Fitch cuts Noble
rating and says
default probable
Fitch cut commodity trader NOBLE GROUP’s
debt rating to two notches above default,
citing the company’s commencement of
discussions on a debt restructuring.
The agency lowered the rating one
notch on November 17 to CC, which,
according to its rating criteria, defined
a situation where “default of some kind
appears probable”. Fitch previously had
rated Noble CCC, which stated that
“default is a real possibility”.
Noble has started talks with
stakeholders to restructure its debt and
secure trade finances in a bid to keep
its business running, just weeks after
agreeing to sell some assets and flagging amassive loss.
Its bonds are already trading at
distressed levels and its most recently
sold bonds, those due in 2022, have fallen
to a third of their issue price in less than
nine months.
Moody’s has a Caa3 rating on Noble,
with a negative outlook. The rating
reflects a significant probability of
default within the next 12 months,
Moody’s says.
S&P Global has assigned Noble a CC–
rating, with a negative outlook.
Noble, once a global commodities
trader with ambitions to rival the likes of
Glencore or Vitol, has shrunk to an Asia-
focused company largely engaged in coal
and freight trading after a crisis-racked
two years forced it to slash jobs and sell
assets.
Hong Kong-based Noble was plunged
into crisis in 2015, when Iceberg Research
questioned its accounts. Noble stood byits accounts, but a commodities downturn
added to the turmoil, triggering a
share-price collapse, credit downgrades,
writedowns and management changes.
Fitch said the company’s liquidity
situation was tight at the end of the last
quarter as it had US$262m in unrestricted
cash and US$800m in undrawn credit
facilities against its US$1.7bn short-term
debt.
Noble has two large tranches of debt
maturing in 2018 – US$400m of US-dollar
notes due in March and US$1.1bn of
unsecured revolving credit facilities and
term loans due in May.
The company also has two global
bonds, aggregating US$2bn, due in 2020.
“It is unclear how Noble will address
these maturities without a change to its
capital structure, given the uncertainties
regarding the profit generation of its
operations...,” Fitch says.
UMESH DESAIInternational Financing Review Asia November 25 2017 17Please send job moves to
[email protected]Peter Li joins the Chinese basic materials team
from Citigroup.
Other hires include Jianping Chen, previously
with BAML, who has been appointed lead
analyst for China property research, Alice Li, who
covers the non-bank financial sector, and Tianbo
Yu, who joins the technology team. Ivan Chan has left as assistant vice president
of thesyndicated finance team at DBS BANK after
nearly five years.
Hong Kong-based Chan left the bank about two
weeks ago, though he is expected to remain in
the industry.
Before joining the Singapore bank, he was a
vice president for mid-market corporations at
HSBC for close to three years, according to his
LinkedIn profile. Alyssa Chang has joined the Shanghai
branch of Malayan Banking (MAYBANK) as a vice
president in the non-bank financial institutions
department.
She started on Thursday, reporting to Poh Kuan
Khiaw, Maybank’s head of non-bank financial
institutions in China.
Before joining Maybank, Chang was on the
syndications team of Fubon Bank (China). She
left the Taiwanese bank a few days ago after
nearly three years. The Australian government announced
on Friday the appointment of Leilani Frew as
chief executive officer of its newly established
INFRASTRUCTURE AND PROJECT FINANCING AGENCY.
The government set up the agency earlier
this year to drive more private-sectorinvestments in infrastructure development. A
former infrastructure banker, Frew is head of
commissioning and contestability in the New
South Wales Treasury department, which looks
into different financing models for infrastructure
projects.
She will take over from interim CEO John O’Neil
from December 11. The HONG KONG MONETARY AUTHORITY has
announced several staff changes, following the
retirement of one of its directors.
Howard Lee has been appointed deputy chief
executive, effective January 1. He will continue
to be responsible for monetary stability and
financial infrastructure development, including
fintech.
Alan Au is due to take over from Carmen Chu as
executive director for banking conduct, effective
December 12. Au was previously head of the
banking supervision department.
Chu has been appointed executive director for
enforcement and anti-money laundering. She
replaces Meena Datwani, who is retiring. STANDARD CHARTERED has promoted Geoff Kot
to head of foreign exchange cash for Asia. Kot,
who is based in Hong Kong, was most recently
head of FX trading for Greater China.
Kot joined StanChart three years ago from
Barclays. He also previously worked at Bank of
America Merrill Lynch.
At StanChart, he reports to Neh Thaker, global
head of FX, rates and credit.
His appointment comes after Wesley White
joined the bank on November 13 as head of FX
cash for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.Jens Andersen, who was appointed financial
markets co-head for the Americas in August,
remains head of FX cash for the region and
leads the bank’s efforts in building out its
trading business in Latin America.
The changes come as StanChart beefs up its
markets division, particularly credit.
In May, the emerging-markets bank announced
several new credit hires, including Robert
McGinley, head of flow credit trading for Asia
and Hiroyuki Wakimoto, a director for credit
trading. UNITED OVERSEAS BANK has hired Alvin Wong as
director for its structured finance team within
the global financial institutions group. He joins
from DBS Bank.
Based in Singapore, he reports to head of
structured finance Simon Tan, who also joined
from DBS earlier this year.
Wong was with DBS for 10 years and was last
senior vice president on the structured debt
solutions team. He had also previously worked
at Standard Chartered. CREDIT SUISSE has hired Idora Ismail as head of
Malaysia coverage for its Asia Pacific investment
banking and capital markets group.
Ismail, based in Kuala Lumpur, reports to
Pankaj Goel and Rizal Gozali, the bank’s co-
heads of IBCM for South-East Asia.
She replaces Jefferi Hashim, who joined CIMB
in September as deputy CEO of the investment
bank.
Ismail spent the last seven years with Maybank,
where she was co-head of M&A for Malaysia.
She had also previously been with RHB Bank,1019_05 People and Markets.indd 17 24/11/2017 22:03: