More reasons for Richard Elman to quit as Noble exec chairman

IN his article "Noble should pay heed to its corporate governance" (BT, June 24) Mak Yuen Teen has written a very thoughtful and comprehensive analysis of the governance situation at Noble Group. His conclusions regarding Singapore's relatively lax policies on governance are cited as a reason Noble Group chose to list in Singapore rather than Hong Kong. This should be of great concern to all investors in companies listed on the Singapore Exchange. "Venue shopping" leads to a "race to the bottom" of the corporate governance ladder and only serves to further weaken investor protection.

Then, yesterday it was announced that Yu Xubo who is the president of Cofco was just named a Noble Group non-executive director. Keeping in mind that Noble Group owns 49 per cent of Noble Agri, a consortium led by Cofco owns 51 per cent, and in light of the many issues raised by Prof Mak, this can hardly be seen as an appointment which will add needed diversity of opinion to the Noble board. Moreover, by making this appointment after the AGM, Noble can avoid questions from pesky shareholders.

I continue to believe that Noble's failures of corporate governance as outlined by Prof Mak, in combination with Noble's poor performance and failure to respond to the external challenges to their accounting, constitute a rational case for Richard Elman to step down from his role as executive chairman. Mr Elman's influence as founder, minority-majority shareholder, executive chairman and member of the Audit, Remuneration and Nominating Committees of the Board of Directors provides one person with far too much influence at a time of turmoil.