May & Co.

May & Co.

Peter May founded May & Co. after a career that transformed a family advertising business into a cornerstone of Germany's Mittelstand ecosystem. The wealth originates from the sale of May Werbeagentur and a significant minority stake in Schindler Group, the elevator and escalator manufacturer, which May helped consolidate under the Bonnard family holding structure in the early 2000s. The office operates from Hamburg, maintaining a deliberately low public profile consistent with northern German family-office tradition. The firm deploys capital across private equity, industrial technology, real estate, and select consumer sectors, with a preference for majority and significant minority positions in established German and Swiss companies. May & Co. avoids fund commitments in favor of direct balance-sheet investing, a posture that gives it indefinite holding periods. Confirmed positions include a stake in Bahlsen, the German biscuit maker, and investments in mid-market industrial automation firms. The geographic footprint concentrates on the DACH region, with occasional opportunistic deals in neighboring European markets. The office runs a lean team typical of European single-family offices that prioritize capital preservation over asset gathering. May & Co. does not solicit external capital and maintains no fund structures. Adjacent vehicles include the Peter May-Stiftung, a Hamburg-based charitable foundation focused on education and cultural preservation. The firm has not publicly disclosed deployment totals, and no new fund closings or major executive hires have been reported in the last 24 months. May & Co.'s architecture mirrors the European industrialist-family-office model—capital derived from a single operating-company exit, reinvested directly into owner-operated businesses, with no pressure to mark-to-market quarterly. This distinguishes it from multi-family office platforms and institutional allocators. The succession structure remains undisclosed, though the foundation's prominence suggests a long-term governance framework extending beyond the founding generation.