Earnings call transcript: Grupo SBF Q3 2025 reports earnings miss, stock rises

Grupo SBF, a leading player in the Brazilian sports retail market, reported its Q3 2025 earnings, revealing a miss on both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue forecasts. The company posted an EPS of $0.4201, falling short of the anticipated $0.49, representing a negative surprise of 14.27%. Revenue came in at $1.88 billion, slightly below the forecast of $1.89 billion. Despite these results, the company's stock price rose by 2.62% to $14.08 in the trading session following the earnings announcement.

Key Takeaways

• Grupo SBF's Q3 2025 EPS and revenue both missed forecasts.
• The company's stock price increased by 2.62% post-earnings.
• Strong growth was reported in the footwear category, contributing 50% to revenues.
• The company plans significant store modernization and expansion in 2026.
• Net income grew by 12% over the past year, reaching $435.6 million.

Company Performance

Grupo SBF demonstrated robust growth over the past year, with net income increasing by 12% to $435.6 million. The company's net margin stood at 5.8%, and EBITDA reached BRL 715 million. Despite the earnings miss, the company continues to show strength in the Brazilian sports retail market, particularly in the footwear category, which accounts for half of its revenues. The expansion of Nike product offerings and the launch of new product lines, such as Oxer footwear, have bolstered the company's market position.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $1.88 billion, slightly below the forecast of $1.89 billion
• Earnings per share: $0.4201, missing the forecast of $0.49
• Net income: $435.6 million, up 12% year-over-year
• EBITDA: BRL 715 million

Earnings vs. Forecast

The company's EPS of $0.4201 fell short of the forecasted $0.49, marking a 14.27% negative surprise. Revenue also missed expectations, coming in at $1.88 billion compared to the anticipated $1.89 billion. This marks a deviation from the company's recent trend of meeting or exceeding forecasts, raising questions about future performance.

Market Reaction

Despite the earnings and revenue misses, Grupo SBF's stock rose by 2.62%, closing at $14.08. This movement places the stock closer to its 52-week high of $14.49, indicating positive investor sentiment. The stock's performance contrasts with the broader market, which has shown volatility in recent weeks.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Grupo SBF plans to focus on store modernization, with updates planned for 103 older stores. The company anticipates growth across all channels in 2026, driven by a significant sports calendar and continued expansion of Nike stores. Tax incentives are expected to help offset foreign exchange variations, supporting the company's financial health.

Executive Commentary

Gustavo, CEO of Grupo SBF, stated, "We are growing 12% our net income in the period, totaling $435.6 million with a net margin of 5.8%." Salazar, CFO, added, "We believe that in 2026 that would happen because it's a year of carrying more inventory, especially because of the growth of the plan that we're implementing."

Risks and Challenges

• Exchange rate fluctuations impacting gross margin, particularly in the Fisia division.
• Increased net debt due to share buybacks and dividend payments.
• Potential competitive threats in the expanding Brazilian sports retail market.
• The need for effective inventory management amid store expansions.
• Dependence on tax incentives to mitigate foreign exchange impacts.

Grupo SBF's Q3 2025 earnings call highlighted both the challenges and opportunities facing the company as it navigates a dynamic retail environment. With strategic initiatives in place, the company remains focused on growth and market leadership.

Full transcript - Grupo SBF (SBFG3) Q3 2025:

Gustavo, CEO, SBF Group: Good morning, everyone. I would like to thank everyone for participating in our earnings call for the third quarter. I have Salazar with me, our CFO, and Victoria. She is responsible for IR. On our second slide, this is the agenda for the call today. As always, I'd like to start off with the main highlights for the quarter, and then I go into the main strategic initiatives. Then I'll hand over to Salazar, who will go in deeper to the financial performance. As always, we'll have the Q&A session. About our main highlights for the quarter. In this quarter, we've continued to advance with the main initiatives of our new strategic planning. The main focus here is on retail, with initiatives to unlock the growth of Centauro and Fisia, which are our main business units.

The good thing is to be able to see that these strategic initiatives are already reflected on the results of the two business units. About results, once again, Centauro has shown solid results and consistent results in both channels. In this quarter, you can see a net revenue growth of 15% year over year, 13% in brick-and-mortar stores, and 20% in the digital channel. In addition, we have a same-store sales of 15%. It is also worth noting that our footwear category that accounts for 50% of our revenues also had expressive growth, growing 21% in same-store sales, mainly driven by a 15% increase in the conversion rate. Fisia also has a very positive quarter. All channels grew, but the growth was fundamentally driven by the performance of our wholesale channel that increased 28% year over year.

