Fitch: WaMu unaffected

Fitch Ratings said Washington Mutual, Inc. announced a series of capital measures that is unlikely to affect its BBB long-term and F2 short-term issuer default and ratings. Measures include a $7 billion sale in tier 1 capital to institutional investors and reduction in the quarterly common dividend to $0.01 per share.

The outlook is negative.

Preliminary results for the first quarter 2008 include a net loss of $1.1 billion, due to a sharp rise in the provision for credit losses to $3.5 billion, more than half of which will go toward building the reserve.

Fitch said it views the capital measures as critical to the bank's flexibility to manage through the continued and increasingly severe deterioration in consumer loan credit quality.

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