ADVANT Beiten Advises heise on Antitrust Law Issues in the Acquisition of Mindfactory

Berlin/Munich, 03 July 2025 - The international commercial law firm ADVANT Beiten has advised the media company heise on the acquisition of the entire business operations of the hardware retailer Mindfactory GmbH with regard to antitrust law. 

Mindfactory, based in Wilhelmshaven, was founded in 1996 and has since become one of the largest online retailers for gaming and hardware components. The company has more than 100,000 items in its product range and receives over 4 million visitors to its website every month.

The media company heise is part of the internationally active heise group based in Hanover. The current acquisition expands heise's existing portfolio, which includes the areas of IT knowledge (c't, heise online), online marketing (heise regioconcept) and price comparison (guenstiger.de and Geizhals), to include hardware trading. All employees and customer relationships will be taken over by heise and the site in Wilhelmshaven will be fully retained.

The cross-location team of ADVANT Beiten represented heise in the merger control proceedings before the German Federal Cartel Office. The authorities have yet to decide on the merger.

ADVANT Beiten regularly advises the heise group on antitrust law, most recently in 2023 on the investment in "gewusst-wo".

Advisors to heise: 
ADVANT Beiten: Uwe Wellmann (Berlin), Christoph Heinrich (Munich, both Antitrust Law).

Public Relations
Frauke Reuther
Manager Kommunikation
ADVANT Beiten
+49 (69) 75 60 95 - 570
frauke.reuther@advant-beiten.com

Uwe Wellmann
Rechtsanwalt 
ADVANT Beiten
+49 (30) 26471 – 243
Uwe.Wellmann@advant-beiten.com