Holcim Ltd. (HOLN), the world’s second- largest cement-maker, risks losing its investment-grade credit rating this year unless it sells assets, according to an ING note.

The company “has not satisfied investment-grade metrics since 2007,” Ian Osburn, an ING analyst, wrote in a note.

Peter Gysel, a spokesman for Holcim, said: “The ratings agencies have written nothing about that we should make divestments to keep our rating.”

Moody’s assigned a negative ratings outlook to Jona, Switzerland-based Holcim in November 2011. The company is rated Baa2 by Moody’s Investors Service, BBB by Standard & Poor’s and BBB by Fitch, the second-lowest investment grades.

Holcim’s European competitors Lafarge SA (LG) and HeidelbergCement AG (HEI) have already been assigned junk ratings.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Winters in Zurich at pwinters3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net