Germany

Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s supervisory board backed a 9 billion-euro ($10 billion) bailout by the German government, paving the way for the airline to receive the lifeline should investors approve it, Bloomberg News reported. With cash reserves dwindling, the board voted in favor of the plan and called an extraordinary shareholder meeting for June 25.

Italy’s 10-year bond yield fell to a seven-week low on Tuesday as risk assets rallied and comments from a European Central Bank official boosted hopes of further stimulus soon, Reuters reported. Italian borrowing costs have fallen for seven straight days, pushed down after a Franco-German proposal a week ago for a 500- billion-euro recovery fund that would offer grants to those European Union regions hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic.

In mid-March, the world as Deutsche Lufthansa AG had known it for close to seven decades unraveled in the space of a week, Bloomberg News reported. Italy’s government put the entire country into quarantine on March 9 as deaths from the coronavirus began spiraling out of control. Two days later, the U.S. announced sweeping travel restrictions from 26 European countries, cutting off the lucrative trans-Atlantic artery. Then on March 17, the German government issued an unprecedented global travel warning.

Lufthansa will receive a bailout worth 9 billion euros, or $9.8 billion, to help the airline survive an “existential emergency” caused by the pandemic and a virtual shutdown of passenger air traffic, the German government said Monday, the International New York Times reported. The agreement, reached after several weeks of negotiations, will give the government part ownership of the airline for the first time since it was privatized in 1997. Berlin will take a 20 percent stake and two seats on Lufthansa’s 20-person supervisory board.

Airline Lufthansa said on Thursday it is in advanced talks with the German government’s economic stabilisation fund over a rescue deal worth up to 9 billion euros ($9.9 billion), including the state taking a 20% stake in the company, Reuters reported. Lufthansa said in a statement that the deal would involve the government taking two seats on its supervisory board, but it would only exercise its voting rights as a whole in exceptional cases such as protection against a takeover.

Thyssenkrupp AG is considering the sale of units that make steel and submarines as the conglomerate fights for survival in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The company said on Monday it will explore “consolidation options” for the two businesses in the latest plank in management’s strategy to downsize the firm and concentrate on higher-margin business areas after years of struggles. “We have taken some difficult decisions that were long overdue,” Chief Executive Officer Martina Merz said in a statement.

Thyssenkrupp AG warned losses could surge in the third quarter due to the coronavirus crisis, further eating into cash from a multibillion-euro elevator sale that was meant to fund a turnaround, Bloomberg News reported. The engineering conglomerate said it could lose 1 billion euros ($1.08 billion) this quarter after its net after-tax loss widened about 40% to 1.31 billion euros in the six months through March. That helped push net debt to 7.55 billion euros, a figure likely to rise as the pandemic hurts the global economy.

Deutsche Bank AG is offering a subordinated bond to boost its capital ratio as the bank girds itself for the deepest recession in almost a century.

Germany is working on a “concrete model” to aid Lufthansa, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said on Sunday, amid a political row over whether the state should take a strategic shareholding and play an active role in the stricken airline, Reuters reported. Altmaier’s comments followed calls by the Social Democratic Party, junior partners in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition, to tie aid for Lufthansa to protecting jobs, cutting the dividend and giving the government a say on strategy. “For me it’s important that we don’t exert any influence on business decisions.

German minerals firm K+S is preparing a potential application for state aid as the company grapples with a high debt load and the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, people close to the matter said, Reuters reported. The potash and salt company has no liquidity issues but wants to secure several hundreds of millions of euros in state-backed loans should financing via the capital markets remain difficult in the wake of the pandemic, the people said. No final decision on whether the company will actually apply for a bailout has been taken, one of the people added. K+S declined to comment.