Monacum Partners

Investment decisions are driven by the senior team led by Co-Founder and Managing Partner Tobias Wilmes and deal leads Ahmed Sallam and Malte Maurer. The firm does not hold an investment committee separate from its operating partners; the same team that sources and structures the transactions — including former UBS automotive banker Sallam and ex-Partners Group investor Maurer — evaluates and approves each deal.

Monacum sources deals through restructuring networks, corporate carve-out mandates, and direct succession dialogues with Mittelstand owners. Founders Tobias Wilmes and Daniel Reeg each spent over a decade in operational turnaround roles at industrial companies and consulting firms, which gives the firm access to off-market situations where sellers prioritize execution certainty over price.

Neither. Monacum is an operationally intensive buyout firm that acquires controlling stakes in underperforming or non-core European SMEs. It does not operate as a family office. Unlike a venture firm, it targets mature industrial and business-services companies needing structural turnaround, not high-growth startup equity.

Monacum targets mature businesses that are underperforming their potential — not startups or growth-stage companies. Deals include corporate carve-outs (Dapin from Evotec, DWE from Everllence), succession-driven family business transfers, and distressed buyouts requiring balance-sheet restructuring and operational turnaround.

Monacum exclusively executes direct majority buyouts. The firm's four known portfolio holdings — Dapin, ExOne Global Holdings, DWE, and Turma IT — were all acquired directly from corporate sellers, with Monacum taking control and embedding its own operating partners into the turnaround process.

Ahmed Sallam, who leads M&A and capital raising for Monacum, co-founded the UK-based investment firm Orillion in 2021. Richard Clarke, a Monacum team member with 30 years of public and private investing experience at Goldman Sachs and GLG Partners, is a Partner at Orillion. The two firms share senior personnel but maintain distinct investment activities.

Monacum does not publicly market co-investment opportunities or operate as a fund-of-funds. The firm structures each transaction as a direct majority acquisition, installing operating partners into management roles during the turnaround. There is no disclosed record of Monacum participating as a minority co-investor alongside an external lead sponsor.