Impairment steers Noble away from Iceberg

NOBLE Group's chief executive Yusuf Alireza is disdainful of talking about Iceberg Research. With the company's recent move to impair the fair value of its long-term commodity contracts removing the largest of Iceberg's stings, he may not have to do so for much longer.

That surely is good news. What is troubling, however, is that even after taking away the noise that has been brought on by the Iceberg episode, one still finds in certain parts of Noble's business deteriorating fundamentals.

The largest commodity trading group in Asia last week reported its first annual loss in almost two decades of US$1.67 billion, hit by a one-time charge of US$1.9 billion.