Cantourage Group SE (XETRA: HIGH) The Quiet German Cannabis Compounder Nobody Is Watching?
I have followed Cantourage since its IPO, and I will be honest with you: back then I found it far too expensive and I passed. That turned out to be one of those decisions that ages strangely. The company has since multiplied its revenue roughly ten-fold, turned profitable, and yet the share price sits at a fraction of where the hype once put it. When something does ten times the business at a tenth of the valuation, my contrarian antenna starts twitching.
I recently sat down for a long conversation with CEO Philip Schetter — yes, we share the first name, and I always enjoy when a founder is willing to go deep into the weeds with me. What I want to do in this piece is take that discussion, fact-check it against where the business and the regulation actually stand in mid-2026 (because a few things have moved against the rosy picture management painted a year ago), and then frame the whole thing through my Fair-PE lens.
The one-line thesis: Cantourage is a profitable, asset-light, founder-led aggregator of premium medical cannabis with a genuinely pan-European footprint, trading on a depressed multiple because the entire German cannabis complex is out of favour and a regulatory tightening is looming. If the 2028 normalised EPS of around EUR 0.60 is right, a conservative 16x Fair-PE points to roughly 16% annualised upside over three years — with several free options on top.
1. The Business: Everything Except Growing
What the company actually does
Schetter likes a simple analogy, and I will borrow it. Cantourage does not grow cannabis. It sources the raw flower from carefully selected cultivators around the world — Canada above all, but also Australia, New Zealand, Africa, South America — imports it into Germany, and performs the regulated, quality-relevant manufacturing steps that turn agricultural product into a certified medicine: drying, trimming, irradiation to reduce microbial load, testing, labelling, packaging, documentation. Think of buying the best apples in the world, pressing them into a pharma-grade juice, and getting the government stamp that lets a pharmacy dispense it.
The name itself is a portmanteau of “cannabis” and “entourage” — a nod both to the founding team that has worked together in cannabis since 2016, and to the so-called entourage effect, the idea that the plant’s many compounds work better in concert than in isolation. It is a clumsy word to say the first time. That is rather the point; it sticks.
How they make money
This is the part that I think the market under-appreciates. By splitting cultivation from manufacturing — radical when they started — Cantourage captures the manufacturer’s margin, not just a distributor’s thin spread. The growers they partner with are world-class at growing but typically cannot make medicine from their crop. Cantourage becomes the aggregator that does the hard, expensive, heavily regulated processing for many partners at once, then handles European distribution to pharmacies and wholesalers. Two main product lines: cannabis flower (the growth engine, premium and “craft” positioning) and dronabinol (essentially pure THC, prescribed in palliative and chronic-pain settings, where Cantourage is the German market leader).
Brand: a House of Brands
Cantourage runs a “House of Brands.” Strictly speaking these are not its own brands but those of its cultivation partners — names that already carry equity in Canada, on both medical and recreational markets, and bleed across borders into the awareness of European patients and doctors. Schetter’s logic is sound: why spend years building a brand in Europe when you can secure exclusive European manufacturing and distribution rights to growers who already did it? In the premium and craft flower segment, Cantourage is one of one or two clear leaders, with a comfortably double-digit market share.
The moat
No one moat here is a fortress, but together they add up. The exclusive, long-term, largely exclusive supply relationships with top cultivators are hard to replicate — those growers are not numerous and the good ones are spoken for. The certified manufacturing infrastructure and the regulatory know-how to document every step are a real barrier; the German facility already runs above 100% capacity, which is why management added contract-manufacturing capacity in Portugal. And the network effect of being the partner of choice for both cultivators and pharmacies compounds quietly. Replaceable? Not easily. But I would not call it un-disruptable either, which is why discipline on price matters.
2. The Market: Big, Growing, and Politically Charged
Germany is, by a distance, Europe’s largest medical cannabis market, and the numbers explain the excitement. Around 20 tonnes of cannabis were imported in 2023; after the April 2024 reform reclassified medical cannabis from a narcotic to an ordinary prescription medicine, imports exploded — official data showed flower imports up roughly 170% from the first half of 2024 to the second half. The black market in Germany is conservatively estimated at around 400 tonnes. The legal medical market is a sliver of that. The structural runway is enormous, and Cantourage does not have to invent demand — it just has to convert it.
Beyond Germany, Cantourage is genuinely pan-European: the UK (now over 20% of group revenue and growing nicely), Poland, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Denmark. That breadth is the company’s key differentiator versus German-only peers, and it is the insurance policy against any single jurisdiction turning hostile.
And here is where I must correct last year’s optimism
In my conversation, management was relaxed about regulation, expecting little near-term change and viewing telemedicine (“Telecan”) as a growth lever. That picture has since shifted, and I want to be straight with you rather than parrot the interview. In July 2025 the Health Ministry tabled a draft amendment to the Medical Cannabis Act; the Federal Cabinet adopted a revised version on 8 October 2025; the Bundesrat weighed in (with additional tightening proposals) in November 2025; the Bundestag held its first reading in December 2025 and an expert committee hearing in January 2026, with second and third readings expected in spring 2026.
