Good evening, everyone. We'll be waiting another couple of minutes just in case anyone is late, and then we shall start the call. Okay. I think you can see my screen. First of all, thank you for connecting to today call. This morning, we had the Board of Directors of BasicNet to present the figures of the first quarter 2026, whose numbers we'll be commenting in the next hour. Starting as usual with the key indicators we use to monitor the performance of the group. The total aggregate sales are up compared to last year by 11%.
We'll see the disaggregation in between aggregate sales of licensees, meaning the direct sales made by the group and the sales made by commercial licensees and the aggregated sales of our sourcing centers. The former have increased compared to last year with the contribution of the newly acquired brands, Woolrich and Sundek. I remind that Woolrich has been consolidated starting from December 1st, whereas Sundek was consolidated at year end. This is the first contribution to the P&L and in general, to the economical indicators of the group. ASL re-reported an important improvement. They're just above EUR 240 million.
Whereas, when it comes to aggregated sales of sourcing centers, we reported a slight decrease. This is due partially to a different timing in terms of orders compared to last year, especially for orders made by BasicNet Group itself, and some lower purchases by third-party licensees in their normal management of stock. Purchases made for carryovers in previous years. When it comes to consolidated revenues, the row increase to compare to last year is above 35%, with a contribution, with a strong contribution from Woolrich and Sundek.
You know that usually we don't share data by brand, but I can say that even without Woolrich and Sundek, the growth would still be double- digit. In absolute like for like terms. Within consolidated revenues, we had some shift in between royalties and direct sales. As you know, the group keeps consolidating direct sales, especially for the European market. This phenomenon, which has been going on over the last years continued in 2026. You will remember that at the end of last year, to mention the probably the most important one, we acquired back Sebago France, so the French licensee for Sebago. EBITDA is up at EUR 15.4 million.
An increase of over 20% compared to last year. Here we are comparing it to the pro forma data of 2025, meaning the EBITDA net of all the costs incurred for the K-Way transaction, which saw Permira acquiring roughly 40% of K-Way. Here again, Woolrich and Sundek contributed positively to the indicator. They already are EBITDA positive. We see more later on. We already started several activities on both group. Woolrich, of course, is the largest one to improve the profitability. We expect Q3 and especially Q4 to be the moment where we will see the results of all these actions which have already been taken.
Finally, in terms of net financial position with banks, we're just slightly above EUR 100 million. We closed the year at EUR 74. Here Q1 is typically a quarter when we have a cash absorption due to the usual trend of trade working capital, which in this year, in this quarter, was amplified by the inclusion of Sundek and Woolrich within the perimeter. Among the notable facts, in terms of NFP, we paid a portion of the deferred price related to Sebago, EUR 1.6 million. We will have a final payment which will occur in 2026 of up to EUR 1 million.
As you probably will remember for those who took part into the latest calls, we said, we shared, anticipated that we were going to renegotiate the financial debt of Sundek. Again, I make one step back. The financial debt of Woolrich was completely refinanced immediately at closing, whereas for Sundek, we acquired the existing debt at the time of the closing, which was not aligned in terms of conditions to the group standard conditions. We said we would have renegotiated it in the first months of 2026, which we did.
We've drawn a new midterm loan from MPS that has allowed in between the latest days of March and beginning of April to pay back in full the existing debts and replace it with a new one, with the same condition as we have for the group. Okay. Basically, I already shared the comments that you can see here, and probably most of you have already read. Moving to the activity of the network, we reported a little bit of history to see where we moved compared to the previous five years. You can immediately see under a graphic point of view, the important increase of ASL, which again are the combination of direct sales of goods made by the group and sales made by the commercial licensees.
Here in between EUR 203 million and EUR 241 of this year, we had a contribution of Woolrich and Sundek, plus different trends among the brands. We will not go that much in detail with the figures because, you know that, our approach is that BasicNet is a platform and also the strength of the platform is having several brands and with different performance at different times. I can say that Sebago once again, as for the latest calls we had, has overperformed. The brand is growing. We now basically control most of Europe directly, and which in any case doesn't make any impact here as we are summing up our sales and those from the commercial licensees.
