Germany

German steelmaker Thyssenkrupp AG’s most opaque division has gone from hero to zero in the space of four short years, a Bloomberg View reported. The not-very-sexily-named “Industrial Solutions” unit builds plants for cement, chemical and mining customers. Until last month, it also included its ship-making and submarines business. When sales boom, industrial contractors like this generate cash thanks to the advance payments they get from customers for long-term projects. But if orders evaporate or the contractor misjudges the cost of finishing complex tasks, they bleed cash instead.

The chief executive of Germany’s Lufthansa said he expects the company to take part in more consolidation in the industry that will eventually leave three global carriers in Europe, Reuters reported. “There are way too many players in Europe,” Carsten Spohr told a meeting of the Centre for Aviation in Berlin on Tuesday, noting that six airlines had gone bankrupt in the last few months. “It is obvious that consolidation will act further and we as Lufthansa want to be part of that,” he said.

In a car park near Berlin’s unfinished Brandenburg airport, 10,000 unsold Volkswagens are testament to the woes of the eurozone’s largest economy — and to a conundrum for Mario Draghi and the European Central Bank, the Financial Times reported. The German economy contracted 0.2 per cent in the three months to September, the first time it has gone into reverse in three years, after its car industry — normally such a smooth engine of growth — sputtered badly.

The German financial sector is ill prepared to weather a recession, as the long era of economic growth may have inflated asset prices and lured lenders into underestimating future credit risks, Bundesbank has warned in its Financial Stability Review, the Financial Times reported. Germany’s central bank said on Wednesday it was particularly concerned that a surprise recession and a collapse in asset prices could kick off a downward spiral.

Five top German government advisers have warned that the country’s economic growth is set to slow dramatically this year, in what would be a sharp downturn in the fortunes of the eurozone’s economic powerhouse, the Financial Times reported. The annual report by Germany’s Council of Economic Experts, an independent group set up to monitor the economy and advise the government, forecast growth of 1.6 per cent this year and 1.5 per cent in 2019 — markedly worse than 2017’s six-year high of 2.2 per cent.

Deutsche Post DHL Group expects a restructuring at its troubled post and parcel division to start bearing fruit next year, as it reported a smaller-than-expected decline in third-quarter operating profit, Reuters reported. The rapid growth in parcel shipments thanks to the popularity of online retailers such as Amazon and Zalando has been both a boon and a burden for Deutsche Post as price increases have not kept pace with rising transport costs.

German business confidence fell in October according to a closely-watched gauge of sentiment, as growing geopolitical tensions drove cross-sector pessimism about the year ahead, the Financial Times reported. Manufacturing businesses in particular were “markedly” less optimistic about the future. Their assessment of the current business climate fell to its lowest level since March 2017, and they reported incoming orders had extended their decline.

Manufacturers from the eurozone’s two largest economies painted a gloomy picture of the outlook for the sector on Wednesday, with closely-watched indicators sinking to more than two-year lows in both countries. In Germany, the decline in sentiment extended to the services sector, dragging the composite output purchasing managers’ index to a 41-month low of 52.7. The fall in the gauge was far sharper than analysts polled by Reuters had expected: a drop of just 0.2 points to 54.8 had been anticipated.

After multiple turnaround plans and promises to restore growth, Deutsche Bank AG investors are no longer buying the talk, Bloomberg News reported. The German lender -- already the worst-performing major bank stock in Europe this year -- closed at a record low on Wednesday after Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing conceded that cuts to the investment bank are having a deeper impact than expected. The continued bleeding, despite a decade-long bull market, is fueling speculation the bank may need to be merged before the next crisis hits.

Increasing competitive pressures inside and outside Europe could lead to additional airline restructurings and bankruptcies, the German government said in a response to a parliamentary query that was published on Thursday by the Handelsblatt newspaper. The government did not comment on whether it would offer other airlines help such as the 150 million euro bridging credit it provided to Air Berlin, Germany's second largest airline, when it ran into trouble last year, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.