Good morning. Good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
Can you hear us?
Yes.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you for joining Italian Wine Brands full year 2025 results call. I'm Alessandro Mutinelli, Chairman and CEO of the company. With me today, Mrs. Gabriella Fabotti, Investor Relations and CFO, and we will comment on our 2025 performance and open the line for Q&A session. Gabriella, can we share the presentation?
Good morning. Thank you for your time and to share the presentation that we are with the numbers and results we are presenting today.
Okay.
This is the agenda.
Yes, this is agenda. We will have an overview at the numbers. Second part, how the market cap has moved. We go in details on full year result. There are some information about the overall market, wine market, and then conclusion and Q&A. In a few words, 2025 was a challenging year for the global wine sector, with mature markets, macro uncertainty and evolving consumption patterns. Against this backdrop, our focus was for disciplined execution, so protecting our premium positioning, strengthening our international footprint and delivering solid profitability and cash generation. As you can see here for the key numbers, total turnover was EUR 395.9 million, 1.5% down compared to last year.
Overall, there was a shift in the channels with HORECA sector performing extremely well, +6.2% volume also in the large customers were up. The only segment that was down last year was the distance selling. We enlarged our distribution worldwide, 83 countries. 82% of the total turnover is outside of Italy, +1.6% compared to 2024. 97 countries reached last year, so we add seven countries last year. Solid performance in terms of volumes. We reached 158.7 million bottles, which represents +3.65%. Again, a great achievements in terms of quality recognitions, more than 200 prizes, awards last year.
On top of that, at the beginning of this year, for the first time in history, we were able to get the best producer in Italy, both from Mundus Vini and from Berliner Wine Trophy, which represent the two largest wine competitions in Europe. About the business model of Italian Wine Brands, I believe we do not need to go deeper inside because you all know exactly what we are doing. We are very flexible asset light company to adapt to the market trends. We produce what our customer need in a very flexible way.
I told you before that the volumes increased last year, +3.65%, and again, an outstanding cash generation. The channel which performed the best last year was HORECA channel, so restaurants, catering, and the restaurants, +9.6% in volume, +6.2% in value. Adjusted EBITDA confirms a near historical record, what was last year. 2024 was the record year. We reached EUR 49.1 million. We have written here despite U.S. tariff. Down just 2.5% compared to record year 2024. Adjusted net result, EUR 25.6 million +1.1% compared to 2024, and outstanding cash generation equal approximately EUR 50 million.
Yes, of course, plus dividend that was double last year, gross interest and buyback. The generation of cash to finance the investment for the stakeholder and for the bond.
In terms of overview, again, 2025, Italian Wine Brands demonstrated strong execution capabilities in a challenging market environment for the global wine industry, characterized by volume pressure, value contraction and structural changes in consumer behavior. The group maintaining its positioning, profitability and financial strength while strengthening pillars of sustainable growth in the medium term. I must say that being flexible helped us a lot in this market situation. The key points of last year were in the first stage all the uncertainty linked to the U.S. tariff, which at the beginning pushed the sales before tariffs had been introduced, it pushed sales to North America and then practically slowed down shipments to that part of the world.
Of course, there was a pressure on consumer purchasing power. We have seen this trend after COVID with higher inflation and reduced purchasing power from consumers. Macroeconomic environment were not so positive. Overall, our flexibility helped us a lot to reach numbers very close to the record year 2024. I must admit that last year our focus was to gain market share. This is the result with an increased sales volume. Even if consumers around the world are purchasing less volumes, last year our focus was to gain market shares with focus on quality and premium positioning. Our focus was and is also for the next years strengthening the top brands as the primary lever for the value creation.
Confirmation of leadership in Prosecco production. Actually, until 2024, we were the second-largest Prosecco producer. 2025, we became the first producer of Prosecco of Italy. This is a great achievement for us, because Prosecco is, was, is and is perfected to be the leading product for the next year of Italy. Being the first producer help us also to present ourself in the best possible way to the market. Last year was also characterized by the introduction for the first time in our portfolio of no and low alcohol products in response to new consumer trends. We launched four different items. There are opportunities on the market. We stay innovative from one side, but also conservative.
