Petron makes dollar debut with $500 million perpetual

Petron raised $500 million from the sale of a perpetual bond on Wednesday night, proving that there is plenty of liquidity at the right price. The Philippines oil refiner has not borrowed in the dollar markets before and is unrated, yet investors still placed $2.75 billion of orders for the chance to own its subordinated debt.

Part of the attraction is that Petron is 68.3%-owned by San Miguel, which is a well-known name among Asian private bank clients. It also appeared to make some concessions to investors, who have complained that recent deals were skewed too heavily toward the borrowers’ interests.

Petron is paying a coupon of...