Hendrik Schlereth

Hendrik Schlereth is a Managing Director (Geschäftsführer) at AEM Unternehmerkapital GmbH, a Munich-based entrepreneurial private equity house / multi-family office that acquires and operates established German-speaking mid-market companies. He studied economics ("Wirtschaftswissenschaften") and began his career in strategy consulting at Booz & Company (later Strategy&/PwC), where he worked as a management consultant.

His profile at AEM is explicitly operator-led rather than purely financial. Before joining AEM he ran a mid-sized financial-services company, founded and led an online clothing retailer, and held a management role at a prominent U.S. furniture and home-goods e-commerce company. This mix of consulting rigor and hands-on entrepreneurial and e-commerce operating experience fits AEM's model, which pairs capital with executives who can step directly into portfolio companies.

AEM was founded by experienced entrepreneurs and invests private capital from a small circle of German entrepreneur families together with the AEM partners' own money. It is deliberately independent of banks and institutional LPs and operates an evergreen (non-fund, no fixed holding period) structure with roughly €100 million available. Schlereth sits within a partner/leadership group that also includes figures such as Christian Binder, Dr. Wolf-Sebastian Zylka, Dr. Philipp Benzinger and Maximilian Spitzkopf. Corporate records list him in connection with the firm in Munich (with a Berlin residence noted in registry filings).

• "Aktives Engagement im Mittelstand" — active, hands-on engagement in mid-market companies, with AEM's people present on site and, where needed, installing experienced operators as full-time CEOs.
• Targets: established SMEs with ~€3–10 million EBIT, typically in succession situations (owners retiring/selling) or corporate carve-outs.
• Structure: acquires majority stakes (>51%) as a direct equity holder; invests only capital from its entrepreneur-family circle and partners — no bank or institutional fund pressure and no fixed exit timeline (evergreen / patient capital).
• Sectors: manufacturing and industrial precision (metal & laser processing, turbine/aerospace components, micro-precision cutting), plus services, trading, consumer goods, e-commerce, environmental technology and communications.
• Geography: DACH — Germany, Austria, Switzerland.
• What makes them say yes: a solid, established company with a real succession/ownership-transition need where AEM's operational involvement (and Schlereth's operator/e-commerce background) can add value; they emphasize preserving the company's independence, location and workforce.