Just on a pure brand standpoint, it was absolutely outstanding. In terms of Kappa, we had mixed performances across the geographies, and we see that partially later on, since we had a slight decrease in the Americas, which is related substantially to Argentina, and then mixed performances across all the geography in Europe, which keeps being our key market. As per the sales of sourcing centers, which are the sales that our production licensees make either to us or to the commercial licensees. This is basically the amount on which sourcing commissions are calculated. The decrease, as I mentioned, in the opening of the call, is partially due to purchases that we made in advance, and so the goods were shipped at the end of 2025.
Again, this is part of a strategy that we've had over the last years to anticipate deliveries to the final customers, to retailers and wholesalers, and partially to some reduction from certain specific licensees in terms of purchasing of especially in carryover, so to maximize the existing stock of recurring items. In terms of the geography, as I mentioned before, we have, unfortunately, a red sign on America. You would remember, over the last couple of years, we had not the most outstanding performance in the Americas, due to the bankruptcy of the Kappa US licensee. And now this -18 is mostly related to Kappa Argentinian licensee, which is affected by the general condition of the market and the economy in.
Europe again keeps growing, which is good news since it's our main market. We had some good performances across Asia, Oceania, especially in Vietnam and in Japan. When it comes to Middle East and Africa, we have a large licensee in Middle East, To whom is related this little decrease compared to last year. Here, as you can imagine, we had some big concern considering what is going on right now in the world and in Middle East specifically. The good news is that thus far we didn't see a major impact. A slight decrease, but apparently for the time being, it seems that our consumers are local consumers mostly, so not tourists, whose presence is in the Middle East has significantly dropped.
The brands keep performing pretty steadily compared to the previous periods. Jumping into the network activity, I will not go that much in detail, and you have the material, so for anyone who wants to read in detail, everything is available. Just very quickly, Kappa's kept working on its major lines, which means Motorsport, where we have increased our presence and guaranteed that we will be part of MotoGP again for next year. As you can imagine, Q1 for ski, which is important for Kappa and also for K-Way, as we'll see later on, is mostly related to the Olympics.
We were lucky enough to see very often U.S. athletes, which were Kappa kitted on the podium during the Olympics. Apart from that, Q1 was the moment for the presentation, the launch of spring/summer. Among the various items, we launched a new running shoe, which has been the center of several activities and presentations. Superga, as I mentioned above, you know, hasn't had the best moment of the life of the brand. We know it's a cycle. We keep working to be ready, and we think it will not take much longer to wait.
In Q1, we announced the presentation of a book which was published in April, telling the history of Superga, which even though the commercial performance is not as outstanding as it has been, keeps being a icon, an immediately recognizable shoe with a very deep history. Several activities were made for the presentation of spring/summer 2026, and then with association with influencers, creators, digital creators around the world to make smart, intelligent marketing campaigns and activities. K-Way, as I said before, in Q1, here there are a few activities which were held across the end of 2025 and beginning of 2026, for, especially for ski. Our presence in Cervinia on the Skyway and several activities related to the ski collection. The Montagna a Milano event held at our village in Milan in January.
We presented the spring/summer 2026 collection with again a new drop of the Le Vrai 4.0. Sebago kept the new openings. A new opening in Florence. Others will follow in the next month in between Italy and France. Several location have already been scouted, a few already signed. It's just a matter of completing the renovation works and move forward. We partnered again, and we are very happy about that, with Max Mara. This is a co-branding which comes back from previous years. Among the other things, we are present again at the Paris Fashion Week. Just a few highlights from Woolrich and Sundek. Woolrich was back at Pitti. We will be back again in June with both Woolrich and Sundek. We are working on that. We presented the new collection, Fall/Winter 2026, to the press.
