Suppose X is an N × n complex matrix whose entries are centered, independent, and identically distributed random variables with variance 1/n and whose fourth moment is of order O(n −2 ). In the first part of the paper, we consider the non-Hermitian matrix XAX * −z, where A is a deterministic matrix whose smallest and largest singular values are bounded below and above respectively, and z = 0 is a complex number. Asymptotic probability bounds for the smallest singular value of this matrix are obtained in the large dimensional regime where N and n diverge to infinity at the same rate.In the second part of the paper, we consider the special case where A = J = [1 i−j=1 mod n ] is a circulant matrix. Using the result of the first part, it is shown that the limit spectral distribution of XJX * exists in the large dimensional regime, and we determine this limit explicitly. A statistical application of this result devoted towards testing the presence of correlations within a multivariate time series is considered. Assuming that X represents a C N -valued time series which is observed over a time window of length n, the matrix XJX * represents the one-step sample autocovariance matrix of this time series. Guided by the result on the limit spectral distribution of this matrix, a whiteness test against an MA correlation model for the time series is introduced. Numerical simulations show the excellent performance of this test.