Deutschland for Sale, Part 1: The Great Sell-Off — A Survey of Foreign Takeovers 2024–2026
By mid-2025, 1,641 German companies had been sold for a combined $107.1 billion — a 30% jump in deal volume. Of those, 900 went to foreign buyers for $82.5 billion. Private-equity firms set an all-time record, spending $49.9 billion in Germany in a single year. The targets? Exactly the engineering, chemical and industrial champions Germany built its wealth on. But here's the twist: the great German sell-off hasn't yet produced the great offshoring. The buyers paid billions for the plants, the patents and the workforce. Moving them abroad would be throwing away the purchase. So what is really happening? #GermanIndustry #Mittelstand #ForeignInvestment #Deindustrialization #PrivateEquity #GulfCapital #ChineseInvestment #MandA