes of soybean in China daily. Recent
acquisition of an oilseed processing complex helps it capture
about 10 percent of China's active output in this sector. Located
just north of Shanghai, this facility has two processing lines
and two vegetable oil refineries with daily capacities of over
3,000 tonnes and 1,200 tonnes, respectively.
In addition, it has a tank farm capable of storing
approximatively 70,000 tonnes of vegetable oil, giving the
company the ability to distribute all kinds of vegetable oils.
- Noble's energy segment reported a lower revenue of $7.3
billion in the first half of 2009 compared with $10.6 billion in
the first half of 2008, due to lower prices in their key products
- thermal coal, carbon products (coking coal and coke) and carbon
credits.
Segment tonnage was 38.7 million metric tonnes in the first
half of 2009, the highest tonnage volume in segment history, and
up 10 percent versus the 35.1 million metric tonnes in the first
half of 2008.
THE DRIVING FORCE:
- Noble's chief Elman left school at 15 and went to work in a
scrap yard. He grew up in London and moved to Hong Kong about 40
years ago. Then he built his career as a physical commodities
trader at Phibro.
At Phibro, Elman was Regional Director of their Asian
operations for 10 years, including two years as a Board Director
in New York. With that experience, Elman went on to set up Noble
in 1987 with $100,000.
Elman, 69, has been doing business in China since the 1960s,
long before it became what it is today.
FACTS & FINANCIALS:
Noble's global network encompasses more than 100 offices in
over 40 countries across five continents. It has more than 4,000
customers worldwide and employs about 4,800 people.
KEY DATA: (Three months to June '09) in US$
Revenue: 7,174.15 million
Operating Result: 274.01 million
Pretax Profit/Loss 266.4 million
Long Term Debt: 2,234.22 million
Shareholders' Equity: 2,421.11 million
Website www.thisisnoble.com/
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:
- Standard & Poor's this month raised the long-term corporate
credit rating on Noble to 'BBB-' from 'BB+', with a stable
outlook.
- Finalising construction of a large-scale soya crushing
plant in Argentina.
- Laying the groundwork for tank farms for distillates,
ethanol, biodiesel, vegetable oil and gasoline in Rotterdam.
These tank farms will have a storage capacity of 500,000 cu m in
2011.
- Branching out into the European power and gas sectors,
after recruiting three former executives from hedge fund GLG
Partners Inc in 2009.
- Started distillates trading in London in 2009.
- Plans to boost distribution and storage capabilities in oil
hub Singapore and China in the near future.
- Noble took over clean storage tanks from Cargill at Vopak
to store gasoline this year, and started trading on the Singapore
cash market for the first time in early May.
- As of May 27, 2009, Noble held a 58.36 percent interest in
Gloucester Coal Limited.
- In November 2008, it announced the sale of its interest in
Portman Limited.
- In September 2008, Noble and H.E.S. Beheer N.V. acquired
Maas Silo B.V.
(Compiled by Felicia Loo and Judy Hua; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
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