The thrust of the bill is a partial return to analogue care: cannabis flower may only be prescribed after in-person doctor-patient contact (repeat prescriptions remotely only if there was a personal consultation within the prior four quarters), and the mail-order dispensing of flower is to be curtailed, though pharmacy courier services remain. In plain terms: the pure telemedicine-plus-mail-order model that drove part of the recent German boom is being squeezed. This is the single most important change versus the bullish interview narrative, and it is exactly why the stock is where it is.
3. Culture and Management: Founder-Led and Frugal
This is a box I like to tick hard, and Cantourage ticks it. Schetter is not a cannabis tourist. Industrial engineering degree, a stint in structured products at Goldman (he started in trading days after Lehman collapsed — quite the baptism), then management consulting, before building Aurora’s European platform from roughly 20 to over 300 people with production in Germany and Denmark. He left the European market leader to co-found Cantourage in 2021 with close friends — and crucially, the lesson he carried out of Aurora was that cultivation assets are capital-hungry and risky, while manufacturing is the true bottleneck. That conviction is the entire operating model.
The capital discipline shows. The company raised less than EUR 10 million before its IPO, the two founders still hold around two thirds of the equity, and the cap table is short. Management talks like owners because they are owners. When I pushed the UK team on details, Schetter told me they are sometimes surprised by how deep into the numbers he goes — “they turn over every euro.” Lean structures, B2B sales efficiency, and a refusal to chase unprofitable growth. For a Berlin startup, dancing around break-even from early on is genuinely atypical, and I respect it.
On governance and continuity: the Supervisory Board recently prolonged Schetter’s CEO mandate by five years, and Monique Jaqqam was appointed CFO — a sensible professionalisation as the organisation scales with its revenue. Co-founder Patrick Hoffmann is also on the Management Board. The band, as Schetter puts it, is together for the long haul.
4. Financials: Growth With Actual Profit
Here is what separates Cantourage from the graveyard of cannabis equities: it grows fast and it makes money. Preliminary 2025 group revenue came in at EUR 92.8 million, up 82.3% on 2024’s EUR 50.9 million, with preliminary EBITDA of EUR 5.7 million (versus EUR 3.8 million). The nine-month 2025 figures already showed revenue up 148% to roughly EUR 75 million with EBITDA near EUR 3.9 million. Management has signalled 2025 EBITDA running ahead of prior market expectations.
The accounting wrinkle that hides the earnings
This is the detail that makes the valuation cheaper than it looks. To IPO quickly, the founders contributed the operating GmbH into an SE shell at a valuation of around EUR 40 million. Under German HGB accounting, that goodwill is being amortised straight-line over ten years — roughly EUR 4 million a year of a purely non-cash charge that depresses reported net income. Under IFRS, you would not amortise it linearly; you would test it for impairment, and given the GmbH is the profitable heart of the business, it is hard to argue its value has shrunk. So when you see a reported net profit of, say, around EUR 1 million, the honest economic earnings are closer to EUR 5 million. Add that EUR 4 million back and the stock is dramatically cheaper than the screen suggests. Management acknowledges a future IFRS switch is possible; for now they have prioritised operations over accounting elegance, which is the right order of priorities.
Margins
EBITDA margins sit in the mid-single digits at group level but the Q1 2025 disclosure pointed to an 11-13% EBITDA margin in the quarter, and management is deliberately steering Germany toward higher-margin premium product to escape the brutal low-price flower competition. With the goodwill add-back, normalised net margins and return on equity are far healthier than the GAAP optics. Price/book recently sat near 1.5x — modest for a business compounding revenue at this rate.
5. Valuation: The Fair-PE Model
Regular readers know I anchor on my Fair-PE framework: take a defensible normalised forward EPS, apply a fair (not heroic) multiple appropriate to the quality and durability of the earnings, and solve for the implied annualised return over a three-year horizon. No DCF acrobatics, no hockey sticks — just what a rational owner would pay.
For Cantourage I use a 2028 normalised EPS of EUR 0.60 Against that I apply a deliberately conservative Fair PE of 16x — below a typical specialty-pharma multiple, to haircut for the regulatory overhang and the micro-cap liquidity. That yields a 2028 fair value of roughly EUR 9.60.
6. Risks: Why the Opportunity Exists
A cheap stock is cheap for reasons, and intellectual honesty demands I lay them out. The price action — a long sideways-to-down grind well below the IPO — is explained by a few overlapping forces, none of which I think are permanent:
Regulatory overhang. The MedCanG amendment squeezing telemedicine and flower mail-order is the dominant fear. It is real, but it primarily hits the convenience/online channel and the recreational-adjacent grey zone, not the core medical demand — and Cantourage is diversified across countries and into dronabinol, which is unaffected.
