FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Audi, the premium car brand of Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), posted record sales in 2011 as demand for luxury cars in China and Russia helped it gain ground on bigger rivals like BMW (BMWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Daimler’s (DAIGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Mercedes-Benz.

Audi on Monday unveiled sales growth of 19.2 percent for last year, outpacing 12.8 percent for the BMW brand and 8.0 percent at Daimler’s luxury brand.

The VW unit sold 1.30 million cars in the year, compared with 1.38 million BMWs and 1.26 million at Mercedes-Benz.

Audi wants to dethrone BMW as the world’s number one premium car maker by 2015 through powering ahead in China and the United States, the world’s biggest luxury car market.

BMW is betting on the same thing and believes demand in these two key markets will keep it ahead of the pack.

BMW finance chief Friedrich Eichiner said last week he expected the global market for premium cars to grow at more than 8 percent this year, more than twice as fast as the overall car market.

Credit Suisse analyst Arndt Ellinghorst raised his target price on BMW shares to 76 euros from 72 euros, saying he expects premium car makers to come out ahead this year as the gap between the strong and the weak widens further.

FRANKFURT, Jan 6 (Reuters) – European retailers, already battling weak consumer demand, look set to find their shelves laden with scarves, coats, toboggans and de-icers due to an unseasonably mild winter.

Toboggans, a hot commodity during last year’s snowy winter, are shelf warmers this year, Germany’s retailers’ association HDE said on Friday. It also said sales of winter clothes and ski equipment were so far falling short of year-earlier levels.

“Retailers responded by offering discounts unusually early,” a spokesman for HDE said. He said many retailers cut prices before Christmas, which they usually do after the holidays.

Lots of stores on Frankfurt’s busiest shopping street offered discounts on winter coats and boots in the run-up to the Christmas holidays to try to loosen shoppers’ purse strings.

Multi-brand retailers such as Peek & Cloppenburg and AppelrathCuepper had rows of winter coats on sale, including Hugo Boss woollen coats and classic Burberry trenches with prices cut by anywhere from 18 to 30 percent.

BLAME IT ON THE WEATHERMAN

Average temperatures in Germany in December were 3.8 degrees centigrade, and the first few days of January were even warmer at 6 degrees.

FRANKFURT, Jan 3 (Reuters) – A bidding war over rights to show top-flight German soccer league matches could prove risky for Sky Deutschland.

The German pay-TV broadcaster’s stock has lost about a quarter of its value over the past three months on concern that a battle with Deutsche Telekom for Bundesliga rights could hurt profit and that it may need a capital increase soon.

The Bundesliga is Sky Deutschland’s main draw.

While bears see the risks as too big to make Sky Deutschland a worthwhile investment at the moment, more bulls are emerging who say that talk of the risk from a rights bidding war is overdone, and that Sky Deutschland’s operating performance has become more solid.

BUY

Royal Bank of Scotland analysts raised their recommendation on Sky Deutschland stock to “buy” from “hold” on Tuesday, saying they expect the outcome of both the Bundesliga auction and any capital increase to be satisfactory, helping its stock recover.

They also said innovations such as high definition TV and 3D were helping Sky Deutschland, in which News Corp holds a 49.9 percent stake, to gain traction in Germany.

FRANKFURT/PARIS (Reuters) – Germany’s Lufthansa told passengers on Monday to brace for higher ticket prices as it refuses to shoulder the costs of a carbon trading scheme at the centre of a brewing trade spat.

The world’s second largest long-haul carrier after Dubai’s Emirates said it faced 130 million euros ($169 million) in extra costs this year and became the first major operator to announce possible surcharges since the EU scheme took effect on January 1.

The increases will not go into effect straightaway.

Under plans to tackle climate change, airlines touching down or taking off in the 27-nation European Union and three neighbouring nations must account for their CO2 emissions as part of an expansion of the world’s largest carbon market.

The United States, China, India and others have attacked the scheme on the grounds that it infringes their sovereignty and that the EU should not act alone. Some have warned of counter-measures, firing talk of the world’s first carbon trade war.

The EU says its Emissions Trading Scheme, which already applies to other industries, is the fairest way to cope with aviation’s contribution to global warming and cuts through years of inconclusive efforts to come up with a worldwide alternative.

Analysts say Lufthansa is among the airlines most affected by the scheme, along with other European network rivals British Airways owner IAG and Air France-KLM or United Continental and Singapore Airlines.

FRANKFURT, Dec 22 (Reuters) – RWE AG and Gazprom have terminated talks about joint power production ventures, a setback in the German utility’s efforts to seek Russian-funded growth to help make up for its domestic market’s exit from nuclear power.

“Although our discussions were conducted in a very constructive manner we were unfortunately not able to agree on a framework for cooperation which would be sustainable for both parties,” RWE Chief Executive Juergen Grossmann said in a statement on Thursday.

Gazprom declined to give an immediate comment.

The cancellation of talks means that Gazprom is unlikely to strike any further cooperation deals this year as its board had its last meeting for this year on Wednesday.

RWE had an exclusivity deal with Gazprom, and sources close to the matter said that the cooperation partly fell through because Gazprom struck a deal with Danish utility Dong earlier this year to explore opportunities for promoting gas-fired power generation in Europe.

“There seems to be a view of first-come-first-serve here, and differing price expectations (for gas supplies) also did their part in derailing the deal,” one source at Gazprom said.

The two companies had announced in the middle of July that they had started exclusive talks on proposals for joint power plants in Germany, Britain and the Benelux countries, which were restricted to three months initially.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Telekom may be forced into a tie-up of its sub-scale U.S. wireless unit with Sprint Nextel after a $39 billion deal with AT&T collapsed.

AT&T said on Monday it had dropped its bid for T-Mobile USA, bowing to fierce regulatory opposition and leaving both companies scrambling for alternatives.

