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Ottobock, a 100-year-old family business and global leader in prosthetics, went public in October 2025 – and was oversubscribed. PFISTERER, a niche market leader in power grid connection technology based in Winterbach near Stuttgart, listed on the Scale segment in May 2025 and was named “Outstanding IPO of the Year” at IPO Night 2025. At the same time, the total number of listed companies in Germany fell from 761 in 2007 to 435. Mid-market firms can go public. They simply do so far too rarely.

Why Germany Is Losing Listed Companies

The numbers speak for themselves: Germany is shedding publicly traded companies. From 761 in 2007 to just 435 in 2024 – a near-halving in under 20 years. Each year, more firms exit the regulated market than enter it. In 2021 and 2022 alone, 10-12 issuers delisted or downlisted. The reasons? Excessive compliance costs, low trading volumes due to narrow free floats, and a regulatory environment that burdens listed firms more heavily than private ones.

2025 – with only three new listings and a total issuance volume of €1.186 billion – was the weakest IPO year since 2020. PwC capital markets expert Stephan Wyrobisch called it a “disappointing IPO year destined for the history books.” His colleague Dirk Menker pointed to the “difficult, uncertainty-laden situation” facing the German economy.

The global contrast highlights Germany’s problem: worldwide, the IPO market surged 44 percent in 2025 to $190 billion. Europe overall recorded 125 IPOs in 2024, raising $19.1 billion – 41 percent more than the prior year. Germany played no meaningful role in this revival. Frankfurt is losing international appeal, while Amsterdam, Paris, and even Madrid attract listings that historically would have gone to Frankfurt.

The mid-market’s aversion to listing stems from both cultural and structural factors. Family businesses think in generations – not quarterly targets. Fear of losing control to outside shareholders runs deep. Disclosure obligations – including ad-hoc announcements and semi-annual reports – are a culture shock for entrepreneurs accustomed to keeping financials confidential. According to a Technical University of Munich study, around 40 percent of Germany’s listed firms remain family-owned – but the net decline shows families are turning their backs on the stock exchange, not the other way around.

Sources: PwC IPO Statistics 2025, EY IPO Barometer Q4 2024, TheGlobalEconomy.com

Ottobock: How a Century-Old Family Business Mastered the Stock Exchange

Ottobock’s October 2025 IPO proves family ownership and public listing need not be mutually exclusive. Founded in 1919 in Duderstadt by Otto Bock, the company is the world’s leading provider of prosthetic and orthopedic technology. Its 2025 revenue stood at €1.60 billion (+11.7%). Its Prime Standard IPO priced at €66 – the top end of its range – and opened at €72 on its first trading day: up 9.1%.

Its market capitalization landed at roughly €4 billion. Anchor investors – including Klaus Michael Kühne (€125 million) and Capital Group (€115 million) – signaled strong confidence. The order book was oversubscribed. For a family firm that had grown for over a century without capital markets, it was a powerful debut.

What makes Ottobock relevant for other mid-market firms: It retained its family identity. The Näder family (grandchildren of the founder) kept a significant stake. EQT – which had held a minority stake since 2017 – used the IPO for a partial exit, not a full divestment. The model? Treat the capital market as growth financing – not as a surrender of control. That’s the lever CFOs as transformation drivers can pull.

RENK and PFISTERER: Two Paths to Success

RENK Group, an Augsburg-based defense supplier specializing in drive systems, went public in February 2024. Offer price: €15. Thirteen months later: €37 – a 149% gain. Its 2024 revenue totaled €1.1 billion (+23%), order intake hit a record €1.4 billion, and its order backlog stood at €5 billion. In March 2025, RENK joined the MDAX.

RENK demonstrates how critical timing and sector momentum are. Post-Ukraine war defense demand and European rearmament programs created an environment where a defense supplier’s IPO was virtually guaranteed success. This isn’t replicable for every firm – but it does show that German mid-market companies are in high demand on capital markets when their story resonates.

PFISTERER Holding, headquartered in Winterbach near Stuttgart, chose a different route in May 2025: listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange’s Scale segment. Offer price: €27. First-day trading: €30 (+11%). Market capitalization: ~€489 million. This family-run specialist in power grid connection technology posted revenue of approximately €450 million (+17%) and won “Outstanding IPO of the Year” at IPO Night 2025. PFISTERER proves Scale works as an entry point for mid-market firms not yet ready for the full regulated market.

Cautionary Tales: Douglas and innoscripta

Not every mid-market IPO succeeds. Douglas – the perfumery chain – went public in March 2024, driven by private equity investor Advent International seeking an exit. Its offer price landed at €26 (the bottom of its range). On its first trading day, shares plunged 12% to €22.80. As of April 2024, they traded roughly 19% below the offer price. Causes included high debt accumulated during PE ownership, weak consumer sentiment, and a business model (brick-and-mortar retail) that failed to convince investors.

innoscripta, a Munich-based SaaS firm offering R&D funding advisory services, listed on the Scale segment in May 2025. Valuation: ~€1.2 billion, with an offer price of €120 and an EBIT margin of 61%. That sounded compelling – yet the share price fell sharply post-IPO. Investors realized innoscripta was structurally more of a grant consultancy than a scalable software platform. Growth deceleration wasn’t adequately communicated during bookbuilding. The lesson: valuation narratives only hold if fundamentals back them up. Slapping “SaaS” on your façade doesn’t suffice if your underlying business model tells a different story.

