Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here with us during our earnings call for the 1st quarter of 2026. I have with me Salazar, our CFO; Vicky, Victoria, our IR Officer; and Luna, our IR Manager. On the 1st slide, I'll just give you the highlights today for our agenda. We'll talk about the main highlights for the beginning of the year, how we're moving forward with the main strategic initiatives of the group, and then I'll hand over to Salazar to go into details about the financial performance. Lastly, we will begin our Q&A session. Let's talk about the main highlights for this 1st quarter of 2026. We started off 2026 on a very excited tone with the way that we got ready to capture the opportunities of this year, as it's a very special year.
It's a World Cup year, a year in which our two brands, Centauro and Nike or Fisia, really stand out. I'd like to remind you that, during 2025, as of the second half, we acted on important movements so we would be operationally ready for this year. I'd like to stress that we strengthened our sales team at Centauro. We increased the number of athletes that worked in the stores and also the admin team at Fisia. All of that makes us feel very confident to capture the opportunities in such a special year. In fact, the year started off very well. Once again, we're presenting consistent results with net income going up almost 15%, ending at BRL 1.8 billion. The gross income also grew well, 17%, achieving BRL 906 million. Gross margin at 50.8%, which represents a 1.1 percentage point increase year-over-year.
Even with all the investments that we had during all of last year and some pressure on circumstantial expenses, we grew our net income at 6.1%, ending the period at BRL 78.7 million. Now about Centauro. At Centauro, we are still delivering consistent results. Once again, net revenues grew at double digits, 13.3%. Same-store sales at 15%. Both channels grew well. Brick-and-mortar, 20.8%, and GMV in digital almost 21% growth. I'd also like to highlight what we closed at gross margin, very healthy at 51.3%. All of that goes to show how assertive we've been in choosing our portfolio, showing that we've still been growing with a lot of discipline and profitability. Fisia had a great quarter. We start the year with growth in all channels. Wholesale was the one that stood out the most.
For this quarter, it grew almost 50%, actually 48%, mainly driven by the World Cup and the new clubs that Nike's now sponsoring. The direct channels also had solid growth. The brick-and-mortar stores grew 16.4% and digital 15.4%. Overall, Fisia grew 26% in net revenues in this quarter. To conclude this highlights slide, I'd like to say that we are still committed to our plan in modernizing the stores. We had done refits in 19 stores last year, and in this quarter we did 12 refits. In all, 21 stores with a new look. I'll go into details about that later on. On this slide, I'd say that the major highlight was the long-awaited expectation of the launch of the Brazilian team's jerseys. This is a very special moment for us because Centauro and Nike really stand out in this case.
Nike, obviously, because it is a sponsor of the CBF, of the Brazilian jersey, and Centauro because it's the most relevant distribution channel for World Cup products. We launched the blue jersey on March 12th. It was a very special launch because it's the 1st time that the Jordan brand sponsored or had a partnership with the Brazilian Federation. They already had a partnership with the PSG, but this is the 1st time with our federation. Nothing better for the brand than premiering in the World Cup with one of these jerseys. On March 22nd, we launched the yellow jersey. It's beautiful. The design was inspired in the more classic style uniforms, but with a new technology, more breathable. It's awesome. Obviously, the figures for the 1st quarter are still not telling the story about the World Cup.
The World Cup really happens in the second quarter of the year, especially in June. We are very excited with the figures that we've seen so far in the launch, very much in line with our expectations. Once again, I'd like to say that the World Cup actually happens in the second quarter. We're moving forward, highly focused to ensure that we execute the plan very well that we've been working on for over a year. Let's talk about Centauro. At Centauro, we are extremely confident. It's been delivering consistent results in the past quarters. All of the initiatives that we started using as of the second quarter last year have been reaping the results. It started actually last year, and we move forward confident knowing that we will deliver consistent results. This quarter, we ended with significant growth.
Same-store sales was 12.4%. Digital grew 20.8%. Footwear is still a main driver for growth. I believe it was the category that really took advantage of the actions that we had as of last year. A new assortment, a new policy of allocation, increasing the number of salespeople. That has been shown to be a winning aspect. High performance running grew 48%. Those are the more expensive products that require a more technical specialized sale. They've been performing very well in all stores, even in all the different profile shopping centers, because we are picking the right products and having specialized sales. Another category that was an important driver this year was obviously soccer.
