Succession & M&A
Deal sourcing before the mandate is awarded.
Cernavio detects succession situations and sale signals in the mid-market: from register changes, exchanges, press and shareholder age patterns. Long before a teaser circulates.
Where sales fails in this industry
Proprietary deal flow does not come from databases
The company databases everyone has produce the longlists everyone has. Differentiation comes from signals, not from master data.
Exchanges are only the tip
If you only watch nexxt-change and marketplaces, you see sellers who are already visible to everyone. The interesting situations announce themselves in registers and in the press.
Longlists age silently
Shareholders exit, managing directors change, advisory boards get appointed: sale precursors happen daily, but nobody updates the list.
This is what your morning looks like
Four real signal types, curated by cernaFeed for this industry. All companies fictional, the patterns are not.
Packaging manufacturer, revenue EUR 18M, owner 67: successor wanted
Franconia region · double-digit EBITDA margin · handover desired within 18 months
nexxt-change · 45 min ago
Shareholder change at Praezisionstechnik Alsdorf: family branch exited
Register change 30 Jun 2026 · remaining shareholder aged 64 · typical precursor of a sale process
Commercial register / cernaMoves · 2 h ago
Restructuring sale: traditional brewery with company property, proceedings opened
Bamberg court, 22 IN 40/26 · administrator exploring asset deal · brand and customer base intact
insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de · 5 h ago
Munich family office read your machinery sector study 3 times
Pages: /research/machinery, /team · dwell time 7:05 min
cernaTrace · today 09:12
Five signal worlds, weighted for your market
Not every source is worth the same in every industry. This is how Cernavio weights the five signal worlds for this profile.
Succession listings, sale processes, investment offers
Shareholder changes, generational signals, board appointments
Restructuring sales, asset deals, forced sales
Investors and owners on your website
Public sale and advisory mandates
Three paths from feed to revenue
The exclusive sell-side mandate
Signal
cernaMoves combines a shareholder change with an age signal: the remaining owner is 64, no successor in the register.
Action
The boutique contacts the owner with a well-founded market assessment before he becomes active himself.
Result
An exclusive sell-side mandate without pitching against five competitors.
The proprietary distressed deal
Signal
A proceeding with an intact brand and company property appears in the feed; the administrator is exploring an asset deal.
Action
The investment firm reaches out before the structured process, with sector experience and proof of funds.
Result
An asset deal in a small bidder circle instead of an auction, closed in eight weeks.
Buy-side from a website signal
Signal
cernaTrace identifies a family office repeatedly reading your machinery sector study.
Action
The partner reaches out with two anonymized target profiles from current sourcing.
Result
A buy-side mandate for an add-on strategy in machinery.
The market in three numbers
~38,000
business handovers per year in Germany, and rising
IfM Bonn
500,000+
owners planning their succession by 2028, many without a buyer in sight
KfW succession monitoring
4M+
companies in the register whose shareholder and leadership data Cernavio reads as sale precursors
Commercial register
Sources: Institut fuer Mittelstandsforschung Bonn, KfW succession monitoring, commercial register. Figures rounded.
Frequently asked questions
From four layers: succession and sale exchanges such as nexxt-change, register changes (shareholder exits, generational patterns, board appointments), press and crisis signals, and the visitors of your own website. The score comes from the combination.
No, it adds the time dimension. Databases tell you who exists. Cernavio tells you where something is moving right now and why this is the moment to reach out.
The raw data is public; the edge comes from speed and combination. A shareholder change alone is noise; combined with an age signal and a missing successor it becomes an 89 percent opportunity that nobody else has on their radar.
Yes. You define profiles by sector, revenue size, region and situation type (succession, distress, carve-out), and the feed ranks per profile. Typical setup: one profile per partner or per active buy-side mandate.
See your feed before everyone sees it
In the demo we build your profile live: less than 5 minutes to the first feed, setup in one day.