Germany never participated in the upswing of the housing bubble. This fact has led German politicians of all stripes to mistakenly believe their banking system was somehow immune to the problems infecting bubble markets like the US or Spain.  Unfortunately, it has not worked out that way because the globalization of finance has shifted risk [...]

Every country has a problem child or two in the financial services sector. America has Citigroup and Bank of America. Britain has RBS and HBOS/Lloyds.  And Germany has Hypo Real Estate. 
I have been chronicling problems at the real estate lender on this blog for some time now and last posted on HRE in April [...]

Roland Koch, the leader of the German state of Hesse, has dismissed the possibility of Chinese auto manufacturer BAIC acquiring German carmaker Opel.  Below is my translation of today’s Spiegel article explaining this.
Clear rejection of the Chinese: Hesse Prime Minister Koch has rejected the takeover offer for Opel by the car manufacturer BAIC. If someone [...]

Rio Tinto was one of those companies which levered up just as the economy was turning down, rushing its bottom line ad forcing it into the hands of Chinalco, a large Chinese commodities company.  However, as commodity prices have turned up and investors have simultaneously started buying shares, Rio was able to escape the Chinalco [...]

You probably saw in my links that Fiat had bowed out because of German government demands. The Magna story also comes via the BBC:
Canadian car parts maker Magna International is the preferred bidder for GM Europe, owner of Opel and Vauxhall, Lord Mandelson has said.
The UK business secretary said a deal between Magna and GM [...]

I was on the BBC yesterday talking autos and my commentary was almost entirely political.  So, as we await the likely General Motors bankruptcy, I think it bears discussing how political this process has been and will continue to be.
General Motors is a monster company employing a quarter million people worldwide.  It sells $150 billion [...]

Volkswagen and Porsche have finally hammered out a merger plan after some bitter infighting. My understanding is that the new company will carry the Porsche name and trade under its ticker symbol. In addition, the company plans to raise more capital to pay off debt before the merger goes through. Why Porsche took on so [...]

Last week I wrote a post suggesting that the Germans were getting tired of bailing out their banks and had moved to more draconian solutions to ‘fix’ the banking sector. Nationalizing Hypo Real Estate this week will be the first move in that direction.
But the Germans are not nearly finished in [...]

The first bank nationalization in German history is about to take place. At issue is Hypo Real Estate (HRE), a troubled Munich-based company that lends to commercial property developers and to build offices, hotels, roads, airports, you name it.
This issue has been building for nearly 7 months. Back in late September, just after Lehman [...]

The German car maker Daimler wants to put the Chrysler chapter behind it, so it will give up its remaining 19.9% stake and forgive all remaining loans. See BBC story.
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