This is a profile image of Max Flötotto

Max Flötotto

Senior PartnerMunich

Serves leading financial institutions on strategy and M&A throughout the deal cycle, from due diligence to integration; works intensively with fintech companies

Max leads McKinsey’s work for the banking sector in Germany and coleads our European fintech service. He has supported clients in building multiple businesses. In his M&A role, Max has supported companies in more than 40 integrations around the world, particularly in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. He focuses on deals involving financial institutions from start to finish, from M&A strategy, target identification, and due diligence to integration design, planning, and execution.

Examples of Max’s recent client work include the following:

  • defining a future-proof strategy for a leading universal bank in Europe
  • building a new retail bank from scratch in less than 12 months
  • delivering synergies worth more than €1 billion in a multiyear integration of two European banks
  • merging a European bank’s shared-service units—including a carve-out and legal-entity merger—to create one integrated holding
  • guiding a complex, three-way merger of universal banks in the United Arab Emirates
  • conducting numerous buyer due-diligence reviews, including on a European payment provider, a consumer-finance niche company in Germany, and a Western European retail bank
  • developing a regional operating model for a global insurance company across multiple countries

Max writes extensively on M&A, banking, and fintech trends and leads research projects on European banking. He speaks regularly at conferences in the banking and fintech communities.

Published work

Europe’s fintech opportunity,” McKinsey & Company, October 2022

Fintech in Africa: The end of the beginning,” McKinsey & Company, August 2022

Pathway to distinctive performance: M&A options for European insurers,” McKinsey & Company, March 2022

Entrepreneurship zeitgeist 2030,” McKinsey & Company, October 2021

Seeds of outperformance: How M&A can help banks thrive in the next normal,” McKinsey & Company, July 2021

Europe’s innovation wunderkinds: The rising B2B start-up ecosystem,” McKinsey & Company, April 2021

Can’t buy love: Corporate-start-up partnerships in the DACH region,” McKinsey & Company, September 2020

Detour: An altered path to profit for European fintechs,” McKinsey & Company, September 2020

When start-ups scale up: Lessons on building up culture and talent,” McKinsey & Company, July 2020

How EMEA start-ups are dealing with COVID-19,” McKinsey & Company, May 2020

Realizing M & A value creation in US banking and fintech Nine steps for success,” McKinsey & Company, November 2019

Eight basic beliefs about capturing value in a merger,” McKinsey & Company, April 2019

“Integrationsmanagement,” in Handbuch Unternehmenskauf, ninth edition, Verlag Dr. Otto Schmidt, 2019

The road to success: Perspectives on German banking,” McKinsey & Company, 2019

Really uncertain business cycles,” Econometrica, May 2018

Zum umbau gibt es keine alternative,” Börsen-Zeitung, September 2016

Government intervention in the housing market: Who wins, who loses?,” Journal of Monetary Economics, June 2016

The road ahead: Perspectives on German banking,” McKinsey & Company, April 2016

Getting a head start on joint integration planning using a safe zone,” McKinsey & Company, April 2015

Firm dynamics, markup variations, and the business cycle,” Journal of Monetary Economics, October 2008

Education

Stanford University
PhD, economics

University of Mannheim
MA, economics