Even though we launched the official jerseys at the end of March, as of the second half of March, the Centauro stores were already showing something about the World Cup since the beginning of the year. This year we developed a line of licensed products from CBF that were incredible. You'll see a very comprehensive portfolio of licensed products that achieve prices at the base of the pyramid. We also had another product that was very iconic, the World Cup soccer balls, as well as jerseys from other federations. The soccer category performed very well, and that is one of the other drivers of growth for Centauro in this quarter. In this quarter, we also started to have our new strategy for the logistics network.
Currently, the replenishment of all stores and fulfillment of digital comes from one single distribution center located in Extrema. We would like to be closer to distribute to other major centers, smaller distribution centers closer to the stores. We can decrease the disruption in stores and have a better service and delivery in digital. That's very important to unlock the growth in the new stores and unlock the distribution in this digital, also allow an expansion strategy. We've been focusing stronger on that concept in this quarter. In this quarter, we also stepped on the gas in refitting the stores. We mentioned that we did that for nine stores last year. We reported that these stores were performing from 12-13 percentage points above the mirror stores in the same region.
This quarter we started 23 renovations, and 12 were inaugurated in this quarter. Overall, we have 21 stores with a new look. Now let's talk about Fisia. Fisia also delivered a very good quarter. As I mentioned, all channels grew. Channels, stores grew 16%, digital 15%, and the growth of Fisia was 26% in net revenues. We've been executing the plan that we developed in 2025. The main focus would be wholesale, to recover wholesale, and we've been delivering consistent results since the second half of last year. Once again, last year we reinforced our team, we started doing the brand events again, we improved the platform where customers enter their orders. That is bringing about good results.
On this quarter, we were also able to capture incremental sales, not only for the World Cup, but also for the new teams that Nike, then Fisia is sponsoring, which is Vasco and Galo. We also talked about the road running, or running, which is very important for the DNA of the brand, so we reset the running portfolio completely last year. We mentioned a lot about road running that has three main franchisees, Pegasus, Structure, and Vomero, and these products have been performing well. A new category is performing well. The entire category is performing well, and it has been a driver of growth for all channels. The last category was soccer. The presence in soccer is a very important factor to build any sports brand, and here in Brazil last year, we advanced significantly.
We renewed our sponsorship agreement with the Corinthians Club and signed two new ones, Vasco and Galo, and this year is a World Cup year. It's a very important year to consolidate all the strategic advances that we conducted last year. I'm going to hand over to Salazar, and he'll go into details about the financial results. Go ahead, Salazar. Thank you, Gustavo. Good morning, everyone. Let's go into the financial details. Here we can see at Centauro, very solid results, healthy margins, approximately 51.3%, revenue growths of 13.3%, highlight to soccer, driven by the World Cup sales and Vasco sales. Highlight of 22.3% growth in footwear. Another important point that we monitor a lot is the number of items sold, you can also see a growth of items sold. Specifically what we call internally of Projeto Destrava.
We saw growth, not only in nominal prices, but also in number of items sold. We're very satisfied with the store performance in the first quarter. In digital as well, we had solid growth, approximately 10.1%, but more importantly, what we transact, and the platform had a growth even higher than that. We had GMV growth of 20.8%, so we're trying to increase our operational capability and bring in more partners and sell more items and more products from partners. Soccer is also a highlight, obviously. Already impacted by the launch of the Brazilian team jersey, and also the Vasco da Gama jersey. We have a growth in traffic and items sold, and also of the average ticket. We're very satisfied with the results of Centauro in this quarter.
I'd like to remind you that we started the process to leverage sales at Centauro into Q26, and now we're completing a year that we've unlocked the growth. In that period, we were able to increase the potential of Centauro's sales in both channels and gross margin. They're just some fine-tuning, a growth from 50.7% to 51.3%. It's about the fine tuning and better product allocation, less discounts. Obviously, the Brazilian team jersey, even though it's a small share, it does help. The main thing is that we've been able to maintain a healthy margin at Centauro. In gross profit in Centauro in the first quarter, we're very satisfied with our operations. Moving on to the next slide about Fisia. We're also very satisfied with the results. We knew that the first quarter, and especially in gross margin, would be a challenge.
