Moody's lowers Anglo credit to junk status

(miningmx.com) – Moody's Investors Service downgraded Anglo American's long-term credit rating to sub-investment grade saying the UK group faced a more uncertain deleveraging period than expected. It added that restructuring plans - due to be unveiled in more detail on February 16 at Anglo's full-year results presentation - would not necessarily provide the debt relief than initially anticipated. Anglo's senior unsecured ratings of Anglo American and its subsidiaries were lowered to Ba3 from Baa3 while the company's Baa3 long-term issuer rating was converted into a Ba3 corporate family rating "... in line with the rating agency's practice for corporates with non-investment-grade ratings", Moody's said. "Pending further announcements by the company, the rating agency believes that divestments of non-core assets would be difficult to execute in the current environment, particularly at valuations to allow deleveraging from the current level," it said.