Colombia buys back $600 mln debt, disappoints mkt

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia buys back $600 mln debt, disappoints mkt
Tue Mar 7, 2006am ET

By Javier Mozzo Pena

BOGOTA, Colombia, March 6 (Reuters) - Colombia on Monday bought back about $600 million in foreign bonds denominated in dollars and euros, disappointing Wall Street analysts who had expected a repurchase of around $1 billion in debt.

With the deal, Colombia retired $105 million worth of bonds maturing in 2006, $107 million in 2007 bonds, $235 million in 2008-dated paper and 128 million euros ($154 million) in euro-denominated notes.

"The amount accepted was lower than expected," Goldman Sachs' analyst Alberto Ramos wrote in a research note, noting that Colombia initially said it could repurchase up to $4.3 billion in debt.

The Colombian government announced in a statement that about $365 million of the funds used in the buyback will come from the country's own reserves
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http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=newIssuesNews&storyid=2006-03-07T012746Z_01_N06490954_RTRIDST_0_ECONOMY-COLOMBIA-DEBT-UPDATE-1.XML