LDN - Business

Embattled trader Noble Group pays $40 million bond coupon: market sources

[August 01, 2017] By Anshuman Daga and Umesh Desai

SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Singapore-listed commodities trader Noble Group Ltd has paid the coupon on its 2020 bond, market sources said on Tuesday, helping to reduce worries about the company's immediate ability to service its debt.

The payment of about $40 million to bondholders comes after Noble last week announced a dramatic overhaul and flagged a quarterly loss of as much as $1.8 billion.

It also sold its U.S. gas and power business for $248 million, started a process to sell its oils liquids unit and announced plans for up to $1 billion of disposals over the next two years.

An external spokeswoman for Noble had no immediate comment on the 2020 bond coupon payment.

Noble's $1.2 billion bonds due 2020 had a 6.75 percent coupon due on July 29. Last month, Noble deferred a payment on its perpetual bonds, triggering a sell-off.

Its next scheduled bond payment is $7 million for a coupon on its 2018 bonds in September. After that it faces the expiry of a key $2 billion credit facility in October - a fresh deadline following a four-month extension with creditors.

For now, the market is expected to focus on Noble's quarterly results, due this month, for details on its plans to sell assets and cut its debt of more than $3 billion.

"The sale of its oil liquids and gas and power assets would raise cash and reduce debt, but the proceeds may not be sufficient to mitigate the underlying losses and less favorable access to credit lines, in our view," S&P Global Ratings said in a statement last week.

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The company logo of Noble Group is displayed at its office in Hong Kong, China January 22, 2016. REUTERS/Bobby Yip/File Photo

Sources close to the company and investors have said the business remains hemmed in by financing constraints - a major issue for trading houses - and has lost many traders, analysts and managers over the past months, despite cash offers to keep key staff until December.

Noble's shares were 12 percent higher in late morning trade while its 2020 bonds were up about three points at 36.5/37.5 cents on the dollar.

The shares are down 75 percent this year, shrinking its market value to around $400 million, compared with $6 billion in February 2015.

Noble was thrust into the spotlight in February 2015 when previously obscure Iceberg Research accused it of overstating its assets by billions of dollars, which Noble rejected. In 2015, consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers found Noble had complied with international accounting rules.

(Reporting by Anshuman Daga and Umesh Desai; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

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