Okay. We'll probably switch in English from now on. I think we got to Sebago Initiatives. We had a rowing regatta inviting several rowing clubs from all across Europe here in Torino. Plus we had,
[Foreign language] .
Of Sebago in France, which is trying to capitalize on the K-Way retail network and to follow on the footsteps of K-Way in France. We had a collab with St. John's, so the brand of body care products. We launched a collab which goes back to the 1970s archives of Sebago with Gary Jobson. Plus we reported an event here, next to Turin where we dressed [By Tajimon] with Sebago products. Moving on to the results of the group. As we commented at the beginning of this call, our consolidated revenues recorded an increase of 2.5% compared to the first nine months of last year. Consolidated real estate revenues, as usual, are pretty much negligible, whereas both net royalties and direct sales reported a growth. I will repeat myself just because we have some new participants.
Last year, direct sales included €6 million, which were reclassified as a €1 million increase in net royalties. Just to have all the figures and to compare like-for-like data. We reported, and I'm quite sure that several participants to this call already made the exercise of comparing the performance by quarter. We really wanted to highlight, since H1 and Q2 in particular were a bit weaker compared to last year, we had a very strong recovery in Q3. When we look at the figures, Q3 is clearly more important. We are a Q3, Q4 company for the time being. Q3 is the quarter when we deliver wholesale orders for the fall/winter season. I think these really support our confidence after H1.
When we commented the figures, we were really confident that our performance would have taken a certain direction because this is totally consistent with the order books we already had collected for all the brands. Basically, we had a very intense season. We managed to fulfill all the orders across the brands, which is absolutely key to complete all the shippings within this quarter to be ready for reorders in Q4 and, of course, for the winter season. Moving to the EBITDA. As a reminder, this is an adjusted EBITDA to exclude extraordinary mostly related to the K-Way transaction. We reported an increase in consolidated margins, plus as we already saw, an increase in direct royalties from the company. The increase in royalties completely offset the reduction in other income. As we commented before, this reduction is mostly due to the Asian licensee that terminated its activity in 2024.
Roughly €5 million out of those €7.2 million are coming just from this licensee. The increase in labor cost is mostly related to the continuous expansion of the retail activity, plus certain additional costs following the K-Way transaction as we are building a management team, a dedicated management team, and also filling certain positions which were not there in BasicNet, in the BasicNet scheme of K-Way. The increase in costs of sponsorship and marketing, which is roughly €3 million, is again mostly related to Kappa for roughly €2 million. In terms of G&A and other costs, we are very much aligned to last year. The net financial position, as we said, is basically zero. The €16 million positive that you see in the first row includes €90 million of investments. I think we commented on those in the half-yearly call.
A part of the liquidity that we received, that Premier injected as part of the K-Way deal, has been invested in dedicated bonds, so senior preferred bonds, time deposits, and a certificate of deposit. Different maturities, some of them will be available next year, some of them have a three or a four-year maturity. We managed to make those investments in a moment when interests were still definitely interesting. We decided to keep this liquidity just to be ready to catch whatever opportunity we shall find. Moving to the work of the net financial position.
Hello, Emma.
Buonasera.
Hello.
I think the most important, the most interesting part to comment is related to the operating cash flow. You can see that there's been an absorption of roughly €19 million, and that comes basically from the trade working capital. To have a fully comparable figure, we should probably compare the end of September 2025 against the end of September 2024. We would still have an absorption of cash from the trade working capital, which once more is mostly coming from K-Way. It's the sum of different factors. The key one is that we purchased, and this happened for all brands, we purchased in advance. What we are trying to do is to purchase earlier and earlier because that's absolutely key in having the goods there for shipping and fulfilling the orders early in Q3. Of course, purchasing in advance, we paid well before.
Right now, just to give you an idea, we have more inventory than last year with a lower amount of trade payables. The second factor is that we purchased more because, for K-Way, there's a factor which is the introduction of the new 4.0. The bread and butter of our collection has been upgraded to a full recycled item with better performance and better feeling and so on. We had to purchase a lot to recreate the core of the inventory. The old 3.0 will not be just thrown away, but we will use it through our outlet network. The second thing is that last year, in December, and especially in France, at a certain point, we were a bit short in terms of inventory, which is something we clearly don't want to repeat. We don't want to lose sales due to the lack of inventory.
We launched a new never-out-of-stock program for the key four references in the key colors and key sizes. I think that's basically it. I would leave it to you. If you have any questions, I will be happy to reply. I see Mr. Lustig raising his hand. He's been the fastest, so please.
Good evening. Sales were very strong in Q3. It probably is the highest level reached, at least for the direct sales in the history. I wonder if you have a comment on what is the climate at the beginning of Q4, which is another quite relevant quarter, not as the third one, but still a relevant quarter for you. If you can give us a comment on what is happening, just to understand if the extra sales of Q3 satisfied clients, or if you see that there is an appetite in the market. The second is related to the net financial position. Obviously, with the sales accelerating, it is obvious that working capital is going to absorb.