We were feeling the FX pressure because this is a quarter in which the FX would be, would feel more pressure in 2026. As a result of the initiatives such as the tax incentive and stores and in wholesale that we implemented across 2025, we were pretty much able to offset that FX pressure to the gross margin of Fisia. You can see that the gross margin dropped, but just a little, even though we had a relevant FX effect. Fisia's growth was very solid, at 26%. Obviously, we have wholesale very strong, 48.7%, and part of that is obviously coming from the growth of net revenues and the tax incentive, but most is coming from these sales. Not only the recovery of the channel, but also selling World Cup products. It seems like we have less growth Well, it doesn't seem.
It is lower growth than wholesale, obviously. The digital channel that was growing in a slower manner, in this 1st quarter we see that channel going back to normal with the reallocation, so to speak, between the channels that took place as a result of many discounts that we gave in the past. Wholesale is recovering in space and digital is going into a more normal path of growth. Obviously that is greater as a result of the World Cup sales. In brick-and-mortar stores we have great performance of the NVS and NDIS. We opened NDIS last year, and we see good performance in the stores. An important point that we always consider on the radar was recovering the wholesale channel, and now we're showing that recovery.
Consolidated that recovery, a more normal recovery of growth in digital after a year that grew less. Now it's recovering the growth, and that's important in execution. In the stores, we see the potential that NDIS has. We continue to expect to increase that store portfolio. We had average ticket growth of NVS and NDIS, almost 14%. Digital had strong growth in soccer, 30% in running. Just to show you some figures about what Gustavo mentioned about the Nike DNA, 7.8% in casual, and wholesale with great growth. Solid recovery. Almost 3 consecutive quarters of growth in wholesale. Based on sales, it was a very interesting quarter for Fisia and Centauro. The margins, as I mentioned before, we made all the efforts to offset the FX impact with tax incentives, and in gross margin we practically offset that.
Always important to note that when we go into net margin, the tax incentive doesn't have taxes levied on it, so we were able to offset that, the negative impact in the first quarter with the implementation of the tax incentives. Moving on to the next point. There's the consolidated of information of the group. I'll go real quick over this. I've already mentioned that according in the business units. Approximately 15% growth in revenues quarter-over-quarter. Gustavo already mentioned this, the main vectors that led to that growth. In gross profit we had growth of 17.8%. Or excuse me, 17.3%. Healthy margins in Centauro and Fisia being where the FX effect was offset by the tax incentives. We were able to grow gross margin even though there was negative pressure in Fisia. Gross profit growth, which was very healthy.
On the next slide we can see operational expenses. Here we have three important factors. In personnel, as we had a positive impact in Centauro's sales given our plan, this was a quarter that we still didn't have a comparison with the reinforcement that we had in staffing in stores. There's an increase in those expenses, which is natural. The hires in the new stores that were inaugurated in 2025. We've opened stores in 2025 for Fisia and Centauro. During that year, we have new people working in the group. The important thing we should mention here is that the expenses in the first quarter were mainly connected to the growth expected for the year. We had royalties seasonality, actually a change in that, because as we started 2025, in that first quarter we hadn't launched the Projeto Destrava.
As of the second quarter, we launched that plan, and that led to stronger and more growth at Centauro. When we do that, we have an expectation of third and fourth quarters with robust growth as well. You change the mix. The share of receivables of products at Fisia getting paid from Nike to supply the growth in Centauro. We had a certain balance between the first and second quarter, obviously considering the seasonality, but as there was a change in the growth perspectives during the year, we pulled in more products during the second half. That affects royalties. I'd like to remind you that royalties is deferred in six months.
Based on the assumption that you've increased-Product pull in the second half, and imagine that the midway is between September and October, the highest impact of royalties of the seasonality will take place in the first quarter because it takes 6 months to happen. I believe that most of the impact of the seasonality that is necessary to supply the growth or support the growth is impacted in the first quarter. We also have the sponsorship of Vasco and Atlético Mineiro we're selling, and the contract is paid during the year. You start off paying the fixed installments of those contracts that we didn't have before. That's natural. It's an investment that we're making, marketing expenses, investments, and it will be offset during the year as all the jerseys are sold. We have a linear recognition of the fixed installment of Corinthians Club.
