Merrill Lynch and Schroder Salomon Smith Barney have sold a $2.2bn (€2.5bn) equity-linked bond for Fiat, the Italian car company, which the banks claim is the largest dollar- denominated exchangeable from a European issuer.
It is also rare for equity-linked issues to come from the automotive sector. One banker said: "There was a convertible from Daimler-Chrysler, but the Fiat issue is the only significant one out there."
