Noble chairman pumps more cash into his struggling firm

He bought 20 million shares in two days.

Embattled Noble Group’s founder and chairman Richard Elman is putting his money where his mouth is. The commodity trader’s CEO snapped up twenty million shares in just two trading days, in a bold show of confidence for his doubly-junked firm.

On Monday, Elman spent $3.34 million for 10 million shares, raising his stake to 22.13%. This follows a similar move on Friday, at which he also bought 10 million shares for $3.19 million.

Noble Group had a bad start to the year after it was cut to junk status by ratings agencies Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s. The stock is now trading at its lowest level in years.

Despite the back-to-back downgrades, Noble remains confident that the US$750m sale of its agribusiness arm Noble Agri will be enough to bring back the company’s investment grade status.

On a bourse filing Tuesday, Noble said that it would hold a special general meeting on January 28 to get shareholders’ permission to sell Noble Agri. The deal is expected to complete by February.