When we renegotiated that installment, it was mainly connected to the sale of the jersey that usually happens more as of March and April, the second quarter, when the Brazilian Championship season starts. This year, we maintained that expectation even though the Brazilian Championship started a little bit earlier. The fixed installments of that contract were balanced out during the year. I would say there was a shift in the expenses that were mainly concentrated in 9 months and distributed across 12 months. That was another impact. I believe that that's what we had to do. To grow, we had to make investments. The investments are reflected on CapEx and the expenses that I mentioned before. Obviously, if you want to sell and grow in 2026, you have to bring in more products. If Centauro is growing more, you have to bring in more product.
If you invested in new clubs, you have to pay the fixed expenses, the marketing. We believe that all of that is a beneficial consequence of the investments that we're making. At first, you see a seasonal impact in the first quarter, but then you do see the return on investment during the year, especially through the sale of the jerseys and the sale of the actual products. Obviously, I can't forget to mention that in the second quarter and second half last year, we were bringing in World Cup products affecting the royalties in the first quarter. If we disconsider these specific points, we are highly controlling our expenses, and the company is ready to, as it grows, achieve the operational leverage in retail. On the next slide, we have EBITDA in line. The margin is a bit worse given the points that I just mentioned.
Net income, we're able to offset the impact of the EBITDA, of the FX aspects, given the fact that the tax incentive does not pay income tax. Without a doubt, that helped us to have profit and offset the FX impact. For that, we have to look at the P&L of the company and going through gross margin. On this slide, on working capital, you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. If we're getting ready for strong growth, be it because Centauro is growing well, or because Fisia is recovering growth on some channels, or because the second quarter has the World Cup, that's just what we have to do. We have to replenish inventory, have inventory for all of that. Average inventory days growth compared to previous years, it's a result of that.
If retail grows, we need inventory, and that's mainly focused on the second quarter, or actually to be sold now in the second quarter because of the World Cup. The rest is normal company operations that is at a different level of growth. The company has to reflect that in increasing inventory. In average inventory days, we have high growth. We are ready to support our growth. As a result of wanting to grow, customers are asking for longer payment terms, probably a result of the economy. We do have a growth in average receivable days. We're trying to decrease the number of installments in some channels, trying to get minimum installment amount for different stores to guarantee that a store such as in the Iguatemi shopping mall, which is upscale, we wouldn't have such long payment terms.
We can get some gains out of that. It's a reality. We're going through a moment where we'll grow a little more, and we have to finance our customers a little more. It's also part of the plan that we had established. Net debt, which is a reflects of the growth, of two things, working capital, obviously to grow. We've been growing during 2025 a lot, and now we're getting ready for another strong growth in the year. We need more working capital to fund the growth. Without a doubt, we've changed the CapEx levels that we've had in the past. It was approximately BRL 250 million, BRL 280 million of CapEx. We went up to almost BRL 450 million CapEx in the period, the last 12-month period.
Without a doubt, that has made us use the cash generation to fund the investment in working capital and also in CapEx. Debt is higher, so we're paying a little more interest. We've paid dividends, and we also had some share buyback. Leverage went from 0.6 times in March 2025 to 1.6 times. When we look at the seasonality of December 2025 to March 25, 2026, it's respecting the seasonality. First and second quarters are quarters where leverage naturally increases, especially in the year of a World Cup where you have to carry extra inventory. Without a doubt, that definitely impacts us in the first quarter more than the other normal quarters without a World Cup. I'd say that this is within what we expected.
This is expected leverage as a result of the growth that we expect for the year and as a result of the seasonality of the World Cup in 2Q. Next slide. We'll move on to the Q&A session, Gustavo and I are available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Gustavo? Thank you, Salazar. Just a couple of comments before we open up to Q&A. We're very happy with the first quarter results. It's very much in line with what we had planned. Many actions that we made last year have materialized. I'm very proud of our team. I'd like to congratulate them. They've been working relentlessly to put into practice everything that we've planned. With that, let's begin the Q&A session. We will begin the Q&A session. To ask a question, please click on raise hand.
