John O’Donnell

1 month ago | kfgo.com | John O’Donnell |Tom Sims

By John O’Donnell and Tom SimsFRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) – Berlin’s borrow-to-spend splurge is driving up borrowing costs, further choking embattled property companies seeking fresh loans and threatening to compound the country’s wider economic woes. A property crisis in Germany, Europe’s industrial engine, has seen worried investors pull billions of euros out of the critical sector, amid scores of company bankruptcies.

1 month ago | businesslive.co.za | Tom Sims |Francesco Canepa |John O’Donnell

Frankfurt — Banks struggled to process payments on Friday after an unprecedented daylong breakdown in the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) machine underpinning trillions of euros of money movements. The ECB said late on Thursday it had fixed the roughly seven-hour outage in its payment system, which had left transactions likely worth trillions of euros from firms, consumers and investors up in the air.

1 month ago | kfgo.com | Tom Sims |Francesco Canepa |John O’Donnell

By Tom Sims, Francesco Canepa and John O’DonnellFRANKFURT (Reuters) -Banks struggled to process payments on Friday after an unprecedented day-long breakdown in the European Central Bank’s machine underpinning trillions of euros of money movements. The ECB said late on Thursday it had fixed the roughly seven-hour outage in its payment system, which had left transactions likely worth trillions of euros from firms, consumers and investors up in the air.

2 months ago | bilyonaryo.com | Tom Sims |John O’Donnell |Emma-Victoria Farr

SOURCE: ReutersUniCredit poised to pounce on CommerzbankGerman bank attempts to rebuff unwanted advanceCEO to outline plan of actionPlans include staff cuts and new targetsBy Tom Sims, John O’Donnell and Emma-Victoria FarrFRANKFURT, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Germany’s Commerzbank CBKG.DE is preparing staff cuts and revamped financial targets in its efforts to fend off tie-up advances by Italy’s UniCredit CRDI.MI, multiple people with direct knowledge of the plans told Reuters.

Jan 16, 2025 | businesslive.co.za | Victoria Waldersee |John O’Donnell

Frankfurt/Berlin — Chinese officials and automakers are eyeing German factories slated for closure and are particularly interested in Volkswagen’s sites. Buying a factory would allow China to build influence in Germany's prized auto industry, home to some of the oldest and most prestigious car brands, a person with knowledge of Chinese government thinking told Reuters.