Asia’s top commodity trader exits 2015 in very different shape to how it began the year.
Noble Group Ltd. has lost almost two-thirds of its value, with its stock trading near the lowest since 2008, after a year of attacks on its finances by critics including the anonymous Iceberg Research and short-seller Muddy Waters LLC. The latest blow, amid a rout in raw materials, is the cut in its credit rating to junk by Moody’s Investors Service on concerns over its liquidity.
Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras, which slashed its five-year spending plan by 40% in June, will likely cut back further as growing debt costs, falling oil prices and a weak currency have already made the plan obsolete, two company sources have revealed.
More than a year after Mexico rewrote laws to give oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos the financial independence needed to compete with global peers like ExxonMobil, things aren’t looking good for the state-owned driller.
With crude near a six-year low, output dropping and Moody’s Investors Service warning that it’s considering a cut to Pemex’s credit rating, investors are demanding a widening premium to own the company’s bonds instead of government notes. The extra yield they demand to hold the dollar debt from Pemex is at a six-month high of 1.1 percentage points.