The availability of asset swaps and shares to borrow fuel investor interest and allow the deal to be upsized  by 20% to $180 million.

Asia Cement has become the first Asian company to complete an overnight deal of size in two weeks, showing that the volatile market doesn’t rule out raising fresh cash even on an opportunistic basis as long as the  offering is reasonably priced.

The Taiwan China-listed producer of cement and other building materials sold $180 million worth of bonds exchangeable into Far Eastern Textile. The deal was open for less than two hours but attracted close to $1.75 billion of  demand and more than 100 investors, which allowed it to  be upsized from $150 million. There is also a $30 million greenshoe that hasn’t yet been exercised.

The fact that the issuer didn’t reveal any more specific use for the proceeds than to say that they would go towards making further investments into group companies had seemingly no impact on the demand as this was the second largest order book for an Asian equity-linked deal so far this year. Before the equity markets took a turn for the worse in mid-January, investors submitted about $3 billion worth of orders for a $600 million exchangeable into Malaysian palm oil plantation company IOI Corporation.

Sources say about 65% to 70% of the accounts that came into the deal last night were Asia-based, while the rest were European.