Noble Group's ballooning debt seen raising risk of restructuring


The signage of Noble Resources, a Noble Group subsidiary, at their premises in Singapore.
PHOTO: REUTERS

HONG KONG/SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) - Noble Group's rising debt load is adding to speculation that it will need to restructure its obligations, even after the embattled commodity trader obtained a crucial covenant waiver that buys it more time.

"Noble's current capital structure is not sustainable," said Annisa Lee, head of Asia ex-Japan flow credit analysis at Nomura International (Hong Kong) Ltd. "It is still my base case that it will have to go for restructuring or liquidation eventually."

The company is fighting for survival more than two years into a crisis punctuated by accounting criticisms and a collapse in its securities. It reported a US$1.75 billion loss for the second quarter on Thursday and announced that it would retreat to its Asian roots by selling its gas and power unit. Noble Group, which was founded by chairman-emeritus Richard Elman, has lost more than 90 per cent of its market value since 2015.

Liquidity headroom - a metric that gauges the amount of capital available to fund its business - slumped to US$1.4 billion as at June 30, compared with US$2.4 billion as of March 31 and US$2 billion at the end of 2016.

JPMorgan Chase & Co said that a key disappointment for the second quarter was on the cash flow, as the firm burnt over US$500 million in operating cash flows.

Noble Group's total debt stood at US$4.6 billion at end-June, down from US$4.8 billion at March 31, but still up from US$4 billion at end 2016, according to the company's exchange filing. Its net debt surged by US$945 million from the start of the year to US$3.82 billion at the end of June.

"Our base case remains that Noble will eventually conduct a liability-management exercise," wrote Jit Ming Tan, analyst at Barclays, adding that this will likely come in the form of a debt exchange or extension plan.

Some holders of Noble Group's dollar bonds have hired Houlihan Lokey as their financial adviser, people with knowledge of the matter said this week. The company's bonds due 2020 rose 2.3 cents on the dollar to 40 cents as of 11:35am in Hong Kong, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Noble Group now has two months to restore confidence among its banks, counterparties and investors. It said it had secured a covenant waiver until Oct 20 from lenders on its revolving credit facility due May 2018, matching the maturity of another key credit facility that was extended in June.

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