Thyssenkrupp shares fell to a three-year low on Tuesday after the company warned that economic and political uncertainties were growing as it unveiled disappointing results, the Financial Times reported. The German industrial group, which produces a range of products from steel to elevators, reported a sharp 37 per cent drop in operating earnings in the last three months of 2018 — the first quarter of the company’s financial year.

Deutsche Bank AG is paying some of the highest rates among large banks to raise debt this year, highlighting a key obstacle in the lender’s turnaround effort, Bloomberg News reported. Germany’s biggest bank this week sold $1.25 billion of three-year dollar bonds that pay 255 basis points over benchmark interest rates, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named. That’s almost twice what other European lenders have paid in recent months.

Despite recent claims that it had filled a €15 million liquidity gap, the privately-owned German airline was forced to file for insolvency late on Monday and stopped flights early yesterday. The move leaves some 1,700 employees, who reportedly have not been paid for January, facing the loss of their jobs. Germania, with a fleet of 37 planes, flew more than four million passengers a year from regional German airports to 60 destinations in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

A week after Christian Sewing took charge at Deutsche Bank AG in April, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s newly appointed finance minister, Olaf Scholz, buttonholed the chief executive officer of Germany’s largest lender at an event in Berlin. The 15-minute exchange -- between canapes and ceremonial speeches in a Prussian palace at the German banking association’s annual reception -- marked the start of a rapprochement between Merkel’s government and the embattled financial giant, Bloomberg News reported.

German airline Germania said on Tuesday it had filed for insolvency and would terminate flight operations immediately, citing rising fuel prices and a stronger dollar, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. There were also delays integrating aircraft into the fleet and a high number of "maintenance events", the company said in a statement. CEO Karsten Balke said it was unable to cover a short-term liquidity need. The company advised customers to contact holiday operators to be rebooked.

Business confidence among Germany’s exporters has taken a dive in the past year as any “ray of hope” even a month ago in the carmaking industry has been dashed, figures from an influential research house showed. Export expectations in manufacturing fell to 5.9 points in January, from 19.9 a year ago, the Financial Times reported. The index has more than halved in the past two months, the Ifo Institute’s survey revealed on Monday. In November expectations were at 12.2. “The new year is marked by worries among German manufacturers,” said the report.

German airlines group Lufthansa has held talks to take a majority stake in ailing Italian carrier Alitalia and would be interested in a full takeover in the long run, Lufthansa board member Harry Hohmeister said on Monday, Reuters reported. Alitalia, which was put under special administration in 2017, would remain operationally independent within the Lufthansa group, with its own brand, he said. Lufthansa has been a key player in hectic M&A activity in the industry, snapping up Brussels Airlines and parts of insolvent Air Berlin in 2017 to expand in the budget market.

Europe’s retail crisis deepened as companies in the U.K. and Germany are set to cut thousands of jobs as online shopping accelerates the erosion of sales from traditional bricks-and-mortar stores, Bloomberg News reported. Tesco, the biggest U.K. grocer, will eliminate about 15,000 positions and close meat, fish and delicatessen counters, the Mail on Sunday reported, citing unidentified industry sources.

Germany’s powerhouse manufacturing sector slipped into contraction in January, an early indicator showed, underscoring the extent of the slowdown in the eurozone’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. The IHS Markit manufacturing purchasing managers' index dropped to 49.9 in January from 51.8 in December, marking its lowest level in more than four years. The gauge fell below the threshold of 50 that separates expansion from contraction and fell far short of a score of 51.3 expected by economists in a Reuters poll.

Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways on Wednesday said it has begun legal proceedings in London, disputing a claim by the administrators of Air Berlin for damages of up to 2 billion euros ($2.26 billion), Reuters reported. State-owned Etihad filed its case in the High Court in London on Wednesday, a company spokesman told Reuters, and believes that the case initiated in December by the German airline in Berlin should be determined by the English court. The insolvency administrator’s lawsuit said that Etihad had not complied with its financial obligations to Air Berlin.