+34% Since 2019: How Purchase Price Expectations Have Changed
12.06.26 · Frankfurt am Main
The latest KfW Research Report, published in January 2026, contains a figure that deserves attention from every owner considering a sale. Average purchase price expectations among mid-market business owners for a planned succession have risen by around 34 percent since 2019, from €372,000 to €499,000. Adjusted for inflation, this represents a real value gain of 9.5 percent, well above pure inflationary effects. The survey draws on the representative Mittelstand panel, comprising more than 13,000 surveyed companies, and is the first update of this data series in six years.
Beneath the headline figure, however, lies a markedly more differentiated picture that is far more relevant for individual sale preparation than the overall average.
Significant sectoral differences
The range of sectoral changes extends from +22 percent in retail and wholesale to +62 percent in other manufacturing. R&D-intensive industry and the construction sector sit between these poles, each at +51 percent, followed by knowledge-intensive services at +46 percent. Only then comes the Mittelstand average of +34 percent. Other services lie just below at +32 percent, with retail and wholesale clearly trailing at +22 percent.
This spread of 40 percentage points between the strongest and weakest sectors shows that the revaluation of the Mittelstand since 2019 has been anything but uniform. An industrial mid-market owner consulting their last valuation from 2019 systematically underestimates the current worth of their company, potentially by a significant margin. A retail owner should extrapolate more cautiously. A generic application of the headline figure of 34 percent to one’s own business leads to a misjudgement in both cases.
Manufacturing as the Driver
The fact that industry records the strongest gains has structural reasons. Industrial mid-market companies typically possess fixed assets, intellectual property and long-term customer relationships that gain in valuation relevance in an environment of rising replacement costs. Added to this is the increasing activity of strategic buyers and financial investors pursuing industrial buy-and-build strategies, which structurally supports demand for solid mid-market businesses.
The construction sector, with a 51 percent increase, benefits from similar effects and is additionally supported by public investment in infrastructure and the energy transition. The services sector shows a typical bifurcation. Knowledge-intensive services, which often build on qualified employees, established methodologies and recurring revenue streams, record an increase of 46 percent and therefore lie clearly above the Mittelstand average. The broader services sector moves close to the overall line. Retail and wholesale form the lower end, presumably as a consequence of structural pressures from the transformation of bricks-and-mortar retail and shifting consumer behaviour.
The Median Tells a Story of Its Own
One data point in the KfW survey deserves separate attention. While the average of purchase price expectations has risen by 34 percent, the median over the same period has more than doubled, rising from €175,000 to €375,000, an increase of 114 percent. The gap between mean and median has narrowed considerably. In 2019, the mean stood at 2.1 times the median; today the ratio is 1.3.
In practical interpretation, this means that the most pronounced revaluation has taken place in the broad mass of smaller and medium mid-market companies, less so in the top-end valuations of larger Mittelständler. In 2019, 18 percent of all mid-market owners would have settled for a sale price below €50,000; today the figure stands at just 5 percent. At the same time, the share of those seeking more than €1 million has risen from 18 to 27 percent.
This distributional shift points to a changed self-perception. Mid-market owners assess the value of their life’s work with greater confidence than six years ago, likely supported by an improved information environment around valuation methodologies, broader media coverage of Mittelstand M&A activity, and the experience of successful sales within their own sectors.
What This Means for Owners Preparing for a Sale
Three implications emerge concretely from these data for anyone considering a sale in the coming years.
First, the most recent valuation from 2019 or earlier offers only limited orientation today. Anyone whose last serious valuation was carried out six years ago should commission an update before making the next strategic decision. This holds true even where the business has performed stably in the meantime, because a substantial portion of the upward revaluation stems from changed market multiples rather than from operational growth.
Second, sector-specific multiples have moved noticeably apart over the past few years. A generic valuation formula carries less weight today than one grounded in comparable transactions within the same sector. This holds for buyers and sellers alike, and makes the choice of a sector-experienced advisor more important than it was only a few years ago.
Third, the distributional shift increases competitive pressure among sellers. When more mid-market owners expect higher prices, they encounter a buyer market that knows its own benchmarks well. Professionally prepared sale documentation and a structured process gain further importance under these conditions. Without a well-founded valuation basis, raised expectations are difficult to defend in negotiations.
Valuation as the Starting Point
The KfW data underscore what we have seen in our own advisory practice for years. A well-founded, sector-specific valuation belongs at the beginning of every sale process, ideally as the first structured step following the fundamental decision to sell. It creates the basis for realistic expectations, a professional approach to buyers, and a negotiating position grounded in robust comparative data.
For many owners, the valuation of their business is also an emotional question. It concerns a life’s work, the recognition of decades of building. A careful valuation that combines market data with company-specific factors is therefore more than a technical exercise. It is the foundation upon which the handover of the business can match what the investment over decades has earned.
