Steel producer Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. ?s (Cliffs) credit cushion has eroded over the past four quarters due to a combination of higher debt levels from the Stelco acquisition and weak earnings that reflect weak pricing and demand and underperformance in noncore businesses. While earnings could begin to recover in fiscal 2025, we project Cliffs? leverage could remain elevated in the 8x-10x range before strengthening to around 4x in 2026, when we expect the company will reap the full benefits of its cost savings from restructured operations and improved earnings from contract resets. As a result, we revised our outlook to negative and affirmed our 'BB-' issuer credit rating on Cliffs. We also affirmed our 'BB-' issue-level rating on the company?s unsecured
