Germany

Deutsche Bank has received a cautious vote of creditor confidence. The German lender is issuing expensive debt, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. That shows it can get access to markets, despite a feared $14 billion American regulatory fine. It is less powerful a signal than buying debt back, as Deutsche Bank did in February — but at least it shows that investors do not fear losses that could eat into senior debt. The German bank is issuing like gangbusters.

Deutsche Bank was given special treatment in the summer stress tests that promised to restore faith in Europe’s banks by assessing all of their finances in the same way, the Irish Times reported. Germany’s biggest lender, whose share price fell as much as 22 per cent in recent weeks on fears of a $14 billion US fine, has been using the results of the July stress tests as evidence of its healthy finances. But the Financial Times has learnt that Deutsche’s result was boosted by a special concession agreed by its supervisor the European Central Bank (ECB).

Deutsche Bank said on Thursday that it would eliminate 1,000 full-time positions in Germany as part of job cuts the embattled lender first announced last year, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The announcement comes with Deutsche Bank facing a series of challenges. Its shares have plunged more than 50 percent in the past year over concerns about the pace of attempts to turn business around after a run of poor financial results and a failing grade in a banking stress test in June.

The International Monetary Fund did not bring up Deutsche Bank’s name when it warned in its financial stability report that cash-poor banks in Europe with outdated business models posed a threat to the financial system, the International New York Times reported. But at a news conference on Wednesday to discuss the study’s findings, fund officials charged with gauging financial stability risks worldwide showed no such reluctance.

Germany’s largest bank appears in danger, sending stock markets worldwide on a wild ride. Yet the biggest source of worry is less about its finances than a vast tangle of unknowns — not least, whether Europe can muster the will to mount a rescue in the event of an emergency, the International New York Times reported. In short, fears that Europe lacks the cohesion to avoid a financial crisis may be enhancing the threat of one.

Germany will not help ailing lenders such as Deutsche Bank, senior lawmakers in Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc said today, as resistance grew to any possibility of staging a rescue, Reuters reported. Concerns over the stability of Germany's largest bank pushed its U.S-listed shares down by more than 8 percent in New York on Thursday after they touched a record low in Europe this week. Seeking to reassure investors, Deutsche said that its trading clients remained largely supportive. The immediate cause of Deutsche's crisis is a fine of up to $14 billion from the U.S.

The cost of insuring Deutsche Bank AG’s subordinated debt rose to a record amid growing concerns about the lender’s financial health, Bloomberg News reported today. Credit-default swaps on the German lender’s junior bonds jumped as much as 37 basis points to 536 basis points, the highest level in CMA prices going back to 2007. The lender’s 1.75 billion euros ($2 billion) of 6 percent additional Tier 1 bonds, the first to take losses in a crisis, fell about 2 cents on the euro to a more than seven-month low of 71 cents, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Allianz is in talks with interested parties about the partial or total sale of regional private bank Oldenburgische Landesbank AG (OLB), which is 90 percent owned by the German insurer, Reuters reported today. U.S. private equity group Apollo and Germany's Commerzbank had submitted non-binding offers for the bank, which has assets of 13 billion euros ($14.6 billion), according to the report.

The number of German companies filing for insolvency fell further in the first half of the year after reaching a record low in 2015, as Europe's biggest economy enjoys a prolonged upswing, data showed on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The number of companies registering as insolvent fell by 5 percent to some 11,000 compared to the first six months in the previous year, the Federal Statistics Office said.

German oilseed crushing mill Naturoel Anklam has filed for insolvency at a local court, said its parent, German farm company KTG Agrar which is itself insolvent, Reuters reported. Naturoel Anklam, based in Anklam in east Germany, processes about 100,000 tonnes of oilseeds annually, especially rapeseed. The reason for the mill's insolvency application is a disputed tax payment demand, KTG Agrar said in a statement late on Wednesday. KTG Agrar itself filed for insolvency proceedings in July and is undergoing restructuring.