As per media reports, 7 banks are financing BHP Billiton's bid for rival Rio Tinto with a loan of up to USD 70 billion rather than 5 banks as per earlier reports. The report cited a banking source as saying that "We have already raised it. The deal is done.”

The financing is being led by coordinator Goldman Sachs and mandated lead arrangers include Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, HSBC, Santander and UBS. It is not clear whether these banks will hold the loan on their balance sheets over the year end due to banks' increasing capital constraints and risk aversion in a volatile environment.

The deal is likely to be the European syndicated loan market's largest ever loan to date, which was previously held by German utility E.ON, which raised USD 63.51 billion earlier this year to finance its bid for Spanish utility Endesa, which was thwarted by Italy's Enel.