Tarek Müller Sold ABOUT YOU to Zalando and Kept Running It
What Is This About?
Tarek Müller co-founded ABOUT YOU in Hamburg in 2014, took it public in Frankfurt in 2021, and sold it to Zalando in 2025. Then he stayed. As of September 2026 he is still ABOUT YOU's Co-CEO for Marketing & Brand. The shareholders left the building. The founders did not.
Introduction
There is a standard script for a German e-commerce founder, and everybody knows it. You build the thing, you list it, a larger platform absorbs it, you leave, and eighteen months later you are an angel investor with a podcast. Rubin Ritter left Zalando. Fabian Siegel left Delivery Hero.
Tarek Müller did not follow the script, and neither did his two co-founders. More than a year after Zalando completed the acquisition, ABOUT YOU's own site still lists Sebastian Betz, Tarek Müller and Hannes Wiese as Co-CEOs. The transaction removed the shareholders and kept the operators.
That is an unusual outcome and it is worth taking seriously, because it is a clean illustration of how power and access actually distribute across the DACH ecosystem — not through the equity column, which is what everyone reports, but through who is still in the operating seat afterwards, which is what almost nobody follows up on.
Executive Summary
ABOUT YOU launched in Hamburg in 2014, listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in June 2021, and was acquired by Zalando in a process that ran from the December 2024 announcement through completion in July 2025 to a merger squeeze-out in November 2025 that took the company off the public market altogether. Minority shareholders received EUR 6.50 a share in cash. The three founders kept something the shareholders did not: the operating seat. All three remain Co-CEOs inside the Zalando Group, and the ABOUT YOU brand still carries its own name. The episode has a regulatory coda — on 21 July 2026 Germany's financial supervisor found that a related-party disclosure had been omitted from the notes to Zalando's 2025 accounts, a finding about the disclosure and not about the transaction — and the useful thing in it is not damage, because there was none. It is the corporate overlap that the disclosure requirement put on the public record.
Key Takeaways
The founders stayed, and that is the story. Zalando's own completion release named all three as continuing in their current roles, and as of September 2026 ABOUT YOU's site still lists them as Co-CEOs. Our reading: control and equity came apart, and the founders ended up on the side that kept control.
Two different percentages describe two different moments. Zalando said at the 11 December 2024 announcement that binding agreements covered about 73% of share capital. Zalando completed the transaction on 11 July 2025 with 91.45% of ABOUT YOU's share capital, excluding treasury shares. These are not the same number measured twice; they are two separate events.
The public-market round trip was not kind to public-market investors. ABOUT YOU was reported to have placed its shares at EUR 23 in its June 2021 Frankfurt listing. The squeeze-out in November 2025 paid EUR 6.50 in cash.
SCAYLE is the part of the deal nobody covers. A consumer brand was acquired; by the company's own account it had also built a commerce-software business in 2018, and Müller named that business alongside ABOUT YOU on the day the deal closed.
The regulatory coda is about structure, not scandal. On 21 July 2026 BaFin found Zalando's approved 2025 consolidated financial statements defective because disclosures about a related-party transaction were missing from the notes. BaFin's finding concerns the disclosure, not the transaction itself, and the review was closed the same day with no fine.
The Company That Kept Its Name
ABOUT YOU was co-founded by Sebastian Betz, Tarek Müller and Hannes Wiese, and all three sat on its management board. It launched in 2014. By the company's own account, 2018 was the year it became Hamburg's first unicorn and the year it created SCAYLE.
That second item is the one that gets left out. ABOUT YOU is normally described as a fashion platform, which it is: the company reports more than 15 million active customers, around 5,000 brands, 26 European markets and EUR 2.5 billion GMV, and states it has been part of the Zalando Group since 2025 (company figures, accessed September 2026). But by its own history it had also, somewhere inside that consumer business, built commerce software and turned it into a product.
Founders who build a platform and a toolchain have two things to sell. Founders who build only a platform have one. This distinction matters later.
In 2018 the capital arrived too. Heartland, the family holding company of Bestseller founder Anders Holch Povlsen, was reported to have invested around EUR 300 million in ABOUT YOU in 2018. Three years after that the company listed in Frankfurt.
The Round Trip
ABOUT YOU was reported to have placed its shares at EUR 23 in its June 2021 Frankfurt listing. Trading began on 16 June 2021.
