WASHINGTON, Oct 5: The IMF was temporarily rebranded on Tuesday when three letters came off its shiny new Washington headquarters, identifying the venerable development lender as the INTERN TIONA MONETARY FUN.

The International Monetary Fund said the metallic characters were removed because of maintenance, not vandalism.

“The letter ‘L’ fell off. When they noticed it was down, they checked all the letters and found the ‘A’ and ‘D’ were also loose,” spokeswoman Frances Hardin said.

The missing ‘L’ was found around the corner from the ultra-modern building’s Pennsylvania Avenue entrance. “They’re not quite sure how it got over there,” Ms Hardin said, adding all the letters have since been cleaned and reaffixed.

—Reuters