Bloomberg News

Spain Bank Rescue Was Bungled, Zoellick Says

By Sandrine Rastello
June 17, 2012

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said that financial-market reaction to the rescue plan for Spain’s banks shows that it was bungled.

The announcement of a 100 billion-euro bailout for Spain failed to stop a rise in Spain’s borrowing costs to a euro-era record last week.

With some $125 billion deployed, “to have that being a negative story is amazing,” Zoellick told a panel discussion in the Mexican resort of Los Cabos today. “It’s because the execution was extremely poor.”

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde told the same panel that Spain needs to do more work on formulating its request for aid.

“There’s clearly work in the making that need to be done,” for instance in terms of giving exact numbers, Lagarde said. The IMF will monitor the package, being “honest and candid” she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sandrine Rastello in Washington at srastello@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net

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