A byline by Arnau Valdovinos
In six months, three Canadian cannabis companies deployed nearly €200 million in upfront cash to acquire European assets. The deals — High Tide × Remexian in September, Cronos × CanAdelaar in December, Organigram × Sanity Group in February — appear similar: North American capital crossing the Atlantic to buy distribution and market access. But the multiples tell a different story entirely. At 2.4×, 3.6× and an estimated 13-15× EBITDA, the spread reflects three distinct bets on European regulatory trajectories.
Why Nobody Was Buying — and What Finally Changed
A year ago, in these pages, I argued that the expected wave of German cannabis M&A following April 2024 had failed to materialise as operators focused on organic growth in a market expanding fast enough to reward execution over acquisition. Revenue was doubling every few months. Import volumes surged 7x, from 8 tonnes in Q1 2024 to 57 tonnes in Q3 2025. Valuations were uncertain, market leaders had not yet separated from the pack, and everyone was waiting for the dust to settle: pilot timelines were uncertain, delays persistent, and organic growth still looked stronger than acquisition.
Then, within six months, Canadian capital moved decisively, deploying nearly €200 million into European acquisitions. The wait was over.
€200 Million in Six Months: Three Deals, Three Regulatory Bets
In September 2025, High Tide bought 51% of Remexian, Germany’s largest medical cannabis importer, for €26.4 million. In December, Cronos acquired CanAdelaar, the largest cultivator in the Dutch Wietexperiment, for €57.5 million upfront plus earnouts. And in February 2026, Organigram announced the acquisition of the remaining 91% of Sanity Group, a multi-market platform spanning Germany and a recreational pilot in Switzerland, for €113.4 million upfront plus up to €113.8 million in earnouts.
Canadian capital is pricing three different bets on European regulation — not three versions of the same deal
What changed? Three things, at once.
- European markets reached escape velocity. Germany imported nearly 200 tonnes of medical cannabis in 2025. Domestic sales roughly doubled in 2025 to close to an estimated €2 billion, according to the BPC. The Dutch Wietexperiment launched its full experimental phase in April 2025, with all 72 participating coffeeshops now sourcing exclusively from licensed cultivators. In Switzerland, seven recreational cannabis pilot trials are running and generating evidence that is feeding into a federal legalisation draft. In Germany itself, the industry successfully lobbied the incoming CDU-led coalition to preserve the core of the CanG framework — even as Berlin pilot projects were rejected by the BLE. The initial post-legalisation turbulence is settling. What remains is a more competitive market with persistent price compression and thinning margins — precisely the conditions that force consolidation.
- Cannabis gained legitimacy as an investable asset class. Trump’s executive order on rescheduling, while domestically focused, sent a global signal: the direction of travel is normalisation, not retrenchment. SAFE banking reform in the US, although still complex, is gaining momentum at the same time as traditional sectors like alcohol and tobacco have accelerated interest into cannabis as both a competitor and an adjacent growth market. The clearest milestone in Europe of that trend was Enua closing €25 million in debt financing from Deutsche Bank — the largest bank-backed debt facility to date. A tier-one European bank underwriting cannabis debt shifts risk perception for acquirers.
- Acquirers started pricing regulatory upside. This explains the wide spread in EBITDA multiples across deals. Potential Swiss adult-use legalisation by 2029. Renewed momentum for German pilot projects. UK and Poland trailing in medical market access. Exposure to any one of these demand corridors could reprice an addressable market overnight. Companies positioned across multiple jurisdictions and with weight across telemedicine, medical sales, CBD and adult-use programs carry an embedded optionality that operators constrained to a single revenue stream do not — and this commands a premium.
From Capped Pilots to Uncapped Platforms: What the Multiples Actually Price
The spread in EBITDA and revenue multiples is too wide to be noise. At 3.6×, 2.4× and an estimated 15× EBITDA respectively, the three deals reflect a bet on a different type of regulatory exposure:
Cronos × CanAdelaar paid 2.4× EBITDA for the largest cultivator inside the Dutch Wietexperiment: ~US$47 million in revenue, 60% EBITDA margins, €57.5 million upfront plus earnouts. But the potential is structurally capped by the supply-chain pilot across ten municipalities and 72 coffeeshops, with no exports or off-pilot sales. Despite the coalition agreement promising to “continue and evaluate” the experiment; no successor framework is planned after 2029. Cronos bought front-row exposure to the largest adult-use experiment in Europe and its eventual upside, priced to the scale and limits of the current Wietexperiment.
