Oaklins report: the M&A market is defying the headwind

While many are still talking about an economic slump, the new Oaklins M&A market report for the first half of 2026 tells a different story: Germany’s market for company takeovers is defying the headwind, and the Mittelstand is right at the centre of it.

• Around 1,490 transactions in the first six months of 2026, up 15% year on year. No sign of a slump.
• Financial investors are back: they are behind roughly one in three deals (35% market share, up 15.7%). And interest is shifting noticeably towards industry, with machinery and components up 17%.
• Foreign buyers are pushing in again, too: the number of inbound transactions rose by 38.5%.

Oaklins sums up the real message for sellers: “The market is open, but only convincingly prepared companies can translate the high activity into attractive valuations.”

For most of the owners we meet, though, it is about more than the highest price. It is about what comes after the signature: the people in the business, the name above the door, the character that has shaped a company over the years.

And that is exactly where we are deliberately different from the fast market. At Cornus, a company stays a company, and does not become a speculation asset to be passed on again in a few years.

• The established management stays on board. What works, stays.
• No radical restructuring, no break-up: we preserve what has made a company strong and build on it carefully.
• We think in decades rather than quarters: a new home, not a stopover.

So the good news in such a lively market is this: there are not only plenty of buyers, there are also partners who care more about a company’s future than about a quick resale. The M&A market is defying the headwind, and those who sell get to choose whose hands their life’s work ends up in.