Noble Group has sold its American energy business to Calpine Corporation of the US for more than $800m plus working capital, as the Asian commodities trader seeks to shore up its balance sheet.

The Singapore-listed company, which has endured a torrid 20 months since questions were raised about its accounting, said the divestment of San Diego-based Noble Americas Energy Solutions was a big step toward reaching its goal for raising capital this year.

“The sale of Naes substantially completes the $2bn capital raising initiative that we announced in June,” said Noble’s co-chief executives Jeff Frase and Will Randall, who took the reins following the departure of Yusuf Alireza in June.

The sale of Naes, a wholesale retailer of gas and power to large customers, is for a base price of $800m plus working capital — an amount that Noble said was almost $250m, while Calpine put it at $100m.

Calpine’s figure for working capital is more reliable, and the overall sale price is “disappointing for Noble”, according to Iceberg Research, which originally raised the accounting concerns.

Hong Kong-based Noble has defended its accounting and denied any wrongdoing. It has sold off chunks of its business, including its agricultural arm, to help pay down debt and issued shares to raise capital.

While the sale of one of its best-performing assets will lessen concerns over its balance sheet, analysts say the company still faces cash flow issues. Noble continued to burn through cash in the first half of the year and its adjusted net debt, which counts inventories of oil and coal as cash, ballooned to $2.4bn — about $500m more than its market capitalisation.

“[The sale] helps their balance sheet short term but it doesn’t help the unwinding or its cash flow problem,” according to an analyst at DBS bank in Singapore.

In the six months to June 30, Noble reported negative operating cash flow of $570m and a net loss of $14m.

Shares in Noble were up 6.8 per cent at S$0.205 on Monday afternoon in Singapore. They have fallen by a third this year, but since hitting a 13-year low of S$0.112 in September have rallied about 80 per cent.

Noble embarked on an aggressive expansion in 2009 after Chinese sovereign wealth fund CIC bought a 14 per cent stake.

The sale of Naes, which it acquired in 2010, marks the disposal of a business that had consistently generated cash but fell largely outside the vision of the company’s new co-chief executive. Noble’s former chief executive had said before his departure that Naes was not for sale.

In March, Noble completed the $750m saleof its stake in an agricultural joint venture to China’s state-backed grains trader Cofco. It has also scaled back or exited trading in gas, power and metals in Europe.

When it launched an emergency $500m rights issue in June Noble’s chairman, Richard Elman, subscribed to 56 per cent more shares than he originally pledged, maintaining a near 20 per cent stake in the company he founded.

Calpine Corporation is the largest generator of electricity from natural gas and geothermal in the US. The deal is subject to approval by Noble shareholders and the US energy regulator, but is expected to be completed by December this year.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016.