Germany's industry isn't being looted — it's being sold by its own owners. Part 3 of our series reveals the succession cliff, record private equity buying, and why investment screening can't stop the Ausverkauf. The owners have chosen to sell. #GermanIndustry #Mittelstand #PrivateEquity #InvestmentScreening #ForeignInvestment #GermanEconomy #SuccessionCrisis #Deindustrialization
Foreign buyers of German companies always promise to keep the sites and jobs. But in Zweibrücken, a 63-year-old plastics maker was closed within six months of a Swedish takeover — machines hauled out, 60 workers let go. This is the hollowing-out scenario on camera. Yet for every Schliessmeyer, big deals like Covestro and EBM-Papst keep production in place. The real insight: foreign ownership doesn't cause offshoring — it just removes the last line of defence against it. The question isn't whether German manufacturing gets hollowed out. It's who will be holding the keys when the next downturn arrives. #GermanIndustry #HollowingOut #Deindustrialization #Offshoring #Mittelstand #ForeignInvestment #PrivateEquity #GermanManufacturing
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