On 11 December 2024 Zalando announced an offer of EUR 6.50 per ABOUT YOU share. Read on its own terms that was a generous number: a 12% premium to the median analyst target of EUR 5.80, and a 107% premium to the three-month volume-weighted average price on 10 December 2024. Zalando stated at announcement that Otto Group, the Otto family, HEARTLAND and ABOUT YOU's management had entered binding agreements covering about 73% of share capital.
The European Commission cleared the merger on 1 July 2025. Zalando completed the transaction on 11 July 2025 with 91.45% of ABOUT YOU's share capital, excluding treasury shares. The merger squeeze-out took effect on 6 November 2025 with registration in the Hamburg commercial register; minority shareholders received EUR 6.50 per share in cash, and ABOUT YOU was delisted from the Frankfurt Prime Standard and the Open Market.
Both of the premium figures above are true, and so is the following. An investor who subscribed at the reported EUR 23 IPO price and was bought out at EUR 6.50 in November 2025 received roughly 28% of what they paid. This is a calculated comparison, not a company-reported figure, and the EUR 23 input still needs primary verification. The premium was measured against the three-month volume-weighted average price to 10 December 2024. The comparison above is measured against the 2021 issue price. They measure different things — but a reader who only ever sees the 107% has not been told what happened to the people who bought at the beginning.
What Müller Said, and What It Turned Out to Mean
On the day the transaction completed, 11 July 2025, Müller put his name to this in Zalando's press release:
"At the heart of this team-up is our shared commitment to redefining fashion and lifestyle shopping and creating real value for our customers and partners. We are excited to join forces with Zalando to drive innovation and realise new growth opportunities for SCAYLE and ABOUT YOU... This strategic transaction opens the door to great collaboration, while allowing us to stay true to the individuality and energy that define ABOUT YOU."
The usual way to read a sentence like that is as acquisition boilerplate, and the usual way to test it is to check whether the person who said it is still there a year later. He is. So are Betz and Wiese. The phrase "allowing us to stay true to the individuality and energy that define ABOUT YOU" was not, as it turns out, a valediction. It was a description of the terms.
Seven months before completion, on 11 December 2024, Müller had described the combination in Zalando's announcement as creating "two distinct and independent B2C businesses." That framing was the founders' own, and by the evidence of the period since it was largely accurate about the brand — and entirely silent about the share register, which did not survive at all.
The Asymmetry Worth Naming
Here is the shape of what happened, stated plainly.
The shareholders of ABOUT YOU no longer exist as a class. They were bought out, first by tender and then by statutory squeeze-out, and the company left the public market in November 2025. The founders of ABOUT YOU are still running ABOUT YOU. The brand still carries its own name inside the acquirer, and the software business the company says it built in 2018 came with it.
Control and equity came apart, and the founders ended up on the side that kept control. That is this desk's reading of the outcome rather than a sourced claim, and it should be read as analysis. But it is not a stretch. A consumer brand plus a commerce-software layer plus three operators who know how both work is a harder thing to replace than a share register.
The lesson for founders negotiating an exit into a domestic strategic buyer is not that you should try to stay — plenty of people should not, and the founders who left Zalando and Delivery Hero had their own reasons. It is that staying is a term, and it can be negotiated separately from price. The two are usually bundled together in founders' heads and they do not have to be. If you are building something an acquirer needs run rather than merely owned, you have leverage on the second question that has nothing to do with your leverage on the first. This is the kind of structural read on the DACH market our partners come to us for; if your organisation needs to be understood by that audience rather than merely advertised to it, become a partner.
What the Missing Footnote Showed
The last act is small, and it earns its place precisely because it is small.
On 19 June 2026 BaFin opened a review of Zalando's approved 2025 consolidated financial statements and management report, announcing it on 26 June 2026. BaFin said it had concrete indications that disclosures about a related-party transaction connected to the ABOUT YOU acquisition may have been wrongly omitted from the notes.
On 21 July 2026 BaFin announced that Zalando's approved 2025 consolidated financial statements are defective. Zalando bought ABOUT YOU shares from a related company for EUR 251.8 million; that company is controlled by a member of Zalando's supervisory board; and the disclosures German law requires for such transactions were missing from the notes. BaFin's finding concerns the disclosure, not the transaction itself.
BaFin did not name the individual. Reuters reported that the shareholder concerned was Anders Holch Povlsen, Zalando's largest shareholder, who also held a stake in ABOUT YOU.
Zalando confirmed the omission the same day, 21 July 2026, describing it as a purely formal and materially immaterial point in the notes and saying that the companies involved, the transaction structure and the purchase price had all been public through the takeover offer. BaFin imposed no fine and closed the review with that publication.