We do not put all our investments in this trend because we want to see if the market will develop. If it will develop, we are there with our products. In terms of geography and channels, we have had an expansion in core markets such as U.K., Germany and North America, which offset the weakness of less established markets. We have a full coverage of distribution channels supporting revenue resilience. As I told you before, diversification of markets, diversification of channels, diversification of brands on different price points, in our opinion is the key strength of our group to have resilience in this market.
From the operational point of view in terms of efficiency, we did in the last couple of years, and especially in the last year, rationalization of the production structure. We closed and sold one plant in Piedmont last year. The internationalization of production did a step forward. We produce internally more quantity than in the past with benefits in terms of quality control, flexibility and cost. We went forward with targeted investment in automation and digitalization. In terms of organization, which is again a key point for future development, we enlarged our structure in sales and marketing function, supporting our strategic view of brand development and international penetration. Constant focus on cost control and people development.
In terms of outlook, 2026 priorities. Organic growth driven by brands and strengthening its premium positioning. We believe that, as you will see then in the presentation, there are clear trends on the wine market. Even if overall volumes are going down, there are trends I can anticipate for sparkling and premium red wines, and it's there where we are investing the most. Organic growth driven by brands and strengthening premium positioning. It means development of top brands and enhancement of the most iconic products. This to improve profitability and cash generation. We will continue to invest in product innovation, including emerging segments such as low and no alcohol. We have a plan of further industrial organizational efficiency with new plan. With new plants for reducing operating costs.
Looking again at the numbers, coming back to the numbers and looking at historical trends, we see that there is this slight decrease in revenues that is to be explained detailed in the following slide. Again, consider the volatility of last year due to the U.S. tariff and also the impact of exchange rate. Of course, we have hedging, but last year we succeed to guarantee a good hedging only for the first half. In term of EBITDA, again, we are very near to the historical record and without the impact of tariff and exchange rate, probably we will have confirmed or overcome also the historical record.
The EBIT is impacted by the EBITDA, but if we look at details, as we are to do, we'll see that thanks to the new organization, the concentration of industrial footprint, we are able to reduce the cost related to the plants. In terms of net result, there is a decrease compared to 2024, but this is all concentrated in the so-called not recurring items. We have some specific one still due to the innovation acquisition, despite completed in 2022. Then we have the incentive plan and low alcohol test and pilot production. The last cost related to the dismissal of Valtellina plant.
Not considering these that are by evidence one-off, the net result and looking at the perspective for the future, the net result despite the year is in line with the historical record. This slide shows the trends of IWB shares compared to the index. In general, we perform in some way principally in the first part of the year better than the index. Despite this performance, the result compared to the EBITDA adjusted compared to the net result and cash generation confirm that there is an underevaluation of the IWB shares value. This is despite the recognition given to the share value by the IWB brokers. The average of the target price is in the range of 33 EUR.
There is a potential upside more than 50%, looking at the target price and recommendation given by the company, the broker that give a representation of our company and potential profitability of the share. The governance is stable, nothing happened. Just last Friday, we have a change not at holding level, but in IWB Italia management structure. We have the Alessandro Vella that was in charge, was General Manager of IWB Italia, succeed Giorgio Pizzolo as new CEO of the B2B business in Italy. This is the line of reinforce the managerial structure of the group.
Looking in detail at the number, as anticipated, we see this decrease in value but increase in volume, and mostly in the channels where we are stronger and that represent most of the wine market in Italy at worldwide level. We'll say it's in HORECA channels, what we call together B2B business. The profitability adjusted EBITDA is only EUR 1 million less than 2024, and this is more than explained by tariffs and exchange rate. The adjusted net result comes before. It's without the impact of the one-off, the result is positive and the decrease compared to last year is something that is absolutely temporary. The cash generation of the year, this is net of dividend interest and buyback, is more than the average of previous year.
We work very well in terms of net working capital and of course we have the cash-in of Valtellina, the merger. Last year we were able in a few months to complete the due diligence and cash out most of the value of the sale of Valtellina site. Looking at the split in terms of revenues, you see that HORECA increase not only in volume but also in value, and this is very important for the future and the profitability of the group. There is the decrease in distance selling channel even if there is a positive news on Svinando platform where the revenues increase more than 8%, giving good perspective for the digital part of this business.
