Germany

Deutsche Bank more than doubled pre-tax profits for the second quarter, but revenues fell short of analysts’ expectations in key divisions and chief executive John Cryan admitted the bank is still not living up to its long-term potential. Germany’s biggest bank reported pre-tax profits of €822m versus €408m a year earlier and the €199m expected by analysts, the Financial Times reported. The outperformance was driven by a big fall in costs, which came in at €5.715bn, down 15 per cent year-on-year and far better than the €6.417bn analysts predicted.

Germany’s biggest banks have found an unlikely ally in their battle to shake up their sector’s chronic low profitability — the low interest rates that most eurozone banks will lament when they report second-quarter earnings over the coming days. Their long struggle to compete with the higher deposit rates and lower cost services offered by Germany’s army of public sector banks has left the country’s top five banks with low margins and a collective market share of just 30 per cent, the Financial Times reported.

Germany’s financial hub is taking an early lead in attracting banking businesses in anticipation of Britain exiting the European Union, The Wall Street Journal reported. Its main asset: stability. Banks from Japan’s Nomura Holdings Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. to the U.S.’s Citigroup Inc. are shifting some business to Frankfurt given the possibility that the U.K. will be left out of the single market once it leaves the EU. This would prevent banks in London from being able to serve customers across the Continent, known as passporting rights.

Air Berlin is in a "precarious" situation, German Economics Minister Brigitte Zypries said on Tuesday, as the loss-making airline seeks loan guarantees from regional states. Air Berlin, in which Gulf carrier Etihad Airways has an almost 30 percent stake, said last week it had asked Berlin and North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) to consider loan guarantees, Reuters reported. The German federal government said on Friday any support would be contingent on the airline showing it had a sustainable business model.

The German Economy Ministry on Monday said it would take time for the federal government and two state governments to evaluate Air Berlin's request for state loan guarantees, Reuters reported. "The process is underway. Now the formal paperwork must be submitted," spokeswoman Beate Baron told a regular government news conference. "The review will take several weeks and months.

The German government on Friday said it was evaluating Air Berlin's request for state loan guarantees with two regional governments, noting any support would be contingent upon a sustainable business model for the struggling airline, Reuters reported. The federal government stepped in a day after Air Berlin said it had made a request to the states of Berlin and North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) to consider loan guarantees. Most of loss-making Air Berlin's roughly 8,000 German staff are located in Berlin and NRW.

Ailing German airline Air Berlin said on Thursday it has asked the German states of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) and Berlin to consider possible loan guarantees amid signs of waning support from Etihad Airways, its biggest shareholder. Abu Dhabi-owned Etihad, which has thrown Air Berlin several life lines over the years, earlier on Thursday said it had pulled out of a prospective deal to combine Air Berlin's holiday flight business Niki with tour operator TUI Group's own carrier TUIfly, Reuters reported.

German shipping group Rickmers said it would file for insolvency after bondholder HSH Nordbank rejected its restructuring plan a day ahead of a last-ditch bondholders' meeting, Reuters reported. Rickmers had proposed a revamp plan under which the equity stake of owner Bertram Rickmers was to be reduced to 24.9 percent, while bondholders, HSH Nordbank and potentially another bank would hold 75.1 percent. But HSH "highly surprisingly" rejected that plan, Rickmers said in a statement on Wednesday.

A Berlin-based law professor has filed a cease-and-desist request aimed at quickly ending Germany’s involvement in bond purchases by the European Central Bank, a surprise legal move that underlines mounting German anger over the ECB’s easy-money policies, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Germany's SolarWorld, once Europe's biggest solar power equipment group, said on Wednesday it would file for insolvency, overwhelmed by Chinese rivals who had long been a thorn in the side of founder and CEO Frank Asbeck, once known as "the Sun King”, Reuters reported. SolarWorld was one of the few German solar power companies to survive a major crisis at the turn of the decade, caused by a glut in production of panels that led prices to fall and peers to collapse, including Q-Cells, Solon and Conergy.