New York  - Merrill Lynch reported its fifth straight quarter of losses Thursday as it registered a 5.2-billion-dollar loss for the third quarter of 2008.

Merrill Lynch, which is facing a takeover by the Bank of America, attributed its losses to continued writedowns on bad loans.

The losses reported Thursday compare with third-quarter 2007 losses of 2.2 billion dollars.

Altogether, the bank has suffered losses of 25 billion dollars during the ongoing financial crisis, making it one of the biggest victims worldwide.

"We continue to reduce exposures and deleverage the balance sheet prior to the closing of the Bank of America deal," said John A Thain, chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch.

"As the landscape for financial services firms continues to change and our transition teams make good progress, we believe even more that the transaction will create an unparalleled global company with pre-eminent scale, earnings power and breadth."

In September, Merrill Lynch organized its sale to Bank of America with a stocks swap valued at 50 billion dollars.

Shortly before that deal was struck, Bank of America had been in negotiations to buy Lehman Brothers.

When those talks collapsed, Lehman Brothers had to claim bankruptcy, starting the latest chapter in the financial crisis. (dpa)