The wholesale there is a very slight reduction in terms of value, this is completely explained by U.S. where the decrease in terms of revenues is quite 8%, while the most important country markets nowadays for the group improved a lot. The wholesale U.K. increased 15% and reach 1/3 of the total revenues of the group. We increase in Germany despite the difficulty of macroeconomic German system, and we increase in Northern Europe, in particular in Netherlands, where the revenues we'll say it's increased 25%. Looking at the geography again, U.K. revenues increased not only at wholesale rather, but in total including distance selling, 11% additional revenues. Germany was stable despite the decrease of distance selling and despite the situation of the country.
We confirm a very strong presence in the so-called Nordics. In the Americas, in all included North and South America, we confirm that our exposure to U.S. remains limited to about 8% of total revenues. Canada revenues last year compensate U.S. decrease. We are able to increase our position in Canada to overcome the difficulties, the general difficulties in U.S. market due to the volatility of the market, also because of the very different news month by month. We go on with the positive development in Brazil that also thanks to the Mercosur agreement could be an area where we will increase also in the future. Rest of world is a small area nowadays, but with possibility to improve and we cover all the continent and most of the countries.
Last year was very positive, the performance in New Zealand. In new country we increase revenues mostly with the brand. Again, a positive news for the future. Well, this is rundown for the distance selling business. That is the only area of the group that decreases for the channel composition inside distance selling. You see that teleselling is reducing very, very fast because of compliance reasons, but also because people refuse the phone contact and it's very difficult, more and more difficult to reach the customer by phone.
The positive news is that the digital web is going on and in particular the Svinando platform where we sell a good part of the business is in any case done with our internet products. The direct mainly maintain 45% share of the total revenues of this channel, because the very old customer of the group are very, very loyal, and so we maintain this relationship with our historical customer for Giovanni. Looking again at the PNL, it is important to outline that the EBITDA margin is stable. Despite a very difficult year also in terms of utilities and tariffs, the margin and the decrease in distance selling, the margin remain at the same level of 2024 that again was a record for the group.
This is due to the fact that we are able to decrease raw material additionally and able to compensate the reduction in price. The reduction is mostly concentrated in glasses unit of recall. That is in the range of 5%. Then we have a mix improvement for this dedicated project and part of the brand mainly the top brands Grande Alberone and VOGA. The cost, the unitary cost of bulk wine was more or less stable. We reduced the cost of services again due to the integration, and we are more or less in line with the cost of personnel, where the impact of new national contract compensate the reduction of the cost due to the integration.
We have some additional people. These we internalize people that had temporary but long-standing relationship with the group. The aim was to obtain the condition for the so-called reduced corporate tax. In this year, we benefit 4 points less in the corporate tax from 24% to 20%. Looking at the segment, we are going on in improving the part of the business that is increasing in the market. The total revenues of the B2B that include wholesale and HORECA is higher than last year, not only in terms of volume, but also in terms of value. The EBITDA realized in 2025 is in line with the one of the previous year.
The reduction is in the B2C business where the EBITDA is zero for this segment. We have a new plan in place that is more concentrate in cost reduction and the optimization of the different platform. We will pursue a more efficient strategy of omnichannel approach to the business, try to recover profitabilities in the B2C. Looking below EBITDA in the upper part of the slide, we see that 2025.
We see that as anticipated, depreciation and amortization decrease EUR 1 additional million, and this is at least EUR 2 million compared to 2023, and this is due to the fact that we announced a plan and we are able to concentrate our production in Veneto and Toscana, closing the Valtellina site. The non-recurring are increasing due to the third year of strategic incentive plan, but also to the test and pilot products for the no alcohol. For what concerns the net financial, here we have the cost of the interest for the bond that is EUR 3.5 million, the impact of exchange rate, and we have a EUR 3.8 million that is the last part of Enovation acquisition.
There was a deferred price agreed with the seller and the condition for this deferred price which lies at the end of 2025, and this is the reason of this, again, one-off cost for the group. In terms of taxes, there is of course a bit of impact for the reduced profit before taxes, but we benefit this year 4% reduction in corporate tax because thanks to the investment and thanks to the additional internal people, we are able to obtain this 4-point reduction, and the absolute value is in the range of EUR 1 million reduced tax. That is also a reduction in cash.
Looking at the cash generation, we push this year on working capital and reduction and we have additional CapEx, and the additional CapEx have two aims to improve the efficiency and cost reduction for the future. We will have benefit starting from 2026 for additional automation and digitalization of production. Again, this CapEx contributed to the reduced corporate tax. The cash out of the taxes is higher than 2024 for two reasons. Of course, in 2025, we paid the taxes of 2024. That was the year of the record.
