Geneva: UBS AG, Europe’s largest bank by assets, had a record loss after raising fourth-quarter writedowns on assets infected by US subprime mortgages to $14 billion.

The fourth-quarter net loss of 12.5 billion Swiss francs ($11.4 billion) was almost double what analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were estimating, and brings the total decline for the year to about 4.4 billion francs, the bank said on Wednesday in a statement. UBS publishes detailed results on February 14.

UBS posted its first annual loss since the company was created through a merger a decade ago, with the fourth-quarter drop exceeding the records reported earlier this month by Citigroup and Merrill Lynch.

The collapse of the US subprime mortgage market has led to more than $130 billion of losses and markdowns at securities firms and banks since June.

“The damage is enormous,” said Dominique Biedermann, director of Ethos Foundation in Geneva that holds UBS shares worth about 80 million francs and has called for an independent audit of the bank’s controls. “It wipes out profit and shows that an inquiry is needed to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and eventually whose responsibility this is.”

Source : Dna