Hellman & Friedman, the US buy-out firm, has paid Deutsche Bank €350m ($420m) for 19% of Axel Springer, the German family-owned listed publisher that owns Bild and Die Welt. No external corporate finance advisers were involved on either side.

The deal virtually marks the end of Deutsche's involvement with failed media company Kirch to which it had made a loan of €720m. The sale of the Axel stake will return all but €20m of that debt.