One advance payment 2024 was moved to 2025, and this explains the this very high difference between the two years. The financial costs again are the interest on the bond and the exchange rate impact. The reduction in financing is due to the fact that we have some amortized lines that are going to zero, and the M&A is the cash-in from the Valtellina plant sales. The dividends were double last year due to the tenth anniversary since the listing. Last number, the total net financial position that sharply decreased despite the impact of deferred taxes. It's the net financial position is EUR 43 million and below EBITDA.
We have IFRS 16 that is decreasing and of course cash consumption and the deferred price. The important thing is that the net financial position is below EBITDA, and the overall leverage is in the range of one. We have some slides about the market.
Yes. Maybe I give you some information about the market. Here you see a chart. It's very fresh numbers. We received these figures last week from Unione Italiana Vini, which is the largest association of wine producers of Italy. Overall, we see volumes are going down for all categories out of sparkling. As I said to you before, sparkling in the recent years have gained market shares, and being Italian Wine Brands, the largest producer of Prosecco in Italy, we can benefit of the only category which is increasing in volume and in value. You see still bottles. It means red and white wines still.
Bulk wine, which we are not involved in bulk wine trade because we sell finished products, were also down in total volume, minus 3.8%. In terms of value, it was minus 2.2% the total value of the market. You see the price increase of bulk wine, but as I said to you before, we are not involved in the bulk wine market. We buy bulk wine because for our production. This was the overall figures of the market. At the end, we can say that Italian Wine Brands has beaten the market variations due to the flexibility of our production.
This probably is the more important chart. Again, these are figures provided by Unione Italiana Vini. What we expect from now to 2029, we will see a continued decrease in categories like basic and popular. In the entry-level products, entry-level prices, we will suffer in future again of a decrease. We see there are two categories that are expected to grow, which are premium and luxury wines. These are exactly the categories where Italian Wine Brands is investing all the marketing money, all the investment organization. Gabriella told you before that we have changed our CEO in the wholesale part of the business with Mr. Alessandro Vella, who joined us two years ago with great experience in sales and marketing.
We hired also a very experienced in marketing marketing director in the last three months to boost the premium segment of our portfolio. As I said before, we are investing, we are already invested in sparkling, which is the category which is expected to grow also in future. We are investing and developing our premium assortment because it. They are the two categories that are expected to grow to grow in the future. This is more details about what I said before where we are investing. We are investing in organic wines, so biological products. You see here a picture of product of the month.
It was in Switzerland where we pushed our top brand, Raffaello, to reach millennials to focus on quality, health, and sustainability. We also develop further and further our packaging innovation to be a European leader in this kind of products. We launched last year our no and low alcohol products to match this health attitude of new consumers. For religious, let's say, approach to wine. For some religion is not permitted, so we developed also for this kind of consumers the zero alcohol products. For dieters or drivers which are impacted by alcohol. These are categories that are expected to grow in future and where we are fully involved in the development.
And, uh-
Right
... for 2026, as anticipated in the first part of the presentation, of course, we remain focused on top brands that represent the most profitable part of our business. Despite a difficult 2025, improved at least the main 21. Last week, we organized a meeting with the press to present the new Le Forconate brand and perspective. For 2026, given the situation, the uncertainty on the U.S. market, we decide to concentrate on the Italian market where that is, the value of the Italian market is equivalent to all the export. It's a very important market at worldwide level. The GDO represent about 70% of this market, and we are to launch at Vinitaly our strategy for this channel with also the presence of the main representative of the GDO. We are confident to start very, very soon a commercial partnership.
Yes.
Mm-hmm
I can add something about this one. The Italian market was never for Italian Wine Brands the key priority. As you have seen before, more than 80% of our turnover is outside of Italy. Given that the Italian market is equal to 50% of the value of the market, we decided to invest more in Italy. Investing more in Italy means that we have hired an experienced GDO director, so responsible for all the bigger customers in Italy. He has started to work with us a few months ago, developed a full program for enlarging our presence in the Italian market. In 10 days there will be Vinitaly in Italy, which is the main fair for the wine in Italy.