This advance, without a doubt, reflects the initiatives that we started last year, strengthening the relationship with our main customers, the showrooms for the new collections. You can see that that already reflects in the results. In the past quarter, wholesale started to grow. This quarter, we grew a lot, strongly, and now we're confident that this channel will become stable going forward. We also had important advances in two strategic pillars. The first thing is multi-channel. Historically, we saw that 70% of the exchanges and returns of 1P products from the website were already being done in stores. Recently, not that recently, we launched the project that we call Troca Tudo Change Everything, meaning that 3P could also be exchanged and returned in the store.

We can see that 70% of those exchanges and returns are already done in brick-and-mortar stores, and 70% of them are converted into 1P products that are in the brick-and-mortar store. In fact, customers really figure it out when they go to the brick-and-mortar store to exchange or return a product. We also started another very important pilot project, very much in line with the vision that the products that we offer in our digital channel should always be able to be picked up, returned, and exchanged in a store. We started a pilot project enabling customers that buy 3P Nike products to pick up these products at our store as well. Another front in increasing and modernizing the brick-and-mortar stores, we delivered two new Centauro stores.

We increased the size of an important store that we have in Belo Horizonte, and we did our first refit following a more customized model to transform the older stores that we have into more modern stores, but with a much lower renovation cost than when we had the G5 model. For Fisia, we also inaugurated a beautiful NDIS store in Campinas as a full-price store and increased our NDIS in Nova América and Rio de Janeiro. We are very happy with the results we have seen so far. Lastly, to finalize this part, across the past 12 months, we can see that we are on the right path, in the right direction. We are growing 12% our net income in the period, totaling $435.6 million with a net margin of 5.8%. On the next slide, we can go into the strategic fronts of our brick-and-mortar Centauro stores.

We'd already mentioned in the previous quarter that we had some pillars to improve the purchasing experience for our customers in the stores. We reinforced our buyers' team. We reinforced our personnel at stores. We're guaranteeing something more assertive for our customers. In this quarter, we've continued to improve a more technical and customized service and reinforce our assortment with a more expansive, a wider and assertive mix. Where we have 40% accounting for our revenues, we've explained the expressive growth. We have assisted sales. We have salespeople to help our consumers to pick the models that fit the most with their needs. Same-store sales in this category grew 21%, an increase of 15% in the conversion rate. It's good to see here that the high-performance category, the category that really requires even more technical services, grew 54% year over year.

Redirecting the sales team is always made according to the potential of each store, and we can see that we still have room to reinforce the sales team in the high-power stores, especially to be able to capture the higher demand period that's coming now, Black Friday and Christmas. It's also worth noting that this quarter, Centauro had the best Father's Day in history. We saw revenues equal to the levels that we see on Christmas. You can see that the strategic initiatives are, in fact, really assertive. The sales grew almost 22% year over year, an increase in conversion of 0.9 percentage points in stores, soccer category growing again. We could see that when we have more demand in a store, we can capture this opportunity even more. We've seen the supplementary categories growing a lot, a result of strengthening our sales area.

The highlights were basketball grew 62%, rackets 26%, water sports 20%, and foods 16%. On the next slide, we have the strategic initiatives of our digital channel. We continue to evolve in the three main pillars, meaning multi-channel, purchasing experience, and the evolution of our technological platform. I already mentioned the advance that we've had in multi-channel and the result of this project called Troca Tudo and the pilot project that we started off with Nike in our marketplace. In addition, we've seen some important evolutions in the purchasing journey, and now we're offering our customers the possibility of paying with Apple Pay and Google Pay. We've seen that the growth, especially in footwear, has grown a lot, growing 38% year over year, given a more assertive assortment in the best sellers for our digital channel as well. On the next slide, our own brands here.

Our own brands are also a strategic pillar that are very important, and it's great to see that our own brand team once again got the collection right. Exception is great. We can see that Oxer, that accounts for 60% of our own brand portfolio, grew 9%, even on top of a very strong base from the previous year. We also launched, we had the premiere here in footwear, now having Oxer products in footwear. That is also very important to strengthen the positioning of the Oxer brand as a sports brand that offers products that we call head-to-toe. Our ASICS products continue with great acceptance, growing almost 12% year over year. We have done all of that with a lot of discipline in terms of inventory.

