Moody's Ratings said on Friday it placed Australian miner South32's ASX:S32 credit ratings on review for downgrade after it agreed to sell most of its aluminium assets to Alcoa NYSE:AA for as much as $5.6 billion.
"The divestment would materially reduce the company's scale, commodity diversification and operating footprint, while removing assets that contributed around 37% of underlying earnings on average over the five fiscal years ended 2025," the ratings agency said.