Finance

Deutsche Bank plans to raise capital, list its asset management business and overhaul its business structure as it tries to reinvent itself after spending two years dealing with its past misdeeds and huge losses.

Government officials spent the weekend redrafting a proposed package of so-called countermeasures aimed at offsetting fresh austerity including calls for the reduction of corporate tax to 26 or 27 percent from the current rate of 29 percent.

The new so-called objective values as property rates used for tax purposes are known - are scheduled to apply from June.

However, the competent committee of the Finance Ministry has hit a stumbling block and cannot deliver.

Offering guaranteed yields of 1.5-1.7 percent on average, insurance savings products are now a major rival to time deposits, whose interest does not exceed 0.7 percent on an annual basis, while that rate seems set to drop further.

Greek banks wrote off nonperforming loans totaling 2.5 billion euros last year, a new record, while senior bank officials say that this year write-offs will rise even higher, exceeding 3 billion, making cancellations one of the credit sector's main weapons in its ongoing battle to reduce the amount of bad loans in its portfolios.

Galip Öztürk, the chair of Turkey's Metro Holding, has said his intercity bus service company is in talks with a European fund for the sale of shares.

The negotiations could be concluded this month, Bloomberg News' Taylan Bilgiç quoted Öztürk as saying on March 2.

However, the chairman did not cite the name of the fund.

Greece's power utility Public Power Corp. secured initial approval for a 200 million euro ($210.5 million) bank loan by the country's main lenders, it said on Wednesday.

The banks are expected to notify PPC on the final terms for the new syndicated loan before it is signed, PPC said in a bourse filing.

Asian nations must spend $26 trillion by 2030 on infrastructure to battle poverty, boost economic growth and fight climate change, the Asian Development Bank warned on Feb. 28.

Greece and its lenders resumed long-stalled talks in Athens on Tuesday about reforms Greece needs to adopt to keep bailout funds flowing and the crisis-hit nation financially afloat.

Greek private sector bank deposits declined in January for the second month in a row, central bank data showed on Tuesday, as worries over the country's drawn out bailout review led to withdrawals.