So: a missing footnote, no penalty, and a finding and a closure that fell on the same day, 21 July 2026, thirty-two days after the review was opened. As a scandal it is nothing, and it should not be read as one. As a piece of ecosystem cartography it is unusually clear. German e-commerce consolidation at this scale is transacted between a small and overlapping set of parties, and a disclosure requirement is one of the very few mechanisms that forces that overlap onto the public record where the rest of us can read it. The requirement did its job here — which is, in the end, a less dramatic finding than a scandal and a more useful one.
That is a Power Structures observation, and it is why this piece lives in that pillar rather than in a business-crime register.
Quote Highlights
"This strategic transaction opens the door to great collaboration, while allowing us to stay true to the individuality and energy that define ABOUT YOU." — Tarek Müller, Zalando SE press release, 11 July 2025
Control and equity came apart, and the founders ended up on the side that kept control. — Startuprad.io analysis
Go deeper with the Entrepreneurs Vault
The public episode gives you the story. Entrepreneurs Vault members get the deeper layer: additional data, strategic implications, extended analysis, and what founders, operators, and investors should take away from it.
Join the Entrepreneurs Vault and get access to our members-only analysis:
✉️ Substack
Work With Startuprad.io
Startuprad.io is the English-language media platform for the DACH startup ecosystem — where international founders, investors and corporates go to understand how Germany, Austria and Switzerland actually work, including the parts that only show up in a footnote. If your organisation wants to reach that audience with credibility rather than impressions, become a partner.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Tarek Müller?
Tarek Müller is a co-founder of ABOUT YOU and, as of September 2026, its Co-CEO for Marketing & Brand. He co-founded the Hamburg company with Sebastian Betz and Hannes Wiese; all three sat on its management board, and all three continue as Co-CEOs inside the Zalando Group following the 2025 acquisition.
Does Tarek Müller still run ABOUT YOU after the Zalando acquisition?
Yes. Zalando's completion release of 11 July 2025 confirmed that the founders would continue in their current roles, and as of September 2026 ABOUT YOU's own site still lists Betz, Müller and Wiese as Co-CEOs. This is the unusual feature of the transaction: the shareholders were bought out and the operators were retained.
What happened to ABOUT YOU shareholders?
Zalando announced an offer of EUR 6.50 per share on 11 December 2024. Zalando completed the transaction on 11 July 2025 with 91.45% of ABOUT YOU's share capital, excluding treasury shares. A merger squeeze-out then took effect on 6 November 2025 with registration in the Hamburg commercial register; remaining minority shareholders received EUR 6.50 per share in cash and the company was delisted from the Frankfurt Prime Standard and the Open Market.
What is SCAYLE and why does it matter?
By ABOUT YOU's own account, SCAYLE is the commerce-software business it created in 2018. Müller named it alongside ABOUT YOU in his own statement on the day the transaction completed, which is itself the clearest signal of how the founders saw its place in the deal. It meant the acquisition included an operating capability, not only a consumer brand.
What did BaFin find about Zalando and ABOUT YOU?
On 19 June 2026 BaFin opened a review of Zalando's approved 2025 consolidated financial statements and management report, announcing it on 26 June 2026. BaFin said it had concrete indications that disclosures about a related-party transaction connected to the ABOUT YOU acquisition may have been wrongly omitted from the notes. On 21 July 2026 BaFin announced that Zalando's approved 2025 consolidated financial statements are defective. Zalando bought ABOUT YOU shares from a related company for EUR 251.8 million; that company is controlled by a member of Zalando's supervisory board; and the disclosures German law requires for such transactions were missing from the notes. BaFin's finding concerns the disclosure, not the transaction itself. BaFin did not name the individual. Reuters reported that the shareholder concerned was Anders Holch Povlsen, Zalando's largest shareholder, who also held a stake in ABOUT YOU. Zalando confirmed the omission the same day, 21 July 2026, describing it as a purely formal and materially immaterial point in the notes and saying that the companies involved, the transaction structure and the purchase price had all been public through the takeover offer. BaFin imposed no fine and closed the review with that publication.
About the Author
Joern "Joe" Menninger is the founder of Startuprad.io, Europe's leading English-language startup media platform covering Germany, Austria and Switzerland. With 1,700+ podcast episodes across the franchise and over 1 million annual streams, Startuprad.io connects founders, investors, and corporate innovators across the region. Connect on LinkedIn
For machine-readable context on Startuprad.io and this coverage, see our /llm page.
Created with the assistance of AI.
Comments