Iceberg warns of more Yancoal write-downs for Noble

There’s still a $431.5m gap to be recognized.

Anonymous research group Iceberg yesterday warned that commodity trading house Noble is in for more impairments from its subsidiary Yancoal.

Iceberg stated that the carrying value of Yancoal is now $441m (US$322m) and the market value of the 13% stake is worth $9.6m (US$7m). Iceberg claimed that there is still a $431.5m (US$315m) gap that Noble will have to recognise.

A sudden $274m (US$200m) impairment from Yancoal caused Noble to report its first quarterly loss in three years in the fourth quarter.

“The company said that the $200m impairment was made on the same day they announced the results. Yancoal’s financial statements are public information. The reasons why this company is struggling are public information: low coal prices, unsustainable level of debt, and expensive take-or-pay contracts. Noble did not suddenly realise that Yancoal’s valuation was too high. The regulator and Noble’s shareholders will not find this explanation credible,” warned Iceberg.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia