subordinate debt rated just above junk BBB+, page-9

I know what it's saying david but the context is the action for which you are calling.

As I was expressing I would consider that course of action about as bad a management decision as possible at this point. Plenty of people have criticised BHP management for buying assets high, well this would be selling BHP low and I consider it far far worse a problem. They have other options that preserve shareholder equity before they need capital.

Unfortunately what's happening here is that the big funds know that because it's fallen so far BHP will outperform in a reasonable time frame as it turns around. They want that action but they can't get as much pie as they'd like on market without driving the price up. So the solution is to somehow force the company into making a huge slab of new shares available and who cares about the effect on the other shareholders.

The technique is simple. Jawbone jawbone jawbone. Get enough people beating your drum about financial stress that it shifts fools at the ratings agencies into doing just what they've done this week. It's just a duplication of what happened with the banks who were pushed into issuing large amounts of capital at low points during the GFC. Rinse and repeat.