The planned sale of Noble Agri to China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation for US$750 million was backed by 90% of shareholders who voted at a special meeting in Singapore, last week.
But this means a U$500m writedown on the US$1.3bn valuation ascribed to the Noble Agri stake in Noble’s accounts: seemingly vindicating claims that its accounting is very aggresive. :
Well we’ll soon know what banks think about Noble’s accounting as it’s in talks about refinancing its credit lines. Banks have been pretty accomodative so far but this write-off is worrying them about other potential write-offs in asset values.
It’s online deractor says its claims of malpractice by Noble have been vindicated. Iceberg Research has claimed the company inflated asset values and booked profits on deals long before receiving any cash from the transactions. Mgt rubbished the claims, even getting an int’l accounting firm, PwC (I think) to say its latter practice was halal (kosher).