Can I ask you, in the negative contribution of operating cash flow you were indicating in the previous slide, what is the number for the increase in inventories and what was that level in the first nine months of 2024, if you have the number with you. Thank you.
Okay. I will start from the sales. First question. First thing is, just to make it clear because I wouldn't like to have created this doubt. We have not fulfilled, in Q3, sales that last year we made in Q4. Q3 is basically a wholesale quarter, and Q4 is a retail quarter. We have not anticipated this year certain sales that normally we would make in Q4. This was the first point which I think was important to clarify. Second one, beginning of October, how we see October, we see it pretty good, in line or better than last year, depending on the various brands. We see the appetite still there. Of course, the very key months will be November and December. We all have to hope that there is a lot of rain, and that would really help the current trade.
I would say so far, so good in terms of commercial performance. We are on track. In terms of cash flow and inventory, the absorption of cash from the trade working capital compared to December, there's a big portion of seasonality, which doesn't really make it 100% interesting, is €47 million. It's a very big figure. Whereas if I compare to September last year, we have €10 million more in terms of inventory and €12 million less in terms of trade payables. Trade receivables are pretty much in line.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome. I can see another hand raised. I don't see the name, so I wouldn't know who's raising the hand. I keep seeing the hand raised, so please. It's muted.
Unfortunately, I keep seeing a hand raised, but the microphone is always muted to me. I think it does not depend on me. I don't know. Maybe if you have the possibility, I see it's a phone number, so I'm not sure it will be possible. If you can write the question, we may try to answer as well. In the meanwhile, if there's anyone else with questions.
If I can, I take advantage.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Can you give us some color about the openings you had during these nine months? The very rough contribution, let's say, or at least a sense of the openings that you had during this period. If you can share with us an indication of the opening plan you have in the next month.
Okay.
Just a sense of, of.
Yeah.
What is happening in the evolution of the network.
Okay. As I recover all the figures, I will start from the second one, which is a bit easier. Actually, we have different strategies and levels of speed, depending on the brands. We are trying to work and expand the retail network where we believe we are actually taking an advantage from that. We are trying to rationalize where we believe that we already have maybe too many DOS. As an example, this morning, we held the board of directors for Kappa, and we commented that actually, during this year, we managed to reduce by 18 units, I would say. I have here Federico Trono who can confirm the number of stores because we think that a certain rationalization was due in that respect. On the other hand, I would say that the expansion right now is mostly related, or is definitively related, to K-Way, of course, and to Sebago.
I mentioned before the performance of Sebago in France and the opening in Biarritz, and Sebago in France. It's still a licensee, but it's our closer licensee. It opened three new stores this year, and it has in pipeline in between the end of this year and next year, probably another four to five stores, which is honestly quite a good rate and very, very similar to the rate that K-Way had when it was at the same level of maturity as Sebago now. When we go to K-Way, I'm trying to open a few figures. The expansion is a bit of a mix between the more mature markets, meaning Italy and France.
Luca Orsini.
[Foreign language].
The total new markets. We opened in London, and we have a plan of expansion in the UK that will probably or will materialize next year. In Italy, we made some relocations, some new openings. We opened the second store in Milan. We opened in Padua, and that is also to us a test of a format in mid-cities, to check if we have a market, or better, we have a market, but to check mostly the impact on the wholesale because we always have a certain risk of cannibalization on those towns. So far, we had a very, very, very positive response. If it keeps working how it did in the first weeks, I think this is something we will be able to replicate also in other towns.
We expanded the store, opening just in front of it a second part of the store in Naples, which is the best-selling shop that we have, I would say, across all the brands in all the countries we operate. What we are doing right now in France, again, it's not really an expansion in terms of total new openings, but rather a substitution. We are moving from smaller stores to larger ones because, you know, when we started, and when actually our licensee at the time started K-Way in France, he just wanted to sell the very basics. I mentioned before the 3.0. At the time, it was probably the 2.0, and that was it. Right now, we have an expanded line. We have a much more—we spoke before about SER, which is a very important collab.
Historically, K-Way has always been very, very, very genderless, which is a part of the reason for its success. We have the feeling that at a certain point, it's also a little bit of a limit. Having a full woman collection, having extensions like Ski, for example, and collabs, it all requires more space because we don't want to put everything in there. Otherwise, the other option would have to be changing the layout of the store continuously, which is something we cannot do. Other countries, in terms of expansion, I would say Benelux. We have a plan to be rolled out in the next year. I would say that's it. In the meanwhile, somebody probably raised the—I see that also Luca Orsini raised the hand. I don't know,
Yes, I managed to connect via.
