Rags to riches tale ends sadly for Noble Group founder Richard Elman

WHEN Swiss commodity trader Andre & Cie went bust 17 years ago, Richard Elman pounced. He bought its Asian grains business for next to nothing as part of an acquisition spree that would make his own fledgling company, Noble Group Ltd, into Asia's biggest commodity trader within a decade.

Mr Elman, 77, has watched another global commodity-trading powerhouse collapse before his eyes over the past year: his own.

As spectacularly as Noble grew under Mr Elman's leadership into a company bankers once dubbed a "mini-Glencore", its dizzying downfall was just as staggering. Like Andre & Cie, debts became untenable and trading losses mounted as Noble was dogged by allegations that it deceived investors with accounting tri…