Valuation Layer
We acquire below the replacement cost of the substance acquired.
Investment Thesis
The watchwork. A thesis on missing cases.
A significant share of mid-market companies with functioning substance fail to reach the next ownership or development phase. The operating base functions, the structural continuation logic does not.
The Observation
Substance alone rarely reaches the next phase.
The DACH mid-market contains a broad field of companies with viable operating bases that, due to special situations — owner conflicts, succession gaps, group structures, financial pressure — do not find their way into orderly continuation. They remain operations. They are not carried forward.
The Analogy
A watchwork consists of mainspring, anchor, balance wheel, gears, bridges, jewels.
Each component is precisely manufactured. None is marketable. What is marketable is the watch.
This is exactly where the mid-market displaces itself: owners, banks and corporates value business units, brands and assets in isolation. What is not valued is the continuation solution — operation under new ownership, integration into a platform, orderly succession. Without that continuation logic, viable substance permanently underperforms its development potential.
The mechanism is not what is missing.
The case is missing.
Our Thesis
We acquire companies, business units, assets and brands with existing substance but structurally blocked continuation.
We acquire sector-agnostically — industrials, services, brands, healthcare, infrastructure, technology — because from operational substance, a definable special situation and transactional feasibility, a system can be constructed that delivers what the isolated position under existing ownership logic cannot: orderly continuation.
We do not buy a better sector. We close the structural gap in which good substance lingers under the wrong ownership logic.
Three Yield Layers
The three layers cumulate.
Repositioning Layer
We commercially transfer the component into a system positioning at higher price levels.
Platform Layer
We integrate the module into a platform whose valuation exceeds the sum of its parts.
Continue
Market. Methodology. Acquisition.
Market
Why the gap is particularly large today.
Market →Methodology
How we proceed.
Methodology →Acquisition & Process
Three requirements, six exclusions, four phases.
Process →