Investment Activities of German (Family) Companies: Developments, Locations and Influence Factors

In 2017 the Family Business Foundation (Stiftung Familienunternehmen) commissioned the ifo Institute to analyse the investment activity of German companies and build up a comprehensive database of companies with a view to making it one of the leading data sources for scientific research into the activities of family businesses in the future. As part of this analysis both family-owned and non-family-owned companies were surveyed on their investment activities over the period of May to July 2017. Information on the investment behaviour of around 1,500 German companies was collected in the survey. According to the results of this company survey, Germany remains by far the most important investment location for the majority of German companies at the moment. International investment locations nevertheless still matter, with 16.3% of companies citing Europe as their central investment location. For 10.2% and/or 7.7% of companies Asia and/or the USA plays a central role.