Germany

Germany's IVG Immobilien , the co-owner of London's landmark "Gherkin" tower brought low by debts and cost over-runs, has proposed a debt-for-equity swap that will put the real estate firm in the hands of its creditors. IVG, which owns the Gherkin tower with Evans Randall Ltd, sought protection from creditors in August after failing to reach an agreement over the restructuring of its debt and on Monday filed an insolvency plan to a court in Bonn, Germany.

Insolvent German television maker Loewe is looking for a new partner to salvage the company after a group of investors said they wanted to pull out of a deal to purchase some of its assets and keep the brand going, Reuters reported. A group of investors, including a former senior manager at Apple and Bang & Olufsen, said in January they would buy Loewe's core television business for an undisclosed price. But Loewe said on Monday the investors had informed it of plans to withdraw from the contract.

France and Germany have pledged to reach a deal on a European financial transaction tax by the end of May in a bid to give some impetus to efforts to find accord on the issue, the Financial Times reported. But the two governments have yet to bridge divisions on how the so-called “Robin Hood” levy would be applied in the 11 EU states that have signed up to implement the tax. François Hollande, the French president, said after a joint Franco-German government meeting in Paris that trying to find the perfect formula for an FTT would only help those who wanted to neutralise it.

A court in the German town of Bonn has begun hearings in the insolvency case of utilities discounter Teldafax. Three of the firm’s former executives stand accused of running a Ponzi-like scheme to finance the business, Deutsch Welle reported. Teldafax's former senior executives Klaus Bath, Gernot Koch and Michael Josten were facing charges of delayed filing of insolvency, unlawful book-keeping and organized fraud to cover up a bankruptcy, the state court in Bonn announced ahead of opening the trial on Tuesday.

House prices in Germany’s biggest cities are overvalued as much as 25 per cent, the Bundesbank warned on Monday, stoking fresh fears that a wave of international investment has helped to fuel a property bubble in the eurozone’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. The German central bank said that residential real estate prices in 125 cities rose by 6.25 per cent on average last year. In October, it reported that property prices in the biggest German cities were 20 per cent overvalued, suggesting the problem is getting worse.

Commerzbank has sold some of its property loans in Spain, as it continues to rid itself of the assets held in its so-called “bad bank”, the Financial Times reported. The German lender said it had sold non-performing loans worth €710m from its Spanish commercial property portfolio to undisclosed “international investors”. The sale follows reports in recent days that Commerzbank is in talks with private equity companies Apollo and Cerberus to offload its entire Spanish property portfolio, which is now worth a little more than €4bn, according to one person familiar with the situation.

Several possible investors have expressed their interest in German insolvent bookseller Weltbild, a spokesman for its insolvency administrator said, Reuters reported. It was not yet clear how many of them would decide to do due diligence of Weltbild, he said on Monday. Weltbild, owned by the Roman Catholic Church, filed for insolvency last month after failing to keep up with competition from internet-based rivals such as Amazon.com and to obtain new financing.

Germany needs to improve regulation and supervision of financial markets in order to protect investors, including those who have been affected by this month's insolvency of the wind park group Prokon, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said. "It remains the goal of the German government to better regulate and supervise the grey zones of the financial market," Schaeuble was quoted as saying in an advance release from an interview being published in Friday's Handelsblatt newspaper.

Strauss Innovation, a German chain of small department stores, said on Thursday it was seeking protection from creditors to try and rescue its business which has 96 shops across the country, Reuters reported. Strauss, owned by U.S. private equity firm Sun Capital Partners, has suffered from a mild winter hurting sales of cold weather clothing, industry sources said. Earlier this week, German department store Karstadt said its sales fell 3 percent in the key Christmas period, while rival Kaufhof said the mild winter weather had dampened sales of clothes.

German wind park group Prokon's assets and profit-participation rights are attracting possible buyers after it declared insolvency earlier this week. Capital Stage, a Hamburg-based operator of wind and solar parks, is interested in buying some of Prokon's wind parks, a company spokesman said on Friday. "The acquisition of existing parks is part of our business," he said, adding that the group would wait until insolvency proceedings were opened to get in touch with the administrator.