THE two most common expressions when looking at the slew of notes from ratings agency Moody’s on the commodity sector are "downgrades" and "outlook negative", as the downturn in the global commodity markets reduced many companies’ ratings to junk status.And these are not the small companies commonly expected to struggle in this environment. These are majors such as Anglo American and Rio Tinto.BHP Billiton, the world’s largest resources company, was downgraded last week, but not as far as junk. Its spinoff, South32, is under review.The downgrade of Anglo to junk status came on the eve of its annual results presentation early last month, when the company outlined plans to shrink to 16 assets in diamonds, platinum and copper, removing iron ore, nickel and other commodities from its portfolio.Anglo wants to generate up to $4bn on top of the $2bn from asset sales last year to tackle its $12.9bn of net debt and get it down to $6bn within three years. Moody’s remained unconvinced by the a...
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