(Reuters) – Commodity trader Noble Group Ltd will pay a S$12.6 million ($9.03 million) penalty for releasing ‘misleading’ information in its financial statements between 2012 and 2016, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said on Wednesday.
The company, which was once the biggest commodity trader in Asia, saw its market value all but wiped out from $6 billion in 2015 after accusation of inflating its assets, forcing it to sell billions of dollars of assets, taking hefty writedowns and cut hundreds of jobs.
Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, also issued warnings to two former directors of Noble Resources International Pte Ltd, which was Noble Group’s unit at the time, for failing to prepare and table financial statements in compliance with the country’s standards.
Noble Resources Trading Holdings Ltd, which was formed in 2018 as a part of Noble Group’s reorganisation and has since been under new ownership and management, in a separate statement welcomed the conclusion of the investigation.
“We are looking forward to continuing to work with our suppliers and serve our customers, building on the strong start to 2022,” it added.
($1 = 1.3950 Singapore dollars)
(Reporting by Indranil Sarkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