While Deutsche Telekom is now walking away with a $6 billion breakup package, its chief executive Rene Obermann has lost a lot of time and will now have to invest in the U.S. market or find a new way to exit the country, an option analysts regard as unlikely.

T-Mobile USA “is just crying out for a merger with Sprint. That’s the only long-term solution for Deutsche Telekom,” Will Draper, head of telecoms research at Espirito Santo, said.

T-Mobile USA, a growth engine in its early days but now a run-down asset, is badly lacking in the spectrum it needs to build a network capable of handling the vast data volumes that U.S. consumers and businesses use on smartphones.

Bleeding money and losing customers, it ranks fourth among U.S. carriers behind AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

Obermann offered no detailed plan of how the company will bounce back from the collapse of talks with AT&T, only assuring investors he was working on a long-term plan for T-Mobile USA.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Telekom offered no detailed plan of how it will bounce back from the collapse of its deal with AT&T, only assuring investors on Tuesday it was working on a long-term plan for its subscale U.S. wireless unit.

AT&T said on Monday it had dropped its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile USA, bowing to fierce regulatory opposition and leaving both companies scrambling for alternatives.

“In the long term, we need more spectrum and network capacity. We are working on that. But we will not speculate about any inorganic steps or deals,” Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Rene Obermann told reporters during a conference call.

Deutsche Telekom shares were down 1.4 percent at 8.77 euros at 1148 GMT, one of the biggest decliners in a 0.7 percent stronger blue-chip DAX index on investor concern the company is back at square one with its American problem child.

T-Mobile USA, a growth engine in its early days but now a run-down asset, is badly lacking in the spectrum it needs to build a network capable of handling the vast data volumes that U.S. consumers and businesses use on smartphones.

“For Deutsche Telekom, the collapse of the deal leaves it with one more subscriber-losing business as it confronts the fallout from Europe’s debt crisis,” Silvia Quandt analyst Jacques Abramowicz said.

Bleeding money and losing customers, T-Mobile USA ranks fourth among U.S. carriers behind AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Telekom offered no detailed plan of how it will bounce back from the collapse of its deal with AT&T, only assuring investors on Tuesday it was working on a long-term plan for its subscale U.S. wireless unit.

AT&T said on Monday it had dropped its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile USA, bowing to fierce regulatory opposition and leaving both companies scrambling for alternatives.

“In the long term, we need more spectrum and network capacity. We are working on that. But we will not speculate about any inorganic steps or deals,” Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Rene Obermann told reporters during a conference call.

Deutsche Telekom shares were down 1.4 percent at 8.77 euros at 1148 GMT, one of the biggest decliners in a 0.7 percent stronger blue-chip DAX index on investor concern the company is back at square one with its American problem child.

T-Mobile USA, a growth engine in its early days but now a run-down asset, is badly lacking in the spectrum it needs to build a network capable of handling the vast data volumes that U.S. consumers and businesses use on smartphones.

“For Deutsche Telekom, the collapse of the deal leaves it with one more subscriber-losing business as it confronts the fallout from Europe’s debt crisis,” Silvia Quandt analyst Jacques Abramowicz said.

Bleeding money and losing customers, T-Mobile USA ranks fourth among U.S. carriers behind AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Etihad Airways is taking a stake of almost 30 percent in Germany’s Air Berlin (AB1.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), becoming the first Gulf carrier to challenge European legacy airlines by putting cash on the table to gain scale.

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad will spend about 73 million euros ($95 million) to buy new shares of Air Berlin, raising its stake to 29.21 percent from just below 3 percent, and will lend the German carrier $255 million, the two companies said on Monday.

Shares of Air Berlin jumped as much as 12 percent and were up 8.2 percent at 2.50 euros by 1427 GMT.

Middle East carriers such as Etihad, Qatar Airways and Dubai-based Emirates EMIRA.UL have been aggressively expanding route networks, provoking fears that Gulf-based superjumbos would draw traffic from European carriers’ hubs.

Qatar Airways recently acquired a 35 percent stake in all-freight carrier Cargolux, but the Air Berlin move is the first time a Gulf carrier has bought an equity stake in a European passenger airline.

The deal includes a codeshare agreement giving Etihad access to Air Berlin’s dense European short-haul route network, and to the German capital ahead of rival Emirates EMIRA.UL, which has lobbied for years to be allowed to fly to Berlin.

Air Berlin, which sees synergies of 35-40 million euros from the deal next year, will move its Middle East offices from Dubai to Abu Dhabi and will offer four flights a week from Berlin to the Gulf state from January 15, the companies said.

FRANKFURT, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Etihad Airways threw a lifeline to ailing Air Berlin and gained access to more European routes by raising its stake in the German airline to 30 percent and lending it $255 million.

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad will buy new shares in Air Berlin, Germany’s second-biggest carrier after Lufthansa , for about 73 million euros ($95 million), raising its stake to 29.21 percent from just below 3 percent, Air Berlin said on Monday.

It will buy 31.5 million new shares at Friday’s closing price of 2.31 euros.

“This is good news for Air Berlin shareholders because Etihad Airways is a strong anchor investor and the capital increase … will improve the low equity ratio,” DZ Bank analyst Robert Czerwensky said.

Air Berlin shares jumped as much as 12 percent and were up 8.7 percent at 2.51 euros by 1133 GMT.

The deal includes a codeshare agreement giving Etihad access to Air Berlin’s dense European short-haul route network, and to the German capital ahead of rival Emirates , which has lobbied for years to be allowed to fly to Berlin.

Middle East carriers such as Etihad, Qatar Airways and Dubai-based Emirates have been aggressively expanding route networks, provoking fears that Gulf-based superjumbos would draw traffic from European carriers’ hubs.