BHP Billiton debut bond overcomes market volatility.

(From Financial News (Daily))

BHP Billiton, the world's largest diversified mining group, has defied turbulent conditions in the corporate bond markets to launch a debut benchmark bond that was oversubscribed and increased.BHP Billiton launched a '500m ($493.7m) five-year bond via lead managers Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank on Tuesday, and a strong response from European investors left the deal almost twice oversubscribed and enabled the company to raise an extra '250m.

The transaction was the first to be launched off the company's recently signed $1.5bn ('1.52bn) Euro-MTN programme, which was arranged by Deutsche Bank. Bankers close to the deal said investors were attracted predominantly by the high quality of BHP Billiton, which has a market capitalisation of more than $30bn and is easily the leading company in its field, ahead of firms such as Rio Tinto and Anglo-American.

This factor helped BHP Billiton to garner widespread support from investors, despite the fact that it has not borrowed in euros before. Instead, the deal appealed to buyers as a means of diversifying their portfolios with bonds from a strong company.

BHP ...