By Freya Berry and Anjuli Davies
LONDON (Reuters) - Brazilian miner Vale (SA:VALE5) is teaming up with U.S. private equity firm Apollo (N:APO) to bid for Anglo American's (L:AAL) niobium and phosphates business in Brazil, three sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
A sale of the assets, used for making fertilizers, could fetch around $1 billion for Anglo American .
The London-listed miner has said it wants to raise as much as $4 billion from divestitures, in order to cut net debt to under $10 billion by the end of the year as it grapples with a commodity price slump.
A spokesman for Anglo said the sale process is progressing as planned. Vale declined to comment, while Apollo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.