Hong Kong-based Noble Group on Monday night pulled the plug on its fight for Macarthur Coal.

Noble disclosed to the media its frustration over the bidding war and shareholders' decision to back out of the plan to sell its Gloucester Coal business to Macarthur Coal.

If the deal pushed through, Noble would be receiving a 24 per cent stake for every Macarthur's stake.

"Noble Group wishes to announce that the merger proposal between Macarthur and Gloucester was soundly defeated by shareholders," a Noble statement said.

As of press time, Macarthur board is expected to release a statement today.

Noble's move last night was triggered by Macarthur's decision to postpone a shareholder's vote after US giant Peabody Energy revised its takeover bid for the third time.

Noble remarked weeks ago that they want "the Americans to go back home."

Peabody increased its bid to $16 a share last week, which Macarthur was compelled to delay its own shareholder vote on the Gloucester offer.

Noble's decision to reject the offer came after China's Citic Resource, one of Macarthur's largest shareholder, said it only supported the Gloucester deal because Peabody did not have enough information to offer support.

Citic said it could not decide to support Gloucester's deal due to limited information available on Peabody's increased $4.1 billion offer. Citic owns 22.2 percent of Macarthur.

Under Peabody's revised deal, the three big shareholders have the option to keep their stakes in a privatized version of Macarthur controlled by Peabdoy.

All other shareholders will be obliged to take cash.

Two of the three big shareholders, Posco and ArcelorMittal, gave support to the Peabody offer.

Posco has an 8.3 per cent stake, while ArcelorMittal holds 16.6 per cent of Macarthur.

Noble has previously stated it would bid $12.60 a share if Macarthur's deal pushed through and will implement its 50 per cent interest in the Middlemount project, a merged partnership with Macarthur.