Cliffs Natural’s $2 Billion Writedown Will Result In A Net Loss For 2012

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Cliffs Natural Resources (NYSE:CLF) has announced non-cash charges to the tune of $2 billion, to be accounted for in the fourth quarter earnings results due in February. Of this, $1 billion will be taken as an impairment to goodwill related to its 2011 acquisition of Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines Limited. It will be recorded as a non-cash expense. The impairment is primarily driven by the project’s anticipated lower long-term volumes and higher capital and operating costs. The previously announced delay of the Phase II expansion of the Bloom Lake mine also contributed to the impairment. The company also indicated that it expects to incur other charges to the tune of $100-150 million related to its Eastern Canadian Iron Ore business segment.

In addition, Cliffs will record $542 million in non-cash valuation allowances related to two of its deferred tax assets: Mineral Resources Rent Tax (Australia) and Alternative Minimum Tax (United States) carryforwards. The reason for these allowances is basically a revised lower long-term iron ore pricing expectation, which will impact future profitability and hence future tax payments. This isn’t surprising, given that iron prices have slumped phenomenally from last year. Although they have been on an upswing for the last couple of months, going forward nobody expects them to average as high as before.

Finally, Cliffs will record an amount of $365 million as non-cash pre-tax impairment charge. The company is selling its 30% stake in the Amapa iron ore mine in Brazil and based on the pending terms of the sale, this impairment is being recorded. [1]

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In all, the non-cash charges thus exceed $2 billion. This will severely impact the bottom line, which is not expected to be in good shape due to a weak iron ore market for most of 2012.

See Full Analysis for Cliffs Natural Resources Here

Too Dependent On Iron Ore

Cliffs Natural is heavily dependent on the iron ore business. Unlike companies like Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Vale, it is not a diversified mining company. Also, since it doesn’t enjoy the economies of scale like these companies do, its cost of production is higher. Tumbling iron prices thus affect it much more than larger, diversified players. Had the iron ore pricing scenario been better, Cliffs wouldn’t have had to take non-cash charges on deferred tax assets and the Amapa iron ore project.

While Cliffs has trying to diversify away from iron ore, its efforts to generate alternative streams of revenue have been pushed back. It has a world-class chromite asset in the form of Black Thor in Canada which is expected to produce 600,000 tonnes of ferrochrome once production begins. Ferrochrome is used mostly in the production of stainless steel and there are very few mines in the world with large deposits of chromite from which it is made. Production was supposed to start in the last quarter of 2016 after being delayed already but might have to be pushed back even further. You can read about it here.

Cliffs’ North American iron ore and coal businesses constitute nearly 70% of its Trefis price estimate.

The writedowns will most probably result in a net loss not just for the fourth quarter but also for the year 2012 as a whole. Its net income for 2011 was $1.6 billion, which was a year of very high iron ore prices. Considering that, we expect losses to be considerable for 2012. [2]

Our price estimate for Cliffs Natural Resources is $46, which will be revised once the fourth quarter earnings results are out.

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Notes:
  1. Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. Expects to Include Non-cash Impairment Charges within Its Fourth-quarter Results, Cliffs Press Release []
  2. 2011 10-K Filing, SEC []