 |
Will Randall will fill the newly created position of president of Noble Group. He joined the company in 1997, and has been instrumental in building some of Noble’s most successful and profitable businesses, said Chief Executive Officer Yusuf Alireza.
“In terms of customer focus and franchise building, he has time and again proven to be the very best that Noble has to offer. He has helped create the Noble family. Will's new role will see him working closely with me on a broad range of Noble Group initiatives,” Alireza said. “In addition to maintaining many of his responsibilities in terms of Noble’s Coal and Metals businesses, he now also takes on the global responsibility for driving the build out of our customer franchise and geographic footprint."
In addition to this appointment, Noble also announced the promotion of Neil Dhar and Jim Wood to the firm’s management committee.
Dhar has more than 20 years of experience in the commodity business, across many of the products that Noble is involved in, while also having deep experience in a range of different functional roles.
"His wealth of experience has been instrumental in driving the success of our metals and coal platforms since joining almost five years ago,” Alireza said. “Through his involvement in the management committee, Neil will now be able to bring his influence and insights to bear on everyone throughout the firm."
Wood joined Noble through the acquisition in 2010 of NAES, its San Diego, California, U.S.-based electricity supply business, since which time he has continued to provide the vision and customer focus to build on its long track record of uninterrupted growth.
"Jim has built a world class business and is one of Noble’s best business leaders globally. Under his guidance Noble Americas Energy Solutions (NAES) has built an industry leading franchise by being the 'partner of choice' – the lessons of which can be applied across the wider Noble Group,” Alireza said. “I welcome both Neil and Jim to the Management Committee."
Noble and COFCO Corp. completed a transaction on Sept. 30 to create a new agri-business joint venture, Noble Agri.
Under the terms of the agreement, COFCO acquired a 51% stake in Noble Agri Limited from Noble Group in an all cash transaction to establish a 51%/49% joint venture. The transaction values Noble Agri equity at 1.15 x 2014 book value. As of Dec. 31, 2013, Noble Agri had shareholders’ equity of $2.8 billion and net debt of $2.5 billion.
Noble Agri will become the principal international origination platform for COFCO, with its upstream origination and trading operations linked to the downstream processing and distribution capabilities of COFCO and its affiliates in China to create a fully integrated value chain, consistent with COFCO’s strategy.
