Germany’s overlooked industrial assets offer investor opportunity

Speaking to Real Asset Media at Mipim 2026 in Cannes, Dr Wulf Meinel, founding partner at StoneVest, set out why investors should look beyond logistics to uncover value in Germany’s industrial sector.

He acknowledged the challenging macro backdrop but framed it as an opportunity rather than a deterrent.

“The German economy faces some headwinds, but headwinds are a chance,” he said. “If you take a detailed look into the German market, it offers more opportunities than you would imagine.”

Meinel argued that investors often overlook a key distinction within industrial real estate. While logistics has dominated capital flows, he highlighted owner-occupied, mission-critical production assets as a significantly underappreciated segment.

“The owner-occupied mission-critical production asset is an undervalued sector with an enormous market potential,” he said.

This opportunity is rooted in the structure of Germany’s corporate landscape. A large share of industrial companies – particularly the Mittelstand – still own their production facilities and have historically not used them as a financing tool.

“That over 70%, nearly 80% of German industries… are owners of their mission-critical production assets,” Meinel said. “So far, [they’ve] only in very few cases used this as a source of their corporate financing. This is now carefully and slowly breaking up.”

As these ownership structures begin to evolve, he sees a pipeline of potential transactions emerging, creating entry points for investors.

Meinel also pushed back against the idea that German manufacturing is in structural decline or relocating en masse due to cost pressures. Instead, he emphasised the strength of the country’s industrial base.

“The German workforce is not so expensive compared to international prices that the German Mittelstand companies are all turning their back to working in Germany,” he said. “They’re staying there because it’s very qualified personnel.”

He added that innovation remains a core strength of the economy, noting that “the innovation index within the German economy is 10% higher than the average of its European neighbours”.

This combination of skilled labour, innovation and established industrial bases creates what he described as “sticky” occupiers – companies that are deeply tied to their locations and unlikely to relocate.

“They are sticky to their locations,” Meinel said, concluding that this makes such assets “a very attractive investment target if one looks into where one should invest into German real estate”.