bne - Slovenia issued $3.5bn worth of dollar-denominated bonds on May 2, with the government pushing through the sale despite having scrapped it two days earlier in the wake of a Moody's downgrade of the sovereign to "junk". Slovenia issued a 5-year bond at a yield of 4.95% and 10-year bond at 6%. Initial pricing on the five- and ten-year papers was around 5% and 6.12%, Bloomberg reported. BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan were the joint lead managers for the issue. One of the bankers working on the deal told the FT : "Not only has the market shrugged off the Moody's downgrade, but investors are clearly taking the opposite view." Ljubljana had postponed the deal during the bookbuilding process on April 30, just an hour before Moody's announced a two-notch downgrade of Slovenia's credit rating from Baa2 to Ba1. Investors reportedly placed orders for a total of $16bn on May 2, well up on the $12.5bn that was on the order book when it was closed two days earlier.