A new vehicle linked to Lars Windhorst has raised a €500m bond intended to help the flamboyant German financier settle outstanding lawsuits and repay existing debts, as he tries to keep his heavily indebted business empire afloat, the Financial Times reported. Over the past 18 months Mr Windhorst has been engaged in legal battles involving at least €220m with several investors — including Ukrainian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik — over amounts owed under financing agreements in his complex web of funding vehicles.

Former motor racing driver Niki Lauda will table an offer for parts of insolvent airline Air Berlin together with Thomas Cook’s German carrier Condor, Lauda told Austrian newspaper Kurier on Wednesday. Lauda holds 51 percent of the consortium which will bid for 21 Airbus A320 and A321 planes of Air Berlin’s subsidiary Niki - formerly owned by Lauda - as well as 17 additional aircraft flying under the Air Berlin banner, according to Kurier’s online edition.

German Labour Minister Andrea Nahles said on Wednesday it is “completely unacceptable” for pilots at Air Berlin to put the airline’s fate at risk by calling in sick in unusually high numbers, Reuters reported. Air Berlin, Germany’s second-biggest airline, is set to be carved up, most likely among several buyers, with binding offers due this Friday. “I think Air Berlin is in a decidedly difficult situation at the moment and the pilots, with their behavior, are putting at risk a reasonable handover or sale. That is unacceptable,” Nahles told Reuters in a television interview.

Insolvent German airline Air Berlin has attracted buyer interest from China’s LinkGlobal Logistics, which is likely to join a growing list of suitors, German newspaper Bild said on Wednesday. The paper said LinkGlobal, which operates German regional airport Parchim, expressed its intention of making a bid to the airline’s administrator in a letter dated Aug. 31 from LinkGlobal’s managing director Jonathan Pang, Reuters reported. LinkGlobal pledged to hand in a bid by the Sept. 15 deadline, according to the letter, a copy of which Bild said it had obtained.

A sick-out by Air Berlin Plc pilots is threatening an immediate grounding of the insolvent airline, Bloomberg News reported. “What happened today massively jeopardizes the entire insolvency proceedings,” Frank Kebekus, the airline’s general representative appointed by a court, said in a statement Tuesday. “Unless the situation changes in the short term, we will have to end operations and all efforts to reorganize.” Air Berlin canceled some 100 flights after about 200 of its 1,500 pilots said they were unfit to fly, with many notifying their employer just before their scheduled departures.

German aviation investor Hans Rudolf Woehrl late on Sunday said a company controlled by his INTRO Group had submitted a 500 million euro ($600.70 million) offer to buy insolvent Air Berlin, Reuters reported. Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection in August, spurring interest from several buyers seeking to snap up about 140 leased aircraft and valuable take-off and landing slots in Germany.

Insolvent German airline Air Berlin may drop more long-haul routes next week to cut costs as it races to find investors before it runs out of cash, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, was forced to file for bankruptcy protection last month after shareholder Etihad Airways withdrew funding following years of losses. Its planes are kept aloft thanks to a 150 million euro ($180.7 million) government bridge loan, which will last only until the middle of November at the latest, Reuters reported.

German shipping group Rickmers, which filed for insolvency in June, said on Thursday its ship management unit had the all-clear to continue business after it was bought by Bremen-based Zeaborn Group and owner Bertram Rickmers, Reuters reported. The company said in a statement that a consortium consisting of Zeaborn and Bertram Rickmers bought the division, which has its main sites in Hamburg, Singapore and Cyprus after they won a bidding process.

German aviation investor Hans Rudolf Woehrl expects to submit an offer for insolvent Air Berlin early next week, jointly with several partners, he told German television. “It will be a programme that goes into several hundred million (euros), to be paid in installments. But even the first installment that we’re willing to pay is very, very high,” he told TV station ARD on Wednesday. Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection in August after shareholder Etihad Airways withdrew funding following years of losses, Reuters reported.

German family-owned logistics company Zeitfracht said on Tuesday it had expressed its interested in bidding for insolvent airline Air Berlin, citing opportunities for air freight business, Reuters reported. “Ideally, we would like to keep Air Berlin intact in its entirety,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday, adding it expected to be given access to Air Berlin’s books swiftly so it could submit a formal offer by the Sept. 15 deadline.