Withdrawal of Noble shares

Noble Group is voluntarily withdrawing its 320 million shares from the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong after only 19 months' trading.

Anglo Chinese Corporate Finance is making a conditional cash offer for Noble's shares at $2.05 each on behalf of an unnamed consortium.

This represents a premium of 12 per cent to its closing share price of $1.83 on March 12.

Noble is mainly engaged in supplying raw materials (semi-finished and finished products) to the steel industry, chartering ships and cargo transport.

Its shares were first listed in June 1994. Noble will be announcing its results for the 1995 financial year on Tuesday.