Sector trauma. Investors who got burned in Canadian cannabis (Aurora, Tilray, Canopy) tar the whole space with the same brush. German small-cap funds have pulled money from the segment, and several listed cannabis names lost 80-90% of their market cap. Cantourage’s mere sideways move is, relatively, a strong result.
Liquidity and a short float. The frugal pre-IPO capital raising means very few shares trade. After an initial run on a tiny free float, demand faded simply because there was nothing to buy. Lock-ups loosened in November 2024 and some early investors have begun supplying stock to revive trading — liquidity is improving but remains a genuine constraint for institutions.
Obscurity. It is a German micro-cap in an unloved sector. Most investors have simply never looked. That is the inefficiency I am trying to exploit.
Execution and supply. Reliance on exclusive cultivator relationships and on tight regulatory compliance means a soured partnership or a manufacturing/quality issue would bite. Capacity is already stretched, hence Portugal.
My read: the market is pricing Cantourage as if the German medical market is about to be gutted. The likelier outcome is a tightening of the online/mail channel that trims one growth vector while the core medical business, the international expansion, and dronabinol carry on. Mispriced fear, in other words.
7. Latest News and Earnings
The most important recent data point is the preliminary 2025 release in March 2026: EUR 92.8 million revenue (+82.3%) and EUR 5.7 million EBITDA, with the UK now above 20% of group sales and management explicitly pivoting the German mix toward premium to defend profitability against low-price competition. The Q3 2025 release in October had already shown nine-month revenue up 148% to about EUR 75 million; Schetter was candid that “Germany remains a challenging market in a difficult regulatory and economic environment,” while the business kept scaling. Earlier in 2025, Q1 carried an 11-13% EBITDA margin and Q2 was a record quarter that alone surpassed full-year 2023.
On the corporate side: the CFO appointment (Monique Jaqqam), the five-year extension of Schetter’s mandate, a strengthened investor-relations function with a strategic focus on Europe, and management guidance that 2025 EBITDA would beat market expectations. The next scheduled earnings update is in early June 2026 — worth watching for how the company frames the now-advancing MedCanG amendment and for the first read on 2026 momentum. The Frankfurt consensus a year ago looked for around EUR 85 million in 2025 revenue; the company comfortably beat that, which is the kind of under-promise-over-deliver I like to see from owner-operators.
8. Conclusion and Investment Case
Cantourage is, to me, a rare thing: a real European growth story headquartered in Germany that is actually profitable, run by aligned founders with two thirds of the stock, on a multiple that prices in a near-worst-case regulatory outcome. The Fair-PE math — EUR 0.60 of 2028 normalised EPS at a sober 16x — supports roughly 16% annualised returns over three years, and that is before the option value.
The catalysts that could force a re-rating, in rough order of probability:
No catastrophic German change. If the MedCanG amendment lands as a manageable tightening of the online channel rather than a gutting of medical access, the overhang lifts and the multiple normalises.
New medical markets opening. Spain, France, and a wider Italian opening are potentially gigantic. Cantourage’s portfolio, operating model, and cultivator network position it to move fast and take share early.
New form factors. R&D on edibles, vapes, and other formats within the tight regulatory frame — easier in the UK today — could expand the addressable market, especially as younger patients shy away from smoking.
Full recreational liberalisation. The long shot, but a genuine game-changer: any country opening a recreational market plays directly to Cantourage’s premium-flower strength, and management says they would be “at the start line” immediately.
Use of net cash and the goodwill normalisation. A frugal, near-net-cash balance sheet funds growth without dilution, and an eventual IFRS switch would make the true earnings power visible to screen-driven investors overnight.
Liquidity improvement. As the float deepens, the door opens to the small-cap funds that simply cannot trade it today.
Bottom line: a profitable, founder-led, asset-light compounder with a pan-European moat, mispriced by sector trauma and a regulatory scare, offering ~16% a year on conservative assumptions with multiple free options. That is precisely the GARP-meets-contrarian profile I look for. I passed at the IPO when it was a story; now there is EUR 90 million-plus of real revenue behind it, and I am paying attention.
Risk Disclaimer & Conflict of Interest
This article reflects my personal opinion and is provided for information and educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, not a recommendation, and not an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security. Cantourage Group SE is a position held in the cost-efficient Haas Invest4 Innovation investment fund (invest4.net), and I am therefore directly or indirectly invested in the stock. This creates a clear conflict of interest, and I may buy or sell shares at any time. Small- and micro-cap shares such as Cantourage carry elevated risks including low liquidity, high volatility, regulatory and political risk, and the potential for total loss of capital. Forward-looking statements, estimates (including my normalised EPS and Fair-PE assumptions), and price targets are inherently uncertain and may prove wrong. Figures cited are based on preliminary and/or unaudited company disclosures and third-party data available at the time of writing and may be subject to revision. Always do your own research and consider consulting a licensed financial adviser before making any investment decision.