If your question is answered, you can leave the queue by clicking on lower hand. First question is from Ms. Danniela Eiger from XP. Go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Gustavo and Salazar. Thank you for taking my question. Congratulations on your results. I have two on my side. The first one is about the competition. We haven't seen that reflecting in an obvious manner in your results, but we've heard from some players of a more intensive competitive scenario, and the marketplace is in that war between them, enabling that through coupons and other players in the industry, in the sports industry, more aggressive or as aggressive as they've always been. I'd like to hear your opinion about the competitive environment, and even in the World Cup context, we've seen many players trying to be present in the jersey environment.
Obviously, you have an advantage because you have the official jerseys because of the sponsorship, but we've seen others trying to capitalize on that. An update on your side about the competition. My second question is more specific about the renovations. You mentioned that they've been delivering good results. Are there any metrics that you can share with us about the impact on profitability or sales? Where do you see the main gains in the performance after these renovated stores were opened?
Okay, Dani, thank you. Let me repeat your question to make sure that I didn't miss anything.
The first part is about the perception of the competitive environment, and the second part of that first question is specifically about the competition trying to take advantage of the World Cup moment to attract more demand, and the second part is about the renovations of the stores and the metrics that we use to monitor that to see if things are according to plan or not. Is that right, Dani?
Yeah, perfect.
Competitive scenario, to be honest, we don't see many changes compared to what we've been seeing across all of 2025. Nothing structural, I would say, that would make us change our policies and markdowns or pricing. Things are as they already were last year, so there's not much I can say about that.
For about the World Cup, that's not something new either. During World Cup moments, we see things that happen, unfortunately. Fake products, other companies taking advantage of that demand to attract the foot traffic. We have operations to inhibit fake products and make sure that our official products are out there and standing out, but nothing really different than what we've seen in the past, especially in the World Cup of 2022. About the new stores. During the renovation, another thing that we consider is how long it's going to be closed, what the impact on revenue will be.
In most cases, we're not really closing the stores, and we close the self-service part and renovate that, footwear, and then close footwear and try to renovate something else so we avoid how it impacts the sales, the CapEx of these square meter of the renovations, and then sales considering the mirror stores. We pick a group of stores in the same region to see if the impact after the renovation shows to be encouraging. So far, we see that it's according to the metrics that we have determined as success.
I have nothing to add. Clear. Thank you very much.
Next question is from Eric Wong from Santander. Go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking our questions. On our side, especially about gross margin, at Fisia, we had a positive surprise. Less pressure, I would say.
I'd like to understand what we can consider about the dynamics during the year in terms of recovery. During the year, the FX rate wouldn't be such a negative impact. When we look at the comments, you're saying that specifically in wholesale, there were some commercial conditions that were differentiated for the bigger customers. I'd like to understand how much of that impact on the margin came from that so we can understand how we can consider the gross margin, and if those terms are just one-off for this quarter or if it's something that could carry over into the future. Thank you.
Thank you for your question, Eric. I'll let that first part of the exchange rate and how we were able to offset in the dynamics for the year to Salazar, and then I'll answer the rest of the question.
Okay, about the exchange rate. What we've been saying is that a negative aspect compared to a quarter, it happened what we would have in this 1st quarter, a negative pressure. We eventually see at Centauro a potential positive situation given the sale of the Brazilian jersey. In the 3rd and 4th quarter, we see the effects of a favorable exchange rate. Obviously, I can't go into the details about the size of that impact, but as of the 3rd and 4th quarters in Fisia, we have a perspective of a positive impact as result of the exchange rate. About the impact across the quarters, that's something that would happen with the company. Salazar, your connection wasn't that good. You had some issues there. Maybe Eric might have not heard everything. I'm gonna summarize what you mentioned, and feel free to jump in.
The exchange rate did put more pressure us in the 1st and 2nd quarter, and then in the second half of the year, it started to favor us considering what we were thinking about last year. I can't tell you about the order of magnitude, how much that would represent, but that's the dynamic that we expect for the year. I believe you also mentioned the fact that the World Cup, that the sales have been healthy, especially for Centauro, and that it favors us. What was missing was the sales details for wholesale. There's some ups and downs in that, depending on the half year, depending on when the products come in for the different orders of each customer.