We will present all our portfolio to main customers of the country. Maybe in terms of cost, in line with our business plan, we are investing in new equipment for our facilities in order to increase efficiency. We are changing quite all the packaging system of the carton cases, which will give us a reduction in cost of the materials and also more and more efficiency. M&A scouting is ongoing. More and more we receive a teaser of companies which are on sale. We take a look to everything in a very disciplined way. We look only to possible targets that really add value to our strategy and to our numbers.
We are not searching for just iconic things to show off, but to businesses that can really add value to our group. We know that we can grow further without doing any M&A activities. Given the overall situation that I've shown you before with the numbers of the wine market, more and more there are opportunities on the market. We see and we expect that costs of doing acquisitions will go down. The valuations of the companies that we have seen in the past years, even supported by activities by private equity funds, are going down. We are very conservative. We look at everything that is coming in, and believe me, there is a lot which is coming in. We are, as I said, very disciplined about this thing. Sustainability, at the end, we were able to
To complete it.
... not investment, because investment we did almost 1.5 year ago. At the end we were able to attach all the plants to the grid, which was the toughest thing that we experienced. The largest plant was attached to the grid in November last year.
Yeah.
Unfortunately in the period of the year where there is less sun in the north of Italy, but we will see here in the next spring.
Fully...
So-
2026 will be fully used for this plant.
Okay. We hope that we have submitted to you the key numbers, but we are of course, as usual, open to questions.
Alessandro and Gabriella.
Andrea, yes, please.
Yes. Hi, good morning to everybody. And thank you for taking my questions. I would like to have an idea how the trading is doing the first three months of the year. You didn't provide for any guidance, specific guidance or quantitative guidance in the press release, but just to have an idea how the year started. Then, we would like to know if, from your side, do you see inflation in the cost of glass for the time being? And, if I may, I got another question related to the new stock option plan. You mentioned 500,000 rights, roughly should be current price, EUR 9 million-EUR 10 million. Shall we split that in over three years as a cost? Then I can come back for other question. Thank you.
Currently, we haven't submitted guidance for 2026. We are very disciplined to focus on our strategy. We are very focused on cost from one side, production cost, and developing the market. We are investing more in terms of sales and marketing. First part of the year, the first two months have been, let's say, in line with the past. We introduced some new plants at the beginning of the year, so we had a reduced capacity in the first two months, but we are recovering very fast.
In terms of volume, we forecast for this year some volumes more based on contracts that we signed with our customers. Of course, the war is not helping us because people are spending more for gasoline or for diesel and in this period of time they are impacted by this kind of more expenses. We stay overall positive because we have the contracts with the customers. We follow up very carefully and we take care of the numbers in a very precise way. So in two words, forecast some volumes more in 2026. We have to carefully look at the numbers based on delivery to the customers. Inflation in glass so far not.
So far not. Some suppliers are saying that probably if the situation remain as it is, they have to increase the prices. Some issues with aluminum capsules because the largest producer of aluminum for these capsules is exactly located where there is the war today. At the moment, we do not see pressure on inflation. We will follow up and monitor it very carefully. Stock option plan. We propose it to the general meeting a stock option plan on three years for a total amount of 500,000 shares, which is slightly more. The last plan was 400,000 based on very aggressive targets for the management. Because we want to focus on margin generation, we are also giving to the management very high targets in terms of margins and we propose on the other side a higher number of shares available for this plan.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Roberto? Yeah.
Yeah. I have a follow-up on cost. If you can maybe give us a sense of the moving parts also on the other input cost, and you also mentioned some potential efficiencies. Should we assume an improvement in margin in 2026? Then I have a question on the working capital because you aim to achieve an impressive reduction in 2025. If you can give us more color on the drivers behind this reduction and which level of working capital do you expect as sustainable for 2026? One last, you mentioned these new plans for process optimization, so which kind of CapEx should we expect for 2026?
Inputs cost reduction. We expect on current cases some reductions. We didn't take it into account, the cost reduction because there are also some investments in CapEx. The CapEx, the level of CapEx will remain on this-
Slight reduction. The main part. We have an ordinary CapEx plan that is to. The peak was 2025. We are considering an additional CapEx plan that is in any case related to the development of the group. We are to present. We found also some source for financing in terms of not financing in terms of debt, but contribution. If we launch this extraordinary investment plan, we will announce to the market. For what concerns the cost saving in 2026, the plans were analyzed last year.