As you can imagine, for those who know, the business and us, these are collections which were largely already defined when we made the acquisition. We just could make some minor adjustments where needed. The work which has already been done and which was a part and still is part of our plan of turnaround of both brands, is working on the image, on the campaigns and the presentation. A specific mountain-based campaign, extremely raw, to bring Woolrich back to its to its aesthetics, was made. The same for Sundek, where we went in California to make a shooting of the new season.
Moving to our results, a few figures that we partially already commented. Sorry, I went too fast. Direct sales, we went from EUR 81 million to EUR 118 million. This is a combination of a wholesale, retail, and e-com sales. Again, even without Sundek and Woolrich, the growth here would be a solid double-digit one. Net royalties decreased compared to last year. This is a combination of, as you can imagine, we saw that the sales of our sourcing centers declined, so lower sourcing commissions. When it comes to royalties, we had some reclassification.
I mentioned before Sebago France, which was acquired, so we don't have the direct royalties anymore, but we have the direct sales, and several other territories which were brought back. We have a, I don't know, it's marginal, a slight decrease in the real estate revenues. Here, actually, this is the contribution to the group. Actually our real estate grew, but it's just working more for the group since we are expanding and growing. We just reduced the spaces rented out to third parties. In terms of EBITDA, we went from EUR 12.7 million to EUR 15 million. Even here without Woolrich and Sundek, which contributed a little less than EUR 2.4 million, still we would have an increase compared to last year. As you can imagine, the contribution to the higher costs is mostly related to the new brands. Just one point on the labor cost.
The like for like, so at same perimeter growth would be of EUR 3 million, and this is a growth which is related first to the retail network, and so K-Way and Sebago retail network, which is expanding. To investments we made in human resources, in K-Way to bring on the value, the value plan, with Permira in the next years. Moving to the NFP. We started at EUR 74 million. We are comparing with year-end. Just a quick note. At the end of March 2025, NFP was positive, highly positive. We had just completed the transaction with Permira. Not even have paid most of the costs. Actually the comparison here would be not extremely indicative. Of course, we had not done any of the acquisitions which were completed in December 2025.
Across the quarter, the operating cash flow was slightly negative, and mostly due to trade working capital. It's mostly the difference in between the reduction of the inventory, which comes from shipping of spring/summer and the payment of trade accounts payable. And here, compared to last year, we also had the inclusion of Woolrich and Sundek, plus some work to align the payment conditions of Woolrich to our usual group standards. In terms of CapEx, we invested again in the retail expansion, IT as usual, plus the renovation works that we are bringing on here at Basic Village.
For those who are familiar with our headquarters, basically we own a large building which is just aside the headquarters. It has hosted the revenue agency over the last years, now we are expanding the headquarters to host the new Woolrich colleagues who will move here in September. We started some renovation works to have these new offices available after summer. As I mentioned before, we paid this first part of the fair price to Sebago France for the acquisition of Sebago France. Just a quick note, it's not in the figures because it was paid in April, we made the final payment related to the K-Way France acquisition.
This was a part of the earn-out that you could see in the figures at the end of 2025. Apart from the acquisition of treasury shares, we had a big increase in the IFRS 16 payments, so basically rent, to make it very easy, with a big contribution from Woolrich and Sundek. This is another chapter where we are working to make some reasonable right sizing of the costs and then of course all the cash out. I think this is it in terms of our presentation. If there are any questions, I'm glad to answer. I see Mr. Lustig raising the hand. I would say if you want to start.
Good evening to all, and good evening, Marco. I just have a question on the profitability and the contribution coming from Sundek and Woolrich. If I understood well, you mentioned a contribution slightly below EUR 2 million at EBITDA level, maybe if I am correct. Which is, well, positive in my opinion. You anticipated that, I mean some job or some actions have been already done, but the best part is going to come. If you can mention action already realized and what is going to happen in the coming quarter. Thank you.
