Buying an insolvent company in Germany (2026): process, asset deal, administrator

A company is insolvent once it's illiquid (§17 InsO) or over-indebted (§19 InsO). Management must then file for insolvency without culpable delay — at the latest within three weeks — at the competent local insolvency court. Filing late is a criminal offence (Insolvenzverschleppung, §15a InsO).

The court appoints first a provisional and, after opening, a final insolvency administrator (Insolvenzverwalter). From opening, the power to dispose of the estate passes to them — for buyers, the administrator is the only relevant contact. Under self-administration (§270 InsO), management stays in place but is supervised by a trustee (Sachwalter).

Key point for buyers: in insolvency, 'buying the company' almost always means acquiring the valuable assets out of the estate (asset deal) — not the legal entity with its debts. The insolvent entity itself continues to exist and is liquidated after realisation.

Phase 1 — public notice (§9 InsO): Every insolvency opening is published, with legal effect, on insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de. That's the source every serious deal starts from. Asset sales also appear on marketplaces like DUB, dinsob or Mabya.

Phase 2 — first contact (weeks 0–8): After opening, the administrator inventories the estate and sounds out interested parties. This is your window. Enquiring only weeks later often means the attractive assets are already reserved.

Phase 3 — due diligence & offer (weeks 4–12): Asset review, indicative offer, proof of financing. Administrators work with several bidders in parallel; speed and creditworthiness decide.

Phase 4 — purchase agreement & closing (weeks 8–20): Negotiating the Asset Purchase Agreement (APA), creditor-committee approval where required, payment, transfer. Then: operational handover, brand re-registration, domain transfer, employee transfer under §613a BGB.

The full timeline from notice to closing is typically 6 to 20 weeks — much faster than a classic business succession, which runs for months or over a year.

The administrator is legally obliged to realise the estate as well as possible (§159 InsO) — so they must talk to you if your offer is credible. At the same time they triage hard: a large share of enquiries just cost them time.

What convinces an administrator: (1) a clear statement of which assets you want (inventory? brand? domain? customer base? the whole operation?), (2) solid proof of financing (bank letter, equity confirmation), (3) a realistic price indication, and (4) a ready team (lawyer, tax advisor, escrow if needed).

A good first contact is short and specific: 'I'm , interested in acquiring assets of , case number . Specifically I'm looking at . My budget range is . Can we speak next week?' Don't ask for 'more information' before you've done your own research.

Übernahme-Radar attaches the responsible administrator, their firm and a contact path to every case, so you go straight into the approach instead of first resolving a case number to an address.

In an asset deal you buy individual assets out of the estate: inventory, brand, customer base, machinery, contracts, the webshop, possibly the workforce via the business-transfer rule (§613a BGB). The old liabilities stay with the insolvent company. This is the default.

In a share deal you buy the entity's shares themselves — including all liabilities. In insolvency this almost never makes sense; the only exceptions are tax loss carry-forwards or non-transferable licences tied to the entity. If you're offered a share deal, ask precisely why.

Rule of thumb: around 95 % of insolvency transactions are asset deals. This fork determines liability, tax and contract transferability — it belongs at the start of every review, not the end.

Brand & domain are often the most valuable assets — especially in D2C brands. Check trademark register status (DPMA/EUIPO), domain registration (WHOIS) and reputation (Trustpilot, Google reviews). Watch out: the domain is often privately registered to the founder, or the brand sits with another group entity.

Customer data is sensitive under GDPR: transferable only on a solid legal basis or within a genuine business transfer. This is the single most common legal pitfall.

Contracts: which survive the insolvency, which terminate? Supplier, lease and SaaS contracts with 'change-of-control' clauses are especially critical.

Employees: §613a BGB transfers employment relationships automatically when you take over the operation. Whether you want that is a strategic decision — negotiate it deliberately.

Inventory & logistics: where are goods stored, on what terms, and do you take over the logistics contracts? A realistically valued inventory belongs in every offer.

Phantom assets: the brand belongs to a sister company, the domain to the founder personally, the customer list isn't transferable. Verify ownership before you make an offer — not after.

Time pressure: administrators have hard deadlines. Needing six weeks for due diligence loses the deal. Line up your team in advance.

Clawback risk: payments shortly before insolvency can be reversed (Insolvenzanfechtung, §§129 ff. InsO). Low risk in an asset purchase from a running insolvency, real in pre-insolvency purchases.

VAT: asset deals often trigger VAT — except in a going-concern transfer (§1(1a) UStG). Structured wrong, it can add 19 % to the price. Have your tax advisor calculate it.

Going concern: a shut-down business loses value daily — customers leave, employees quit. Clarify early whether operations continue until closing.

The core problem isn't access to insolvencies — they're public on insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de. The problem is signal quality: no filters by industry, size or region, no enrichment, no assessment of whether a case even has buyable substance value. Scanning manually costs three to four hours a day.

Übernahme-Radar aggregates §9 notices, Handelsregister extracts, Bundesanzeiger annual accounts and asset-sale marketplaces into one stream. Every case gets AI deep research and a Deal Playbook — a concrete action plan for your buyer profile, including the administrator contact and an estimated substance value.

You define your profile once in a single sentence ('D2C shops €50–500k, NRW, English-friendly founder') and receive daily matches scored against it. Four hours of scanning become ten minutes — and a static list becomes a live pipeline.

That's exactly the difference from static guides and marketplaces: the federal-state pages below show live buyable cases per region — a real-time view no static competitor can offer.