EFSF Denies Report It Spent 100 Million Euros to Buy Own Bonds

(For more on the euro region’s debt crisis, see EXT4.)

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The European Financial Stability Facility denied a Sunday Telegraph report that it spent more than 100 million euros ($135 million) buying its own bonds after failing to achieve its funding target at a sale last week.

The London-based newspaper said in a report today, citing unidentified people, that banks managing the sale were able to find demand for about 2.7 billion euros of the 3 billion-euro sale of 10-year bonds, the proceeds of which will be used to help finance the rescue of Ireland.

The “EFSF did not buy its own bonds,” Christof Roche, a spokesman for the Luxembourg-based fund, said in an e-mail today. The “book exceeded the 3 billion euros Ireland had requested.”

--Editors: Raj Rajendran, Amanda Jordan.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eddie Buckle in London at ebuckle@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net