Ford and its Ford Motor Credit unit increased their offering of Global Landmark Securities from the $6.5 billion originally expected. The increase made Ford's four-tranche deal the largest corporate bond offering ever.

Ford's offering saw over $14 billion of interest with participation from 400 different investors and about 25 per cent of international buyers, according to syndicate officials from global coordinator Bear Stearns & Co and lead managers Merrill Lynch & Co and Salomon Smith Barney.

The most highly-coveted tranche was parent company Ford Motor's $1.8 billion 32-year piece, which saw around $5 billion in demand. Those notes, which were priced at a yield margin of 1.40 percentage points over Treasury, tightened to a yield margin of around 1.35 percentage points after they were freed to trade Friday.

"There just hasn't been a wholelot of issuance in the 30-year area relative to the new issue calendar year-to-date and there's a lot of pent-up demand for 30-years," said Steven Kane, portfolio manager at Metropolitan West Asset Management in Los Angeles.

Ford Motor Credit's three tranches also saw strong interest, with about $1.5 billion of orders for a $1 billion two-year floating-rate offering, $2.5 billion for a $1.8 billion three-year floating rate tranche and $5 billion for a $4 billion five-year piece.

The Ford offering was received enthusiastically in part because of the company's well-recognised name as well as the issue's huge size, which implies that the securities will be more liquid, or easier to trade.

Investor worries about interest rates and prospects for the economy had Ford delay its offering last month.

The Wall Street Journal