BlackFin hires Kai Franzmeyer and expands footprint in Germany

Kai Wilhelm Franzmeyer (54) has been appointed Managing Director with the European private equity firm BlackFin Capital Partners. In September he will become Head of BlackFin in Germany, where he will have responsibility for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Paul Mizrahi, founding partners of BlackFin Capital Partners, says: “Germany and the DACH region play a key role in the implementation of our European strategy. We have already invested successfully in Germany with Finanzen.de and believe that the fragmented German market for financial services offers considerable potential for further interesting transactions - from innovative FinTechs to classic buy-out situations. We are now positioning ourselves in this regard and Kai Franzmeyer is the candidate of choice of the four founding partners. We first became acquainted in the nineties during the successful launch of Commerz Financial Products. He is a highly versatile and experienced manager as well as an acknowledged expert in the banking field. He was instrumental in expediting important realignments at Hypo Real Estate and Portigon (formerly WestLB). I am convinced that BlackFin and our investment management companies will benefit from his expertise. Kai Franzmeyer will liaise closely with Aloysius von Mitschke-Collande, who has built up considerable expertise in the German market with BlackFin since 2013 in his capacity as Investment Director. We also plan to strengthen the team at our Frankfurt office in the near future.”

Kai Franzmeyer says: “I am very much looking forward to working with BlackFin. They have an excellent team with profound sector expertise and a distinct European investment approach. It is a stimulating challenge for me to continue and develop the company′s impressive track record in the German-speaking area.

Kai Franzmeyer was most recently a member of the senior management of Senacor Technologies AG, a leading provider in the field of business and IT transformation, digitalisation and software development. Before that he was Chairman of the Managing Board of Portigon AG, where he was responsible for efficiently implementing the decisions of the European Commission concerning the winding up of the former WestLB. During the financial crisis he was a member of a managing board team seconded to Hypo Real Estate Holding AG and the Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG by the German financial community. After completing his business management studies and obtaining a doctorate in law, Kai Franzmeyer worked for Commerzbank, where he held various management positions over a period of several years.