Moody’s Ratings has raised Hecla Mining Company’s corporate family rating to Ba3 from B1 and maintained a stable outlook, reflecting improvements in the miner’s balance sheet and cash generation capacity.
The upgrade is attributed to substantial debt reduction and robust free cash flow performance, delivered even with silver and gold trading below current spot levels. Moody’s highlighted Hecla’s elimination of its silver-linked dividend, effective January 2025, as a material contributor to improved deleveraging prospects and enhanced free cash flow.
Hecla announced the sale of its Casa Berardi mine for a total consideration of $593 million. The transaction structure includes a $160 million upfront cash payment, $112 million in equity, $80 million in deferred cash, and contingent consideration up to $241 million. Moody’s said the divestiture reduces Hecla’s diversification and raises concentration, but it also enables the company to concentrate on core silver operations and direct capital toward exploration aimed at growing silver production.
On the timing of production, Moody’s noted the Casa Berardi asset was expected to enter a production hiatus beginning in 2028. For that reason, the agency assessed the sale as having limited earnings impact beyond 2026.
Over the past two years, Hecla has applied proceeds from an equity offering together with organic cash flow to strengthen its capital structure. The company fully repaid revolver borrowings, settled Investissement Québec notes, and redeemed a portion of outstanding senior unsecured notes. These moves were cited by Moody’s as supportive of the rating action.
Alongside the corporate family rating upgrade, Moody’s also raised Hecla’s probability of default rating to Ba3-PD from B1-PD, upgraded its senior unsecured notes rating to B1 from B2, and improved the speculative grade liquidity rating to SGL-1 from SGL-3.
Moody’s rationale for the Ba3 rating emphasizes Hecla’s favorable geopolitical footprint in the United States and Canada, the low-cost operating positions and long mine lives of its Greens Creek and Lucky Friday operations, and the company’s significant mineral reserves. These factors underpin the agency’s improved view of creditworthiness.
However, Moody’s maintained that the rating remains constrained by several structural and market considerations. These include the company’s modest scale, sensitivity to volatile metal prices, limited operational diversity, and asset concentration risk given that Greens Creek and Lucky Friday generate most of Hecla’s free cash flow.
As of September 30, 2025, Hecla reported $134 million in cash on hand and $218 million available under a $225 million revolving credit facility. Including the upfront payment from the Casa Berardi sale, the company’s cash balance would increase to $402 million, according to the figures cited by Moody’s.
Note: This piece presents Moody’s ratings action and the company-highlighted financial and asset details without additional commentary beyond the cited information.