The Scale Segment: The Underrated Mid-Market Path

Launched in 2017 as successor to the Entry Standard, Deutsche Börse’s Scale segment offers many mid-market firms the most pragmatic route to capital markets. Requirements are lower than those for the Prime Standard: minimum market capitalization of €30 million, minimum free float of 20% or one million shares, and at least two years of corporate existence. Firms must partner with an approved “Capital Market Partner” and publish research reports – commissioned and funded by Deutsche Börse itself.

Its appeal lies in reduced compliance burden: no full quarterly reporting obligation, no IFRS requirement (HGB suffices), and lower IR and AGM costs. For a family-owned firm with €100-500 million in annual revenue seeking growth capital – without exposing itself to the full regulatory weight of the Prime Standard – Scale represents a well-considered compromise.

PFISTERER has shown that compromise works: €489 million market capitalization, a successful IPO, and “Best IPO of the Year” – all within Scale. For the typical Hidden Champion holding a niche leadership position with solid growth, this is a more attractive model than the classic Prime Standard IPO.

SPACs: The Rise and Fall of a Hype

The SPAC wave (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies) never truly reached Germany. In the 2021 boom year – when the U.S. saw 632 SPAC IPOs raising $138 billion – Germany recorded just four. More than half of U.S. SPACs launched in 2021 were liquidated by end-2023. The Anglo-Saxon “blank-check IPO” model clashes with German corporate law traditions, which offer less flexibility for typical dilution-protection structures.

For Germany’s mid-market, the traditional IPO remains the superior path – not a weakness, but a strength. The SPAC boom revealed what happens when speed eclipses substance: exploding losses and reputational damage across the board. The valuation discipline enforced by a classic bookbuilding process protects both the company and its investors.

Private Equity as an IPO Catalyst

Private equity plays an increasingly vital role as an IPO catalyst for Germany’s mid-market. According to the EY IPO Barometer Q4 2024, PE/VC portfolio companies accounted for just 12% of global IPOs by count in 2024 – but 46% of total issuance volume. The largest deals come from PE.

In Germany, both Douglas (Advent International) and RENK (KKR/Triton) were PE-driven IPOs in 2024. In 2025, Ottobock represented a partial EQT exit. Germany’s PE market recorded €3.3 billion in divestments across 711 transactions in 2024. A large PE overhang persists: many portfolio companies await better IPO windows. If market conditions improve in 2026, it could trigger a wave of PE-driven mid-market IPOs.

The question for CEOs and shareholders: Is a PE-driven IPO right for your company? The answer depends on your starting point. Firms needing growth capital – and willing to embrace transparency and governance standards – find a logical path in combining a PE phase (for professionalization) followed by an IPO (to access capital markets). Douglas, however, illustrates the risk: if the PE phase leaves excessive debt behind, the IPO becomes a balance-sheet cleanup – and the market punishes it.

What CEOs Must Know Before Going Public

Timing isn’t everything – but it’s close. RENK rode the defense momentum; Douglas suffered from weak consumer sentiment. Dr. Martin Steinbach of EY estimated “up to 10 IPOs in Germany” for 2025 at end-2024 – only three materialized. Macroeconomic uncertainty shapes the IPO window more decisively than individual company quality.

Scale before Prime. For firms with €100-500 million in annual revenue, the Scale segment is often the smarter entry point. Lower costs, lighter reporting requirements, and the option to upgrade to Prime Standard later – once the company reaches sufficient scale and maturity – make it compelling.

Valuation discipline beats ambition. Springer Nature priced in the middle of its range in 2024 and launched up 6.7%. Ottobock priced at the top – and opened up 9.1%. Douglas priced at the bottom – and still fell 12%. Lesson: Better to price conservatively and rise on day one than price aggressively and fall. That first price sets market perception for months.

The story must carry weight. Ottobock had “global leader in prosthetics.” RENK had “defense industry tailwind.” PFISTERER had “energy transition infrastructure.” innoscripta had “SaaS” – but that wasn’t accurate. CEOs must rigorously test their equity story: Can an analyst grasp – in three sentences – why this company belongs on the stock exchange?

The 2026 outlook is cautiously optimistic. PwC sees 5-10 IPOs as realistic. Names in the pipeline include KNDS (defense, dual listing Frankfurt/Paris), Mobile.de (valuation up to €10 billion), and Vincorion (defense). The defense sector is establishing itself as Germany’s new IPO engine – a shift unthinkable just three years ago. For the mid-market, this means: The IPO window will open wider in 2026 than in 2025. But it will only swing open for firms that have done their homework – in governance, valuation discipline, and equity storytelling.

Frequently Asked Questions

Further Reading

• The CFO as Transformation Driver: How Finance Chiefs Fund the Reboot
• Made in Germany Reloaded: How Industrial Conglomerates Are Reinventing Their Brands
• Reboot Germany: €735 Billion, Three Mid-Market Firms, and the Question of Whether the Crisis Is Really That Bad

Header Image Source: Pexels / Anna Nekrashevich (px:6801648)