http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ae9fpMDpfR4c&refer=home UBS AG LOSES 14 BILLION Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG, Europe's largest bank by assets, reported a record loss after about $14 billion of writedowns on assets infected by subprime mortgages in the U.S. 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 Zurich-based bank said today in a statement. UBS publishes its official results on Feb. 14. ``The damage is enormous,'' said Dominique Biedermann, director of Ethos Foundation in Geneva that holds UBS shares worth about 80 million francs. ``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.'' Biedermann has called for an independent audit of the bank's controls. 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 Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. The collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market has led to more than $130 billion of losses and markdowns at securities firms and banks since June. UBS reported about $12 billion of losses directly linked to the subprime market and an additional $2 billion for positions related to the U.S. residential market. The company said its so- called Tier 1 capital ratio, a measure of financial strength, was 8.8 percent as of Dec. 31.