The European Financial Stability Facility announced Wednesday that has appointed BNP Paribas, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank as joint lead managers for a ten year Euro benchmark bond. The said bond is rated Aa1/AA+/AAA.

This notice comes after two syndicated sovereign bond issues were conducted in Italy and Spain. In both issues, there was strong demand noted for the instruments. 

Just last week, the EFSF was sourcing bank proposals for this unscheduled bond sale. The sale would help the EFSF's target of meeting a Eur3.5 billion increase for its second quarter funding target. Overall, the bond issue is scheduled to raise Eur220 billion by the end of June to take the fullest advantage of current market conditions and continued high investor demand for debt instruments.

The EFSF funding target for 2013 continues to be unchanged at Eur58 billion. The funds raised for this quarter would be deducted from the fourth quarter target from 2012.