Okay.
Via Teams as opposed to via the phone, because.
Yeah, yeah.
On the phone, I could not. I could raise my hand, but I couldn't speak. I have two or three questions if I can share a bit of your time.
Yeah.
The first is on sourcing. Since you source a lot in Asia, are you seeing a benefit in your margins and in your cost given the stress that the Asian producers are facing because of the uncertainty and the duties imposed by the U.S.A.?
Do you prefer me to answer question by question, or do you want?
Yes, question by question because that's.
Okay.
Two or three different topics.
Okay. It helps. We see an increase in margins. I wouldn't say we get this sort of benefit. Probably we have more of a benefit from the dollar, from the U.S. dollar. That really helped us, and we hope it goes back in the region of 120. That really, really helps our marginality. We didn't have the feeling—this is an interesting question. I will further deepen it with the production team to see if they see it for the next seasons. I would say that, with regard to the figures that you are commenting right now, we didn't get any of the benefit that you were mentioning before from the uncertainty of Asian producers.
I just move on the other side of the ocean.
Okay.
Whichever you want, Pacific or the Atlantic.
Yeah.
Going back to the U.S.
Yeah.
Which is the, which you suffered from the loss of a franchise, which is part of life. Is there a plan? What are the plans for the USA at this very moment? Are we going to see a revamp, or it's not a priority at the moment?
We're talking about Kappa, right?
We're talking about Kappa, yes. Also because you're sponsoring the Ski team.
Yeah.
It's a bit anti-intuitive. You sponsor the Ski team with your black, I don't know what you call them, but it's not the same success of sponsoring Brignole and Sophia.
Yeah. You know that, unfortunately, our relationship with the Italian Ski Federation didn't really end in the best fashion. At the time, we were very happy and lucky to enroll with the U.S. Ski Team, mostly thanks to our relationship with Lindsay Vonn through Briko. I get your point. It's a bit counterintuitive to have this big sponsorship agreement in place with, I would say, the most important ski team in the world and not having a licensee in that country. That's it. Right now, we have a small partner we are working with for just the team wear in the U.S.A., and they're also doing the Kappa for Team U.S.A. in the United States. We have not given a full license to anyone. The idea right now is to be extremely careful in choosing a new partner because we don't want to rush.
We are absolutely aware that we are losing something in terms of capitalizing on the U.S. Ski Team sponsorship. On the other hand, we don't want to start a new partnership with somebody we are not really 100% confident about. We go back to the philosophy of the President: slow, slow, hurry. We would rather take our time and make sure that the next relationship is the successful one. Also, with all the craziness about U.S. and duties you mentioned before, it's really complicated at this stage to have a conversation with somebody with a very clear picture of how much our goods will cost to anyone who would source like us from Asia. It's not really an easy discussion.
Okay, that's all from me for the moment. Thank you.
Okay. I see in the meanwhile that, okay, Mr. Dignotti typed something in the chat. It says, "One, one question about K-Way. Premier acquires 40% of K-Way for €190 million. The transaction value values the group's company listed on the Italian stock exchange at an enterprise value of €505 million. We see this effect on the net financial position. Why don't we see this effect in the EBITDA? At this stage, we don't see this in the share price." Of course, we see this in the net financial position because Premier paid for its portion. In terms of EBITDA, this is a little bit of a question about the multiple that Premier was willing to pay. I would say probably this is a question for Premier, to a certain extent. On a more serious note, it's evaluation on the potential of K-Way, of course.
Premier entered the capital of K-Way when the brand was, and to a certain extent still is, a brand sold in Italy and in France and, for a very, very small portion, in Benelux and in Spain. That's it. Their valuation is including all the potential for the rest of the world, which right now is very, very close to zero. There is the value that there is a huge potential, which we also believe. Could we imagine a spin-off of K-Way for the future? We can imagine anything. When an investment fund arrives and joins a company, this is definitely one of the possible outcomes. Right now, I think that for the next short future, our plan is to grow K-Way.
The reason we decided to have Premier on board, and they were not the only one to knock on our door at the time, is because we think we are the right partner to unlock all the potential of K-Way. If we want to imagine a spin-off of K-Way, before we do, I would say we need to grow it a little bit more. We need to go to one of the two sides, at least one of the two sides of the ocean Mr. Orsini mentioned before, either in Asia or in the USA, and to fully consolidate the direct operations in Europe. Then, it could be an option, of course. I see Mr. Orsini speaking, but he is on mute. Meanwhile, there's Mr. Sorry.
Okay, please. I'll let you finish with Gasper, and then I'll take one. Okay. He's creating a lot of suspense. From my point of view, the share price is evaluated very low price. Okay.
