Argentina sold 100-year bonds barely a year after settling aprotracted legal dispute tied to a $95 billion default.

With the $2.75 billion sale, the government of South America'ssecond-largest economy joins Mexico, Ireland and the U.K. inissuing debt that matures over a century, which is oftenparticularly attractive to insurers and pension funds seeking tolock in long-term returns. Argentina, for its part, is takingadvantage of historically low borrowing costs to finance the budgetand pay off debt that's maturing in the next few years.

Argentina has staged a spectacular turnaround in the capitalmarkets just a year after ending its long-running dispute withcreditors over its 2001 default, issuing a then-record amount ofdebt for an emerging-market country and posting better-than-averagegains over the past 12 months. Its debt now yields an average ofabout 4 percentage points more than similar-maturity U.S.Treasuries, less than one-third the level of just four yearsago.