Prudential plc is an international financial services group with significant operations in Asia, the in US (Jackson National Life) and the UK (M&G Investments). They serve around 25 million insurance customers and have £505 billion of assets under management.

http://www.prudential.co.uk/

To fund its operations it has a bond issuance programme

http://www.prudential.co.uk/investors/credit-investors

Interesting to see the levels of debt that The Pru carries:-

EUR 20m
GBP 3585m
US$ 2800m

That is in UK£

£14.8m + £3,585m + £1,917m = £5,517 Million

So £5.5 billion of Debt.

Now with £505 Billion under investment management, if that was invested in say some investment product that was yielding 2% for example, that would give a return of £10.1 Billion.

So just the investment return is more than TWICE the debt that Prudential is carrying, which is why the credit ratings of Prudential are so high.