(MILAN) - Italy's leading bank UniCredit, battered this week on the stock market amid fears over its liquidity, on Thursday launched a 2.3-billion-euro (3.2-billion-dollar) bond issue.

The bank is offering 1.5 billion euros' worth of fixed-rate bonds and 800 million euros of floating rate bonds until October 29, the prospectus states.

A UniCredit official told AFP the bond issue "was part of the bank's normal distribution activity, and it has been planned for weeks."

Also Thursday, the Fitch international ratings agency confirmed UniCredit's A+ long-term debt rating but changed its outlook from positive to negative, citing "dreary macroeconomic outlooks in Italy and Germany and less robust outlooks in some central and eastern European markets."

UniCredit has a large presence in Germany after its merger with HypoVereinsbank (HVB), as well as in central and eastern Europe.

The announcement had little effect on UniCredit's share value on the Milan stock exchange.

After suffering deep drops early in the week on concerns over its core capital ratios, UniCredit shares were down 2.46 percent at 2,815 euros at the close of trade on Thursday.

The Italian government helped the recovery with assurances that the country's banks had adequate liquidity and by promising unspecified steps to guarantee the stability of the banking system.

On Monday and Tuesday shares in UniCredit plunged 10.3 percent and 12.69 percent over questions about the group's financial solidity, as Europe felt the shockwaves from the world financial crisis.

UniCredit managing director Alessandro Profumo insisted Tuesday that the bank had no liquidity problem.

On Wednesday evening he personally denied rumours that he planned to step down after a spokesman did so earlier in the day.

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