NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Cliffs Natural Resources (CLF) - Get Report were falling 7% to $4.72 Thursday after the mining company announced the extension of its previously announced private offers to exchange its newly issued senior notes.

Cliffs Natural Resources extended the offer to exchange its 7.75% senior secured notes due 2020 until March 30, 2015. The company said that all other terms of the exchange offers are unchanged.

The mining company said that about $674 million aggregate principal amount of senior notes were tendered in the exchange offers as of March 25. Cliffs Natural Resources expects the settlement of the exchange offers to happen on March 30.

Cliffs Natural Resources President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said, "We are pleased with the results of the Exchange Offers to date, which have allowed us to further reduce our net debt by approximately $129 million and counting. Based on these results, Cliffs already considers this transaction a success."

TheStreet Ratings team rates CLIFFS NATURAL RESOURCES INC as a Sell with a ratings score of D-. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate CLIFFS NATURAL RESOURCES INC (CLF) a SELL. This is driven by a number of negative factors, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its deteriorating net income, weak operating cash flow, generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself and feeble growth in its earnings per share."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

• The company, on the basis of change in net income from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500 and the Metals & Mining industry. The net income has significantly decreased by 3068.1% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, falling from $43.30 million to -$1,285.20 million.
• Despite any intermediate fluctuations, we have only bad news to report on this stock's performance over the last year: it has tumbled by 77.33%, worse than the S&P 500's performance. Consistent with the plunge in the stock price, the company's earnings per share are down 4340.00% compared to the year-earlier quarter. Naturally, the overall market trend is bound to be a significant factor. However, in one sense, the stock's sharp decline last year is a positive for future investors, making it cheaper (in proportion to its earnings over the past year) than most other stocks in its industry. But due to other concerns, we feel the stock is still not a good buy right now.
• Net operating cash flow has decreased to $254.90 million or 44.58% when compared to the same quarter last year. Despite a decrease in cash flow of 44.58%, CLIFFS NATURAL RESOURCES INC is in line with the industry average cash flow growth rate of -45.34%.
• CLIFFS NATURAL RESOURCES INC has experienced a steep decline in earnings per share in the most recent quarter in comparison to its performance from the same quarter a year ago. The company has reported a trend of declining earnings per share over the past year. However, the consensus estimate suggests that this trend should reverse in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, CLIFFS NATURAL RESOURCES INC swung to a loss, reporting -$47.52 versus $2.33 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings (-$0.11 versus -$47.52).
• Regardless of the drop in revenue, the company managed to outperform against the industry average of 18.7%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues fell by 15.2%. Weakness in the company's revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: CLF Ratings Report