Pilkington, the UK building materials group, defied the rocky corporate bond market environment to complete a €350m ($322m) sale, but had to scale back the size of the bond to avoid paying too high a yield.

The company's management pressed ahead with the deal, originally due to price on September 11, despite the fact that corporate borrowing costs have risen sharply in the three weeks since the terrorist attacks on the US. Spreads over government bonds have widened roughly 50 basis points (bps).