I wouldn't say it's structural. That we would say that it's long-lasting, but those ups and downs happen on a monthly basis and quarterly basis depending on the sales of the different customer pools for Fisia. Did I answer everything?
Yes, very clear. Thank you for your answers.
Next question is from Pedro Peroni from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Gustavo, Salazar, Victoria, and the whole group. I have two questions. One, about gross margin in Centauro. A margin that was a bit different than our expectations, we'd like to understand. Can you talk about the drivers of the improvement in the quarter and the opportunities that you see moving forward for Centauro? Another question about working capital, especially about how we could imagine the dynamic moving forward, and connected to working capital and leverage of the company for the remainder of the year. Thank you.
Hi, Pedro. Thank you for your question. Let me repeat that to make sure we answer it correctly. First part about the gross margin of Centauro. Centauro presented better margin, gross margin this quarter-over-quarter. You'd like to understand if there are any drivers and how they should behave moving forward, and the second part is about the working capital dynamics and how that would change or continue moving forward. Is that correct?
Yes. Perfect, Gustavo. Thank you.
About the gross margin of Centauro, like Salazar mentioned, it's fine-tuning. Nothing really structural that would make the margin change levels. We started off the year with a new inventory percentage that was very healthy. In fact, we have a gross margin difference that depends on inventory age. It came in well-distributed in stores.
Inventory percentage of new inventory actually is very high, enabling us to turn over that inventory with a healthy gross margin. Digital preserved gross margin as well. We had some help from the World Cup items, licensed products. They sell without markdowns. I would say it's fine-tuning. No actual structural drivers that we can look at the future and say, "Okay, we changed levels and gross margin." Now I'm gonna hand over to Salazar to answer about working capital. Well, let's see if my connection is better because Gustavo is in Brazil. I'm in the U.S. We would expect that things would be better here, right? Anyways, I'm in the U.S., not working so well. Anyways, let's see how this goes. Working capital.
I would say that this isn't a typical year in the sense that usually what we see in a normal year for the Grupo SBF is that you're gonna have a first quarter where leverage is usually higher, and then we have a second quarter where leverage will decrease, and you'll start increasing the leverage in the third quarter again because you're getting ready for Christmas, and then in the fourth quarter you're gonna lower that leverage because we have Christmas sales, and that would be paid in the first quarter. That's the normal life cycle of the company. This year specifically, we have the World Cup in the second quarter. That means that the first quarter will have a more natural leverage, so to speak, higher because you're buying more inventory for an event that doesn't usually happen.
In the second quarter that, in theory, you should decrease your leverage, imagining a normal year. In a World Cup year, you're going to go into the second half with the quarter with the sales that will allow you to lower leverage, but you're leaving a major event and you're going into another major event, which is the end of year. In the second half, it's usually stronger. Historically, it's stronger. That, in addition to the facts that this year we will be investing a reasonable amount of funds for the renovations, distribution centers, store openings, IT, so on and so forth. The working capital dynamics will follow that company pattern in solely influenced by the second quarter event, making us feel more pressure during the year in working capital. We will maintain the leverage of the company.
It will remain still healthy. We have some specific things for accounts receivable as a result of the different terms that customers are requesting. Accounts payable, it's also seasonal to have a drop in the payment terms in the first quarter, and it goes back to normal afterwards. We go into the inventory dynamics that we have the World Cup. This year is a bit different than a normal year, given the demand and working capital and extra growth that we wouldn't normally have. That's the details that I can give you. Pedro. Did you hear me this time?
Yes, we heard your answer. Thank you. Very clear. Salazar and Gustavo, thank you.
Next question is from Renan Sartorio from Safra Bank. Go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Congratulations on your results. I have a follow-up about inventory, as it's high and there's gonna need high sales to normalize that. I'd like to know what the demand is in sales for these recent months, and what your expectation is for the rest of the year.
Hi, Renan. Thank you for your question. Just to repeat that, it's about what we expect for sales that would have a direct impact in how inventory will behave during the year, given that inventory levels are such right now that we expect strong sales, right? Is that correct?
Exactly.
