Germany top banks expand private equity access for retail buyers

Germany’s largest banks and neobrokers are rolling out private equity products for small-scale investors, as global asset managers turn to retail capital amid a slowdown in institutional commitments.

Deutsche Bank, Trade Republic, BlackRock and UniCredit’s HVB are racing to open private equity access beyond traditional institutional clients. Deutsche recently partnered with Switzerland’s Partners Group to launch a private markets product that starts at €10,000 and requires customers to already hold at least €200,000 at the bank.

Fintech brokerage Trade Republic is going in the opposite direction, teaming up with EQT and Apollo to offer private equity exposure starting at €1 through mobile investing accounts. BlackRock is also distributing PE access through HVB and Scalable Capital, targeting retail clients with minimums around €10,000.

The timing isn’t accidental. Large investors such as pension funds and sovereign wealth vehicles have become slower to commit fresh capital, often waiting on existing funds to return cash. That leaves private equity firms looking elsewhere for inflows. Germany’s retail market is particularly attractive: households hold an estimated €9 trillion in financial assets, with more than a third sitting in cash or deposits.

The push comes despite a complicated domestic history. In 2004, private equity was publicly criticized in Germany when Social Democratic leader Franz Müntefering compared buyout firms to “swarms of locusts.” Today, the tone has softened, helped in part by political figures such as Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a former board member at BlackRock Germany.

Retail participation in capital markets has been rising, largely due to neobrokers. Data reviewed by Lemon.markets and Smartbroker suggests Germany has added nearly 12 million securities accounts since 2015. Still, only around one in five people hold investment accounts, well below participation rates in the US.

Industry platforms like Moonfare say consumer understanding of private equity is still underdeveloped. CEO Steffen Pauls estimates Germany trails the US and UK by about a decade in awareness and risk perception. Earlier this year, Moonfare wound down one of its own funds due to low demand, signaling that investor appetite is growing, but not yet consistent.

Investors also remain wary of illiquidity risks. Some savers still recall the aftermath of 2008, when several open-ended real estate funds gated withdrawals and later liquidated assets at discounts.

Christian Hecker, co-founder of Trade Republic, believes sentiment is shifting. He says early demand for the firm’s private markets offering has been strong and expects private equity to become “a cornerstone of retail portfolios” within five years. Others are more cautious. Steffen Meister, chair of Partners Group, warns that retail-focused funds marketed with high return expectations and easy liquidity may not be sustainable, especially if they rely on large amounts of leverage and layered fees.

Banks, asset managers and fintechs see a chance to pull German savers into higher-risk strategies after years of low rates and missed equity exposure. Whether this becomes a long-term shift in household investing or another cycle where complex products land in retail portfolios before risks are fully understood will depend on how clearly these products are explained — and how they perform when markets turn.