Finatem

Finatem

Founded in 2000 by Christophe Hemmerle, Finatem is an independent, partner-owned private equity firm based in Bad Homburg, Germany, concentrating on majority-stake acquisitions in the lower middle market. The firm invests exclusively in companies headquartered or operating in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (DACH), deploying equity for succession carve-outs, corporate spin-offs, and growth-driven follow-on investments. Finatem focuses on companies with annual revenue between €10 million and €50 million and EBITDA of roughly €2 million to €6 million, a pocket of the DACH economy dense with engineering-intensive manufacturers and niche industrial service providers. The portfolio tilts heavily toward industrial technology — current positions include GFT Gothaer Fahrzeugtechnik, a producer of safety-critical crane components, and hGears, which develops high-precision drivetrain parts for e-mobility and power tools. Consumer and real-adjacent businesses round out the book: HKM Sports Equipment serves the equestrian market, while the Food & Service Group runs a wholesale delivery operation for quick-service restaurants. Exited holdings reveal the same pattern — Derby Cycle (bicycles), WST Präzisionstechnik (automotive precision parts), and Mungo Befestigungstechnik (construction fastening systems) — reinforcing a multi-decade playbook in Mittelstand industrial and branded-goods carve-outs. The firm operates with a lean, project-augmented team: Managing Directors Hemmerle and Jungblut lead transactions, supported by industry experts brought in deal-by-deal for sector-specific diligence and operational oversight. Finatem's own website lists four internal professionals, though the extended network of operating partners is a deliberate structural choice rather than a headcount signal. No separate philanthropic foundation or co-investor club appears in public records; the partnership structure itself is the governance chassis, with Hemmerle holding the founding-partner designation. What distinguishes Finatem's architecture is its exclusive fidelity to complex small-cap majority deals that larger DACH generalists often screen out on size. The firm does not operate a fund-of-funds, does not co-invest alongside external GPs as a limited partner, and has not publicly raised or marketed an adjacent credit or real-asset vehicle. That concentration — one strategy, one region, one partnership — creates an unusually narrow mandate, aligning the team's incentives entirely with a handful of founder-led industrial transitions per vintage.