Novum Capital

The five partners — Dr. Udo von Klot-Heydenfeldt, Felix Hölzer, Beatrice Dreyfus, Felix Homann, and Gerd Bassewitz — collectively make investment decisions. Von Klot-Heydenfeldt has served as Chairman since 2019 after co-founding the firm in 2006. Homann joined in 2012 from Goldman Sachs' European Special Situations Group and led the build-out of the institutional fund platform.

The firm sources primarily through relationships with German family business owners, insolvency practitioners, and corporate carve-out situations from multinationals. The partners' backgrounds — including Bankhaus Metzler, Intermediate Capital Group, and Lazard — give them access to succession-driven transactions before competitive auctions. The acquisition of MMC Studios was executed in a time-sensitive auction process to the terms of the initial indicative offer.

Novum Capital is a private equity firm, not a family office. It manages blind-pool institutional funds raised from external limited partners alongside earlier deal-by-deal vehicles. There is no family wealth behind the firm; the partners are professional investors.

Novum Capital makes direct control investments in portfolio companies. It does not act as a fund-of-funds or commit to third-party private equity funds. Its model centers on taking majority stakes in Mittelstand companies and managing them actively through ownership changes.

The firm does not publish a formal exclusions list, but its historical investments concentrate on asset-heavy industrial services, niche manufacturing, classifieds marketplaces, and media. Novum Capital has not invested in early-stage technology, biotechnology, or financial services platforms.

Novum Capital typically acquires controlling stakes on its own, but its investment structure allows for minority reinvestment by existing owners — for example, the son of the founder of HECHT Contactlinsen retained a stake after the 2024 acquisition. The firm has not publicly promoted a formal co-investment or club-deal program for outside institutional investors.

In 2022, Novum Capital set up a continuation fund for MMC Studios, the Cologne-based film and TV production services company it acquired in 2019. The vehicle was designed to extend the hold period and provide fresh capital for add-on acquisitions in the media space — an unusual move for a German lower-mid-market manager.