Just to reinforce what Salazar mentioned, that not only in terms of inventory, but also consequently the leverage that's different than what we would naturally have because of the World Cup. It's as we expected for the beginning of the year.
I'd like to remind you that we started to expedite growth at Centauro as of the second quarter last year. We expect the second quarter now to be highly impacted by World Cup sales. Much higher than normal compared to years that we don't have the World Cup. That inventory is being created as of the last quarter of last year so that we would be able to supply all the retailers and capture that demand of the World Cup. 'Cause it's very concentrated, very focused, right? It's important that the inventory comes in much earlier than for conventional inventory buildup that we would have. We're looking at things that been happening up to March, less than we've seen in the subsequent months, is that we've been presenting high resilience in sales.
In Centauro, it's the fifth consecutive quarter that we've had consistent growth, and in Fisia as well, as incremental aspects and recovery of wholesale and other aspects in Fisia. We're very comfortable with the inventory dynamic. I'd like to remind you that Centauro has a dynamic in which it's able to manage inventory receipt so that it behaves in a way according to sales. The industry brings that in, and Centauro, in a responsible manner together with the brands, is able to adjust the inventory receipt to adapt to the sales profile of the year. At Fisia, since 2023, we've had more conservative policies in product purchases. We were trying to decrease the obsolete inventory last year, so Fisia has healthy inventory. We don't see any problems or issues with inventory or in the dynamics of working capital. Salazar, would you like to add to that?
No, that's the idea. Nothing to add. Thank you, everyone.
Next question is from Mr. Philippe Hached from Goldman Sachs. Go ahead, please.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I'd like to explore the expenses dynamic. It's very clear that the positive effect that you had in sales, and most of the increase in expenses are related to structural reinforcement to support current and future growth. It'd be interesting to understand though, if you could share, if we could quantify the amount of investment so we can understand how we should consider the dynamic expenses and the potential of dilution in the next quarter when they mature. Another specific thing, not about the results, but just an update of the conversations with Nike to be an exclusive operator of the stores. That would be interesting as well.
Thank you for your question, Hached. I was following the translation, so I'm going to repeat that. The first one is about expenses. You mentioned that they're very well explained for the current moment, but there's some doubt about how that will behave moving forward. The second one is that specific question about the negotiation or renegotiation with the contracts with Nike. I'll answer the second one and then hand over to Salazar. Well, we're very confident about the conversations that we've been having with Nike. The partnership has been growing stronger year after year, so I can't really say anything about the contract, but I can say that we are very comfortable. I think that we're more comfortable than ever about the partnership that we have with Nike.
We're very happy with the results that we've been presenting since we took over that operation, and we're very much in line with the plan for the next three to five years. We are very comfortable. I'll hand over to Salazar to talk about the expenses.
Philippe, about expenses, specifically about the stores. We did what we had to do last year. We don't really see any increase or decrease in the number of people in the stores in the upcoming quarters. In a way that if we look at the future, I would say that we should have actually the cost that would be increased exclusively for that line item in expenses is salary increases because of the unions. In that specific line item in the increase of head count, we shouldn't have or imagine anything in addition to that.
That's what I believe. In the second quarter, specifically that you mentioned, we can suppose or assume operational leverage because we'll have extra revenues from the World Cup. We can even compare that and say that it's kind of like a second Christmas. It's revenues coming in. Christmas, instead of having that specific Christmas every single year, it would happen in the second quarter of a specific year, which is 2026. We would imagine additional revenues given the World Cup. The costs of that part of unlocking in the stores would be corrected by inflation given that we don't consider any increase or decrease in staff that would be relevant for that period. I would say that's it.
Perfect. Very clear. Thank you, Salazar. Thank you, everyone.
Our Q&A session is now over. Any other questions will be answered by our IR team. Now, I hand over to Gustavo to make his final remarks about the company.
Very well. Once again, I would like to thank all of you for your interest and participation in our earnings call for the 1st quarter of 2026. I would say that we're very happy with the results that we've been showing in the past quarters and this one as well. I would really like to thank all our athletes, all our people, employees that are working relentlessly to deliver results, our shareholders, and everyone who is a part of our operations. See you next time with the results of the World Cup. Thank you. The Grupo SBF conference call is now adjourned. Thank you for your participation, and have a good day