Yeah. Okay. The contribution to EBITDA of the two brands combined is slightly above EUR 2 million. It's a little bit more. We are taking several actions, I would say, mostly related to Woolrich. As you know, I will tell all the story, maybe not everybody's familiar. Woolrich headquarters, at the time of our acquisition, were in Bologna. When the corporate seat now is here, most of the people are still in Bologna, we decided to move the headquarter to Torino. After a discussion negotiation with the labor unions, and then with the favorable vote from the employees, the decision was finally taken to move it here in Torino in September.
Also to give a size of the operation, out of 130 people who are either, as I said, in Bologna or in Milan, where there is a showroom for the sales activity, a little bit more than 20 people will move to Torino, meaning we will have a significant layoff in September. Clearly, this will be the largest action affecting the P&L. In Q1, we already had some minor layoff related to individual transactions with a few people from management. They account for roughly 500,000 . The largest part will be leaving Bologna. In terms of EBITDA, there will be a large impact in terms of labor cost, because we certainly have to hire a few people, because these 130 employees, of course, were doing their job and performing activities. Some of the activities will be absorbed by the existing workforce here in Torino with several brands contributing.
That we will move some knowledge from the other brands. We will leverage on, of course, on several synergies, for all, the, let's say, the back office, and the, and the staff activities. There we project to have a very, very significant saving just due to our sizing structure and model. We will leave the headquarters there, so the impact on that will be below EBITDA. Here negotiations are ongoing with the landlord to find an agreement and close the contract before its normal ending. We've already started several activities in terms of G&A. As you can imagine, IT, external consultants, attorneys, to move everything possible to our group agreements, insurances. All the G&A voices you can imagine, we are switching everything into BasicNet. Which doesn't mean that we will not have to pay an additional single penny compared to what we spent before acquisitions.
Of course, there will be a strong synergy rather than Woolrich standalone one company of, let's say, EUR 90 million of turnover. There we will have an important saving. We started some and partially closed some negotiations with suppliers, where again, the initial response was very positive. Then, you know, on the cost of goods, there are so many different factors impacting in between dollars, shipping, and whatever happens in the world, the cost of fabrics. I will probably not spend here the saving we obtained, but still we obtained one in immediate negotiations with the factories. I think that's it. The other part in Q1, this is not in EBITDA, it's definitely in the net financial position. Sundek was moving to Sundek, which is relatively smaller.
Still paid a huge amount of interest due to this old debt, which will significantly drop and that will be cash, and it's actually cash saved from April the 1st.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Can I also ask you?
And, uh, I had.
Sorry.
Sorry, Stefano, I missed one thing. The other part we are working on, I will not go too much in detail on the significant doors, because there are negotiations and confidentiality matters, we are working on a few stores to see if we can move to different locations. Also to leverage on locations that we already have for other brands, to move to spaces which are, we believe, more effective for the brand, less expensive and more in line with the image of the brand, its positioning and everything.
Thank you very much. Can I also ask you if the beginning of Q2 is showing in terms of sales as something materially different from Q1 trend?
Well, I would say Q1 actually was pretty much split in between January, February and then March, especially related to retail. As I said before, we haven't seen a direct impact on our licensees in Middle East following everything which is going on, which I assume everybody in this call knows perfectly. We've seen some impact on direct purchases, honestly speaking, which does make absolutely sense in the moment when gasoline energy is skyrocketing, that there are some different choices from consumers. It didn't surprise us incredibly. Already in March we've seen sales slowing down compared to a very, very strong beginning of the year, and April is pretty much in line with March. I have to say, wholesale is a pretty much a different story.
When we look then with different trends across brands, geography and so on, but overall, when we look at the backlog for wholesale, it's still very positive and consistent with Q1. Q1, we shipped the spring/summer and for fall/winter, we don't see any major change.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Is there any additional question? Okay. If not, again, thank you very much for attending this call. I remind you that the next one will be held on July the 31st. We will put all the details, time, and connection details on our website as usual, and we will be presenting half year results. For the time being, thank you again for sharing this half an hour with us, and see you in July. Thank you. Bye.