Overall, we do not expect higher volumes of investment in CapEx for the near future. Of course, we will do it based on volumes increase that we are projecting. As I said before, capital discipline first is the first point of our strategy. All the investment that we are doing here is to bring efficiency and overall in line with the past years. In terms of working capital, was the question?
In terms of working capital, there is a small part, but again, important because there is also an impact in cash-in, that is the increase in digital sales of B2C. These help to cash immediately. Also in terms of devaluation, you see that the devaluation of receivables is quite zero because the devaluation was related to the mailing and teleselling business. We put additional pressure on our customers to cash in in time. After the new organization, we went on optimizing the process. We had a part of additional factoring considering that in 2025, we had some extraordinary events. The additional tax for 2024, the double dividend. We put some more pressure in terms of factoring.
From what we see now, 2026 will be an ordinary, not extraordinary net working capital year. The cash generation from cash flow will be lower, but we will have also lower CapEx. In terms of fact, there is some balance compared to last year.
Yes, in terms of it adds an important part in terms of working capital. You know that for the industry there is a rule, there is a law that imposes to pay suppliers at 60 days. We are fully compliant to this rule, so we pay on time, precisely on time all our suppliers. While all the rest of the market is not compliant. Because we are a public company, we want to be compliant. Of course, this also costs us more money to pay suppliers in the past couple of years. We reduced our outstanding amounts with our suppliers.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I had three questions. The first one is about your strategy to increase your presence in the Italian market. I wanted to know if this acceleration of your presence implies higher marketing and trade spending, and what should we see as impact on the EBITDA for the first half of 2026 or the full year 2026? If you expect from the first year a positive contribution to profitability. The second question is about the earn-out related to innovation. We saw in 2025 this impact. Should we consider this behind us, or there are any residual effects or other earn-outs coming in the next year that we can expect in the next year?
The third question is about the dealcoholized wine. If you can give us a little bit more color on this division and how much of revenues come from this type of wine. Thanks.
Thank you for the questions. Entering Italy, we already have a very limited presence in the retail sector in Italy. We are presenting the project to the big customers this year. The impact on the figures in 2026 will not be significant. Starting from 2027, I expect some interesting numbers. Earn-out Enovation Brands, there are no residual effects on the coming years. It's done, finished. We paid the last amount that accrued during 2025. For this reason, there was an impact on the profit and loss account.
Not only equity impact, but also P&L impact. This is due to the fact that the target was related to the average EBITDA 2024, 2025. In 2025, despite the tariff, the company that managed not only U.S., but also Canadian market increased its revenues 5% in US dollar. They put the pressure on the so-called global Canadian and other market manager directly from Enovation and realized an extraordinary 2025 EBITDA.
In short way, entering Italy, we will see numbers in 2027. We will see also numbers 2026, but significant number in 2027. No residual effects for Enovation Brands. The dealcoholized wines, roughly EUR 500,000 turnover in 2025. We invested some money because we wanted to be there. There was some request, especially from North European markets. No request at all from Italy for the dealcoholized wines. We launched, as I said, four different products, two sparklings and two still wines. Sparkling wines, zero alcohol sparkling wines, are performing much better than still wines. For this year, our projection are slight increase. We do not see huge increase in this volume.
Probably the expectations of the market or whatever are bigger than what the end consumers are buying from the shelves of the supermarkets. As I said, because we are a flexible company, we wanted to be there and we didn't invest in plants. Some other competitors in Italy decided to invest millions of EUR in building plants, new plants for the dealcoholization, for the production of the dealcoholization. Our approach, again, was conservative. We decided to use third-party plants located in Germany, which had a great experience in producing dealcoholized wines. We like to produce there our products. We bring the products to Italy with our brands, and we started the distribution.
When we see volumes enough to invest then in plants, we will do. At the moment, we decided to keep a very flexible approach to this kind of products. First we see the numbers and then we decide to invest.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time.
There are no other questions. We thank you and we see-
If I may just, can I
Yeah
Just a couple of follow-up. One on the Middle East situation, if you can tell us if you have some direct impact in terms of sales. The second on the U.S. tariff, what is the situation in these first months of 2026? Are you still paying tariffs? Have the volumes restarted? An update also on this front. Thanks.
