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.

A German state bad bank has accelerated the wind-up of Dublin-based lender Depfa Bank, after buying back €5.6 billion of its bonds from the market so far this year, the Irish Times reported. The move by bad bank FMS Wertmanagement to mop up Depfa Bank’s liabilities in the market comes as it also shrinks the lender’s assets at pace. A spokesman for FMS-WM in Munich said the wind-down is currently being carried out “faster than planned”. However, he declined to say when the bank would ultimately be wound down.

The administrator of insolvent German online travel group Unister has hired Macquarie to find a buyer for the company operating popular sites such as flight booking platform fluege.de and package travel site ab-in-den-urlaub.de. "We see enormous demand from investors for the Unister group or parts of it," Lucas Floether told Reuters on Tuesday. Groups such as broadcaster ProSieben and private equity firm EQT have shown interest in Unister in two earlier sale attempts, the most recent of which collapsed in spring 2015 over valuation issues.

The biggest bank in Europe’s most robust economy may seem an unlikely victim of Brexit. Yet in the fortnight after Britons voted to quit the European Union Deutsche Bank’s share price tumbled by 27%—putting Germany’s biggest lender in the unexalted company of British and Italian banks, The Economist reported. On July 7th it slid to €11.36 ($12.58), a record low. The price has since clambered back towards €13. But Deutsche still trades at only a quarter of the supposed net value of its assets—far behind its peers.

When it comes to bond yields in Europe, it seems there is no such thing as too low. Germany on Wednesday became the first country in the eurozone to sell 10-year debt with a negative yield at an auction, effectively ensuring that investors lose money over the life of the bond, the International New York Times reported. It is the latest twist in the upside-down world of bonds, in which global investors are increasingly willing to pay governments for the privilege of holding their debt.

German industrial output plunged unexpectedly in May, posting its steepest monthly drop since August 2014. The latest data suggests Europe’s largest economy lost steam in the second quarter after its surprisingly strong start to the year. The weak output figures followed data on Wednesday showed that German industrial orders were flat in May, before Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, and were weaker than expected, pointing to an economic slowdown.

German banks exploited a legal loophole that allowed two parties to claim ownership of the same shares, the financial watchdog will tell lawmakers this week, in schemes that could have cost the state billions of euros in tax over many years. This double ownership allowed both parties to claim tax rebates. It has provoked public anger in Germany and is an embarrassment for the Berlin government, which has campaigned for years to root out tax evasion around the world. The loophole was closed in 2012, with the means of claiming double ownership banned.

Germany’s top court ruled Tuesday that an unlimited bond-buying program created by the European Central Bank at the height of Europe’s debt crisis complies with German law, ending a yearslong legal challenge to a program credited with easing fears of a breakup of the currency zone, The Wall Street Journal reported. The verdict is an important victory for ECB President Mario Draghi over his German critics at a time of renewed tensions between the ECB and its biggest shareholder, Germany.