Air Berlin has spoken with more than 10 parties interested in parts of the insolvent carrier and expects its assets will be divided up amongst two or three buyers, its chief executive told a German paper, Reuters reported. Talks began on Friday on carving up Air Berlin, which said on Tuesday it was filing for insolvency. German flag carrier Lufthansa was first in the queue for meetings, ahead of other potential bidders.

A first round of formal talks for the sale of insolvent German airline Air Berlin's assets will be held with its bigger local rival Lufthansa on Friday, ahead of other prospective bidders, a senior labour union official said. "Only Lufthansa will initially be part of the talks ... As far as I know, the other bidders will be invited for talks afterward and then an overall package will be put together," said Lufthansa's deputy chair Christine Behle, who represents labour union Verdi on the company's supervisory board.

Solarworld, a former stock market darling that became one of the biggest casualties of Germany’s ill-fated solar boom, has been resurrected from insolvency with the help of investors from Qatar, the Financial Times reported. The company has agreed to sell its key assets — including its two manufacturing plants in Germany — for about €100m to a Qatari-German joint venture set up by Frank Asbeck, the founder of Solarworld, and Qatar Solar Technologies. The new company, Solarworld Industries, was formally unveiled in Berlin on Thursday.

Air Berlin's chief executive blamed long delays in the opening of a new Berlin airport for the German airline's insolvency in an interview published by Germany's Die Zeit, Reuters reported. "Air Berlin is also a victim of the constant postponements of the new airport," the weekly newspaper on Wednesday quoted Thomas Winkelmann as saying. Winkelmann's comments came a day after Air Berlin, Germany's second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection after key shareholder Etihad Airways withdrew funding following years of losses.

Air Berlin Plc filed for insolvency after leading shareholder Etihad Airways PJSC withdrew its financial support, marking the second failure of a major European airline in four months after the Persian Gulf carrier pulled the plug on funding Italy’s Alitalia SpA in May, Bloomberg News reported. While Air Berlin, which has 8,600 staff, will continue flying with the help of a government loan likely to last it until mid-November, Tuesday’s filing puts German jobs at risk weeks before German Chancellor Angela Merkel stands for re-election.

Almost one in five German companies has had their bank trying to charge negative interest rates — meaning they would have to pay the lender for the privilege of keeping their money on deposit, the Financial Times reported. The findings of a survey by Ifo, the Munich-based think-tank, shows the widespread effect of the European Central Bank’s ultra-low interest rate policy on the corporate sector in Germany, the eurozone’s economic powerhouse.

Industrial output in Germany contracted by 1.1 per cent in June compared to May – its biggest drop of the year and defying expectations of growth in a weak end to the quarter for a sector which accounts for nearly a third of the country’s economy. Official figures from Destatis show factory output also fell back on a year on year measure from 5 per cent to 2.4 per cent growth in June, the Financial Times reported. An average forecast from analysts pointed to a 3.7 per cent climb.

Deutsche Bank more than doubled pre-tax profits for the second quarter, but revenues fell short of analysts’ expectations in key divisions and chief executive John Cryan admitted the bank is still not living up to its long-term potential. Germany’s biggest bank reported pre-tax profits of €822m versus €408m a year earlier and the €199m expected by analysts, the Financial Times reported. The outperformance was driven by a big fall in costs, which came in at €5.715bn, down 15 per cent year-on-year and far better than the €6.417bn analysts predicted.

Germany’s biggest banks have found an unlikely ally in their battle to shake up their sector’s chronic low profitability — the low interest rates that most eurozone banks will lament when they report second-quarter earnings over the coming days. Their long struggle to compete with the higher deposit rates and lower cost services offered by Germany’s army of public sector banks has left the country’s top five banks with low margins and a collective market share of just 30 per cent, the Financial Times reported.

Germany’s financial hub is taking an early lead in attracting banking businesses in anticipation of Britain exiting the European Union, The Wall Street Journal reported. Its main asset: stability. Banks from Japan’s Nomura Holdings Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. to the U.S.’s Citigroup Inc. are shifting some business to Frankfurt given the possibility that the U.K. will be left out of the single market once it leaves the EU. This would prevent banks in London from being able to serve customers across the Continent, known as passporting rights.