Thank you for these questions. Middle East, the numbers of Italian wines in Middle East are negligible, so very low. There are shift of shipments in those countries, we have seen last month. Some containers have been kept on hold here in Italy because customers are waiting to collect these goods. We are talking about a few containers. Most interesting, U.S. tariff. As you know, the introduction was for a 15% rate tariff. I don't have here the slide provided by Unione Italiana Vini. The whole segment, wine segment of this 15% tariff has been paid by suppliers.
We see that, based on volumes shipped toward the United States and the value of this 15% tariff, 10% have been paid by suppliers, reducing the price of the products. 5% has been paid by importers. U.S. is not performing well. It's not performing well, even if Italian Wine Brands are out of price reduction for this tariff. Because we also reduced our prices to our importers and clients in the United States. Out of effect of the U.S. dollar, we were positive. Overall, the market of the United States was negative. As you probably know, the court of the U.S. announced that was unconstitutional, the tariff. We have asked to be reimbursed for the money that we paid through our U.S. importing company, so through Enovation Brands. We filed our request of reimbursement, and then we will see what's happening.
Thank you very much.
Yes. If I may, a quick note on the distance selling side of the business. If I understood correctly, it has a positive impact on the trade working capital, although I guess you don't keep it open for the financing because, well, you're reducing your leverage. Although the distance selling has a negative impact on margins. It's still diluting the margins. A little bit, I want to understand the strategy behind this. Are you keeping it for Svinando? Maybe it's just a matter of volumes or I don't know. That's the question.
It's a good question. It's a good question because we discuss every day about this segment. It helped us a lot during COVID period because it was a main driver of our profitability and volumes. We are looking very carefully at the numbers of our distance selling and we have now in place another plan for this part of the business. We will cut the commercial cost from teleselling and the mailing. As a company that would like to have our products everywhere the customer is, it is important to have also a direct link to the final consumer. Overall, we have half million final customers around Europe. We want to keep them, but we want to keep them in a profitable way.
The new plan is to cut not profitable commercial expenses. We'll expect in the near future lower level of revenues, but it doesn't matter. We want to have a sustainable business even if it's lower in terms of revenues, but we want to see positive numbers in terms of cash generation. All the plan is in that direction. We are also looking at cooperation with other players because especially here in Italy, but also in Germany, there are some other players that face the same situation. We are discussing with everybody in order to make platforms that are sustainable for the business. For us, of course, it's important.
It's a route to the market for our products, but we don't want to keep it burning cash. This is our key statement also of the directors of Italian Wine Brands. We have to manage it in a profitable way, or we have to see what to do with this channel.
Yeah. According to your expectation, it's not a matter of customer only buying 1 or 2 or 3 bottles or, I don't know, spending EUR 50 per online tickets and everything is taken away from marketing costs, development costs, logistic costs, and then. Well, it's increasingly more profitable to sell EUR 50 of wine inside of a shop than in a website, right? Is it proven to be being a structurally profitable channel or even with bigger volumes? Because what it's not scaling is the ticket amount of online customers.
No, the only thing that is scalable is the average price of the bottle. We believe that, first, you have seen from the forecast for next year, entry-level products are going to slow down again. There is no way to be efficient with online and the distribution channel for entry-level wines. The logistics costs have increased a lot in the past years, and they will increase again because the cost of gasoline, petrol are going to increase more and more.
Consumers are not willing to pay delivery costs because they have been used by competitors not to pay the delivery costs, which are a great part of the cost of the supply. The only way is to sell higher level products leveraging on the assortment because the assortment that you find online is not comparable with the assortment that you find in the shop near to your home. The only way is to leverage in that part of the business. Online needs a higher percentage of gross margin compared to larger distribution retailers. We see that larger distribution retailers normally work with 30% gross margin.
To run successfully and profitably an online player, you need at least 50% gross margin because you have the logistics costs, which are very high. In a few words, we will keep it not in the way that we have kept until today. Probably we will reduce some activities, we will streamline the activities. We don't want to keep it for a long time without having positive returns.
Thank you.
Because the money that we invest in the distance selling, we would better invest in some other areas of the business, where we know that we have more returns, where probably we are much better to do other kind of business than this one. If there are no other questions.
In any case, we are available for.
Any other information.
Available.
Have a nice day.
Thanks a lot for your time. See you soon.
See you soon.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye. Thank you.
Bye