Germany

Germany's Kettler, known for its Kettcar carts for kids, has filed for insolvency, the sporting goods and bicycle maker said. Privately held Kettler said on Wednesday the move had become necessary "to avoid a hostile takeover and realign the company". Christoph Schulte-Kaubruegger of law firm White & Case has been named provisional trustee for Kettler, a court filing dated Tuesday showed. The company, based in the western German town of Ense-Parsit, was founded by Heinz Kettler in 1949 and is now run by his daughter Karin Kettler.

If all goes according to plan, early next year Commerzbank will pay a dividend for the first time since the bank was engulfed by the crisis, the Irish Times reported on a Financial Times story. That would be a symbolic moment in the rehabilitation of the bank in which the German government was forced to invest €18.2 billion during the turmoil after the Lehman Brothers collapse. It would also be a welcome change of fortune for Commerzbank’s shareholders, who have seen their holdings diluted by capital raisings.

The upheaval is deepening around the German maker of a controversial new smart gun, The Washington Post reported. Armatix, based near Munich, is undergoing a “corporate restructuring,” according to a statement Thursday from a company spokesman. Details were not immediately available from German courts, but the spokesman said the move was “not an insolvency proceeding.” Financial records reported to German authorities show Armatix has recorded more than 14 million euros in losses since 2011.

Germany’s finance minister said he couldn’t rule out a Greek default, a stance that will add pressure on Athens as negotiations over much-needed financing enter their final stretch. Asked whether he would repeat an assurance he gave in late 2012 that Greece wouldn’t default, Wolfgang Schäuble told The Wall Street Journal and French daily Les Echos that “I would have to think very hard before repeating this in the current situation.

German politicians kept up the pressure on Greece over the weekend to implement reforms, with Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel warning Athens in an interview that a third aid package would not be on the cards unless the Greeks made some changes. Greece is fast running out of cash and talks with its lenders have been deadlocked over their demands for Greece to implement reforms, including pension cuts and labor market liberalization.

EnBW has been named preferred bidder for insolvent wind farm operator Prokon, Germany's third-biggest power utility said on Tuesday. EnBW has made a binding offer to acquire all assets of Prokon for a "mid-level three-digit million-euro" amount, the company said. The all-cash offer would value Prokon, which filed for insolvency in January last year, at more than 500 million euros ($561.6 million), one person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday. A creditor panel at Prokon will probably take a final decision on EnBW's bid in early July, the utility said.

A referendum on its international bailout program may be a good idea for Greece, Germany’s finance minister said Monday, underlining doubts among Greece’s creditors about the government’s ability to agree on divisive overhauls without endorsement by voters, The Wall Street Journal reported. Calling a referendum on the bailout—something that eurozone politicians have until now been loath to discuss—would be a risky move for both the government in Athens and the rest of the eurozone, adding further unpredictability to a tense situation.

Anbang Insurance Group of China is in talks to buy the large real-estate arm of the failed German lender Hypo Real Estate AG, in a potential billion-euro deal that would expand a global shopping spree by the Beijing-based firm, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. State-owned bank Hypo Real Estate, based in Munich, has said it is working to sell its real-estate lending division, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG, known as PBB, through either an initial public offering or an outright sale.

Anbang Insurance Group of China is in talks to buy the large real-estate arm of the failed German lender Hypo Real Estate AG, in a potential billion-euro deal that would expand a global shopping spree by the Beijing-based firm, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. State-owned bank Hypo Real Estate, based in Munich, has said it is working to sell its real-estate lending division, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG, known as PBB, through either an initial public offering or an outright sale.

The local court in Freiburg (Germany) on May 4th, 2015 communicated that it decided on May 1st, 2015, to open the insolvency proceedings regarding the assets of Solar-Fabrik AG (Freiburg), the PV company announced in an Ad hoc-News. The court ordered Dr. Thomas Kaiser of the law firm Kaiser & Sozien (Freiburg) as the insolvency administrator of the assets of Solar-Fabrik AG.