Swiss banking giant UBS has completed the sale of $15 billion (€9.6 billion) of assets backed by risky mortgages to a fund managed by BlackRock.
Chief executive Marcel Rohner said the sale was a big step towards further reducing the bank's exposure to these type of assets.
The investment positions had a nominal value of about $22 billion but were sold at a discount to the newly created distressed asset fund.
UBS said that most of the positions were linked to sub-prime and Alt-A - which is in between prime and sub-prime - mortgages.
UBS, which has been forced to take massive writedowns due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis, reported net loss for the first three months of the year of 11.54 billion Swiss francs. It has written down over $37 billion since the sub-prime crisis started.