High Tide × Remexian paid 3.6× EBITDA and 0.8× revenue for Germany’s largest medical cannabis importer — importing from 19 source countries, over 2.5 tonnes per month at the time, over 200 medical SKUs, at an enterprise value of €53.4 million on ~€65 million revenue up to H1 2025. Despite the high throughput and consistent market share gains in the first year following legalisation, Remexian is a pure importer and distributor, with little brand IP to anchor expansion beyond Germany. The revenue concentration in a single corridor — German medical imports — dependent on telemedicine regulations and fragile international supply chains, favours sizing the bet to current German demand. At 0.8× revenue, High Tide bought the plumbing of the German market: distribution certainty, not optionality.
The earnout is a shared bet between Organigram and Sanity that the growth trajectory will continue
Organigram × Sanity Group paid an estimated 12.6-15× EBITDA upfront — roughly six times the CanAdelaar multiple. €60 million in revenue (up from €9 million in 2023), an estimated EBITDA of €7-9 million, total consideration of up to €250 million (€113.4 million upfront plus up to €113.8 million in earnouts) — the largest cross-border cannabis M&A transaction targeting Europe since Curaleaf’s acquisition of EMMAC in 2021. On a standalone basis, the multiple appears expensive. What justifies it is the breadth of what Organigram is buying: the core revenue engine is German medical cannabis. Sanity Group is among the top eight medical cannabis wholesalers in the country — alongside Four20 Pharma, Cantourage, Remexian, Cannamedical, Enua, Aurora or Demecan — in the largest expanding market outside North America. According to Sanity, its medical brand avaay holds the number-two position, distributing through over 2,000 pharmacies and working with approximately 5,000 physicians. Sanity also has pre-revenue expansion plans in the United Kingdom, Poland, and Czechia, a CBD brand (vaay), and telemedicine exposure (Vayamed × Telaleaf) — all of which expand the revenue surface.
But the multiple reflects more than today’s medical revenues. Sanity has been at the forefront of lobbying for German adult-use regulation — its CEO Finn Hänsel is a CDU member, and the company was actively involved in pilot project applications before they were rejected by the BLE under the new coalition. The optionality to unfold this in the coming years remains. That optionality is heightened by the active presence in Switzerland, where Sanity operates Grashaus Projects in the Basel canton — the largest club in the Swiss recreational cannabis pilot programme. The earnout structure reinforces this reading: up to €113.8 million in contingent consideration — roughly half the maximum deal value — means the parties have not fully priced Sanity’s growth trajectory: the earnout is a shared bet between buyer and seller that the growth trajectory will continue.
The 0.8×–15× spread defines the valuation range for European cannabis companies entering a new phase of revenue-driven consolidation
What the Multiples Mean for 2026
Foreign capital has set the benchmarks: the 0.8×–15× spread defines the valuation range for European cannabis companies entering a new phase of revenue-driven consolidation. Operational prowess, market access, and regulatory upside will command valuation premiums.
The regulatory pipeline that made these three deals possible is far from exhausted. Germany’s MedCanG reform continues to evolve under the coalition. In Switzerland, the approval of a preliminary draft by the National Council Health Committee positions a permanent regulated market as early as 2029 — and Sanity as first-mover infrastructure within it. The Netherlands‘ pilot will generate its first full-year of data. Medical markets in the UK, Poland and France could unlock further opportunities. Each represents a potential catalyst capable of repricing an addressable market overnight.
The conditions for a new cycle of European cannabis consolidation are in place: proven revenue at scale, institutional capital willing to deploy, valuation benchmarks established by real transactions, and a regulatory pipeline that keeps expanding the addressable market. The long-expected consolidation wave may finally arrive in 2026 — and the operators best positioned to shape it will be those who built platforms before the capital arrived.
About the Author
As the founder and principal consultant of Cannamonitor, Arnau Valdovinos (Linkedin) connects the dots of the global supply chain through an independent view of the international cannabis markets. An advocate for evidence-based drug policy reform, since 2018 Arnau has provided intelligence and practical advice to medicinal, recreational and CBD companies across 5 continents and 20 countries.
Disclaimer: Guest contributions do not have to reflect the opinion of the editorial team. No investment recommendation.