Zerbach & Company

Zerbach & Company Corporate Finance was founded in 2014 by three partners. We are based at Gut Maarhausen, a listed historical estate in Cologne.

We advise owner-managed companies and family businesses in the German-speaking mid-market on company sales, succession planning, acquisitions, company valuations as well as debt advisory and corporate finance projects. Our focus is on transactions with enterprise values between € 5 and 300 million. Our clients also include international family businesses, family offices, and investment companies.

What to expect from us is a consciously chosen structure: our senior team has been working together in the same constellation for 20 years and brings over 100 years of combined corporate finance and M&A experience to the table. The team you meet at Zerbach & Company is the same team that will lead your process, from the initial conversation to closing. Nothing is delegated that should not be delegated.

Since 2017, an Industry Advisory Board of currently 13 experienced entrepreneurs has complemented our work. Not as a figurehead, but brought in operationally where industry knowledge makes the difference: identifying strategic buyers, addressing due diligence questions, assessing market potentials.

56% of our transactions to date have had an international dimension. Our network extends through partner firms in Europe, the USA, and China; our databases include over 3,500 financial investors and family offices as well as more than 800,000 companies. When the strategically right buyer is not based in Germany, we reach them where they are. Since our founding, we have closed more than 65 M&A transactions with companies and investors from 18 countries, in addition to the numerous transactions our team led in earlier positions.

Successful transactions do not emerge from standard processes, but from precise work on the individual situation. We advise at eye level, always exclusively in the interest of our clients, and with the ambition of being the most reliable and best-informed party at the negotiating table.