The company, which has suffered from mounting credit losses as the economy has deteriorated, took a goodwill impairment charge of $965 million due to its declining stock price.

"Loss experience overall continues to be primarily associated with commercial residential builder and developer loans and consumer residential real estate loans, and to be disproportionately concentrated in Michigan and Florida," the bank said.

The Cincinnati-based company, which acquired First Charter Corp last year, among other acquisitions, said the net loss amounted to $3.82 per share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $16 million, or 3 cents a share.

The bank took a pre-tax charge of $800 million for loans sold or transferred to a held-for-sale portfolio. It nearly tripled its reserve for loan and lease losses, to $2.8 billion.

Net interest, or lending, income rose 14 percent to $897 million.

Noninterest income was up 26 percent to $642 million, while noninterest expense, such as salaries and equipment, more than doubled to $2.02 billion.

Net charge-offs, or loans the bank does not expect to be repaid, totaled $1.6 billion. Nonperforming loans and leases more than doubled to $2.27 billion.

Last year, Fifth Third obtained $3.45 billion from the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program. It also eliminated most of its dividend after losses rose from its exposure in the Midwest, hard hit by the auto industry's troubles, and Florida, a center of the real estate downturn.

Shares of Fifth Third were little changed in premarket trade. Through Wednesday, the shares had fallen 83 percent in the last year, compared with a 64 percent decline in the KBW Bank Index <.BKX>.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and John Wallace)