I wouldn't say know what to say other than, feel free to purchase as many BasicNet shares as you want to. This is a discussion we had several times. You know, our position as a company is that we kept purchasing our own shares at any stage. Before COVID, after COVID, we kept purchasing because we always thought that the best investment we could do was purchasing ourselves. We agreed to the extent to the fact that the share price is low valued, but then it's value made by the market. This is it at this point. Thanks. You're welcome.
Okay. I can take off just to better understand.
Yeah.
The way in which you run Italy and France.
Yeah.
Let's concentrate on Italy and France.
Mm-hmm.
How much of Italy and France is direct sales versus franchisee and wholesale, if there is any?
Okay. The question is, how much is e-com and.
No.
Direct retail?
No, it's direct sales, the shops that you own directly versus the shops that are in the hands of franchisee. If you sell to third parties, then to kind of, you know, multimarca.
Yep. So.
Just to understand the split of the business, more or less, and a little bit of color of where you want it to go. What mix would you want? What's the mix today, and what's your ideal mix?
Okay. I think probably we have to split a little bit the discussion in between the brands, because, you know, as a platform, we think our strength is having different brands also with very, very different features. It's what basically has always kept, you know, the group overall floating even during different times. Having different brands with different positioning and different structure and operating model, I think it's really key to the success of the group as a whole. Starting from Kappa, which at the end of the day is where the group started from and still our number one brand, Kappa is mostly a wholesale brand. I would say that if we take Italy, France, and Spain, which are basically the directly operated brands, the wholesale accounts for more than 80%. We're selling.
80, 80.
Yeah. Absolutely. It's a wholesale brand. It's sold in lifestyle or even more sports wholesale shops, multi-brand shops, definitely. On top of that, we have a percentage of roughly 10% of retail, and this 10% is a mix in between our direct retail and franchisee stores. It's nearly equally split in between them. The remaining portion is the e-com.
Yeah.
So.
Same question for K-Way?
Same question for K-Way. K-Way is a little bit of a different situation, and it's changing a lot. I'll start from the idea behind where we want to go. This is definitely part of Premier joining the party. The idea is to have a more and more directly operated brand, so go retail and go direct ourselves. Right now, nearly 50 to 60, 50, let's say 55% of the business is wholesale, and it has been reduced over the years. What we are doing, especially in Italy, is to keep wholesale steady. It's our choice. We could, like tomorrow, I wouldn't say double the wholesale, but strongly increase the wholesale or the marketplaces. If we want to sell on Zalando, it's just a matter of how much we want to sell to them.
The idea is very precise and we have a level of wholesale that we keep, and that's it. We work on selecting the customers, so having always better and better customers in terms of their financial reliability and their visibility on the market, so that we are in the cool stores, next to the brands we want to be. We work and we roll out the retail expansion. In terms of K-Way, the retail is mostly direct. We have a small portion of franchisee stores in France that we are trying to reacquire. This year we already spent nearly €2.5 million to buy back four stores in Normandy. This is part of the project of being completely direct and controlling the distribution, because what we are seeing is that stores that we operate perform better than franchisee stores.
It's absolutely intuitive, and in this case, stores that we operate perform better than franchisee stores.
Yeah. In terms of profitability, are your retail quarters more profitable? Should we expect the retail quarters to become more profitable than the wholesale quarters?
Definitely. Yeah, absolutely.
Is that visible already this year?
Yeah.
Because last year was more or less the same. If you compare Q3 and Q4 profitability, it's a matter of digits.
I think it will be visible.
Okay. Good.
Of course, if we have a lot of reassortments for Kappa in Q4, I'm pretty sure nobody will ever say, "No, we're not delivering because we need to keep the margins high in %," but whatever.
Okay. Good. Is there any target on your buyback, or are you, how much can you buy more with the current authorization?
With the current authorization, we will not be able to purchase up to the current authorization because the current authorization is also limited by, of course, the days we cannot purchase at all because we are closed, you know, we are in closing period, close to the boards, or whatever. Plus, we gave ourselves a rule in application of the indications of Borsa Italiana to just purchase a certain % of purchases made by third parties. Okay? We don't want to be the largest buyer on the market. We will definitely not reach the amount that has been authorized by the latest shareholders' meeting.
Can you refresh my memory? Sorry, Marco.
it was,
Please?
It was crazily high. I don't remember if €30 million or something.
Maybe.
Mm-hmm.
You spent €10 million, so you have another €20 million to go.
No, no, no. We will never reach that amount.
Okay, I'm done with the questions then, Marco. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, the authorized amount is €30 million, confirm? I was just checking, so we still have plenty of space left to purchase.
Okay. Good.
Okay. Is there any additional question? No? Okay. If there are no additional questions, thank you very much for taking part in this call and also for the many questions. Good to have this meeting participated like this. We'll talk again on full year figures, being confident that they will look good.
Okay.
Bye, everyone.