Morningstar has suspended its rating on a fund run by H2O Asset Management because of its holdings of illiquid bonds, after a Financial Times investigation into the substantial holdings related to a controversial German financier, the Financial Times reported. The agency, whose assessments are used as a key guide for investors, suspended its bronze rating on H2O’s Allegro Fund, citing concerns over “the liquidity of certain bonds”.

A key gauge of expectations for the German economy plummeted in June, as trade fears, geopolitical tensions and Brexit all weighed on financial executives, the Financial Times reported. The Zew indicator of economic sentiment fell to minus 21.1 this month, dropping 19 points from May and well below expectations of minus 5.9 in a Reuters poll.

In the years after the financial crisis, many of the world’s biggest lenders set up vast “bad banks” to cleanse trillions of dollars in toxic assets from their balance sheets, the Financial Times reported. Until now, very few of them have needed a second bite at the cherry. However, six years after creating its first non-core unit, Deutsche Bank is repeating the trick. The Financial Times reported on Monday that Deutsche is seeking to divest a further €50bn of assets adjusted for riskiness on its balance sheet.

Since the failure of merger talks with Commerzbank, there has been speculation that Deutsche Bank would embark on a major restructuring in the hopes of restoring its fortunes. Now, details are beginning to emerge, Forbes reported. According to the Financial Times, the bank’s chief executive, Christian Sewing, plans to create a “bad bank” into which will be placed up to €50bn ($56.18bn) of poorly performing assets, mostly from the troubled U.S. investment bank.

The German government has said the country’s economy will face sustained headwinds in the coming months, as global trade tensions hit its export industries and the labour market shows signs of a slowdown, the Financial Times reported. Germany’s economy grew 0.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2019, in part because of strong consumer spending. But in a statement, the German economy ministry said the outlook for the second quarter “remains muted”.

Leisure Cargo (LC) is to enter insolvency following the loss of contracts with TUI and another carrier. A spokesperson for the GSSA confirmed to The Loadstar it had begun insolvency proceedings at a court in Dusseldorf, with White & Case appointed trustees, The Loadstar reported. Reorganisation manager Tillmann Peeters, of Falkensteg Restrukturierung, said: “We want to stabilise business operations quickly and continue as smoothly as possible.

Deutsche Bank on Monday acknowledged a lapse in its money laundering controls, underlining the bank’s continuing struggle to move beyond a series of scandals that have helped push its stock price to a record low, the International New York Times reported. An internal audit uncovered deficiencies in the way that the bank processed checks on behalf of clients, Deutsche Bank said in a statement. The audit, which examined the bank’s operations in Britain, did not find any cases of money laundering or breaches of international sanctions that occurred because of the lapses, the bank said.

Deutsche Bank AG’s credit rating was cut by Fitch Ratings, which cited the firm’s lack of progress in improving operations, Bloomberg News reported. The bank’s long-term issuer default rating was downgraded to BBB from BBB+, Fitch said in a statement on Friday. “The downgrade of Deutsche Bank reflects its continued difficulty and limited progress in improving its profitability and stabilizing its business model,” Fitch said. The bank has a total of 145.7 billion euros ($165.2 billion) of public bonds and loans outstanding, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Deutsche Bank AG fell to a fresh record low Monday amid a broad-based slump in European bank stocks, adding to pressure on Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing to come up with a more decisive solution for his ailing investment bank, Bloomberg News reported. With concerns about a widening trade war weighing on global stocks and clouding the outlook for higher interest rates, the lender fell as much as 4.7% in Frankfurt trading. That left the shares below 6 euros ($6.70) for the first time, while the cost to protect against a default in the bank’s debt jumped.

Germany’s jobless rate this month rose for the first time in more than five years in the latest sign of the struggles facing Europe’s biggest economy, the Financial Times reported. The unemployment rate climbed to 5 per cent in May from April’s 4.9 per cent — the lowest since at least 1991, according to data from the country’s central bank. It marked the first monthly increase since November 2013. The tick higher in the jobless rate came as 60,000 more people were considered unemployed in May from the previous month, the largest such increase in a decade.