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 tricks. Now with over US$1 billion of debt coming due in the next few months and no way to pay, Noble agreed to hand over the company to creditors in a restructuring deal that will virtually wipe out its shareholders, leaving Mr Elman with a mere 1.8 per cent stake in the company he founded.