Quarter after quarter, we can see the participation of the previous collections decreasing compared to the total inventory, which makes us feel very confident that we're going into the fourth quarter with a balanced out inventory that's assertive and will help us to reap good results in the last quarter of the year. Now, on the next slide, once again, Fisia presented very positive results, very much driven by the wholesale channel, growing 28%. Once again, that's a result of the actions that we've been holding since last year, bringing on good results in all our customers. This quarter, the result was also mainly driven by the Centauro growth, where our Nike product demands have increased a lot. In the third quarter, we organized a showroom, a brand event that was huge, to present the soccer and running collections for the Summer 2026 collection.

We had over 300 participants, and not just the main accounts, but also our smaller customers to create a tighter relationship. We had two days of the event. On the first day, we presented our soccer collection, not only for the World Cup, but also for the clubs that we will start sponsoring as of next year. It was very well accepted. It was great to see that our customers were really excited with this collection. On the second day, we presented the innovations in the running category. We basically renewed all the franchises, from the most expensive ones to the cheaper ones. I'm also very excited about how our customers received the reset in the running strategy. On the next slide, continuing to prioritize the most relevant categories, which are running and soccer. In this quarter, we relaunched the Total 9D collection.

This collection was very iconic. We have a new look on this collection and selling, especially in casual, which exceeded our expectations. We launched the third Corinthians Club jersey inspired by 2025, and we beat records in sales with this jersey. In running, we continue with our strategy to reorganize the portfolio. With the entry-level styles and with Revolution 8 and the Icon Pegasus structure and Vomero, once again, exceeding our expectations. As Centauro does, Fisia has been expanding in multi-channels. This possibility of picking up, exchanging, and returning products in the store is very important to our consumers. As of now, Nike.com consumers can also exchange and return products that were bought in digital in the brick-and-mortar stores. Integrating the channels is very important for our strategy, and we will advance in the multi-channel aspect for Fisia as well.

On the next slide, about our expansion and modernization of the chain, we inaugurated two new Centauro stores, one in the city of Caruaru and the other in Rio Preto. These stores have a new style. We call it G6, giving a new experience, mainly aligned with our brand expression. It flows better, and the results were very interesting. We did the first refit, a more customized one in order to, because it has a lower cost than what we had in the previous refits, and that was very interesting as well. In Fisia, we inaugurated a store in the Iguatemi Campinas Mall and NDIS, a full-price model, and increased the size of the store in the Nova América shopping mall in Rio de Janeiro. Now I'll hand over to Salazar, who will go into the details of the financial results. Good morning. Thank you, Gustavo.

Now I'll go through the financial results, going into further detail. In Centauro, the main point here is growth, is the growth that we see in both channels. The growth has been followed by, I would say, the maintenance of the gross margin. We're growing and maintaining our gross margin. We have a drop quarter over quarter, but that's resulting from the mix in the channel. An indicator that we do follow a lot here, growth of items sold. We see 11% growth of items sold. That was one of the indicators that we found as a potential for growth to release that growth for Centauro. We see those actions being well implemented and giving the results that we expected. At Centauro, those are the main points.

As Gustavo mentioned, a major highlight here in the footwear category, and as a result of the growth in items sold, we have a good growth in terms of revenue per square meter of almost 15.2%. On the next slide, we have Fisa. We have a great highlight here for an action plan that was recently implemented, well, not recently, in the past year, to recover wholesale. We start seeing a reflection of that growth in the company figures. We believe that we have more stability among the channels now after we had a more aggressive inventory reduction. Wholesale takes a while to react, to be sure that the rates will go to the right levels and discounts would be lower. In addition to the commercial actions that we've done, we see a reflex of that in the channel growth.

A positive point was the growth of NDIS. We show the potential of this product for growth, for expansion. We're under-penetrated. We have few stores in NDIS, and we believe that it's an avenue for growth for the company. We have e-commerce and digital that are practically at the right size. With the discounts we have and the growth that we had in 2023, it starts bringing about a balance. We're at the right price now, and moving forward, we have a perspective of a bigger balance between the channels and therefore balanced growth in this distribution of revenues between the channels. The highlight here at Fisa, without a doubt, was the recovery of the wholesale channel. Here's the consolidated of the company. We see 9.5. We see the recovery of Centauro and the wholesale channel.

We see that this margin is mainly impacted by the FX rate, especially in Fisia. That was pretty much expected. We had a tax incentive in this quarter as of August. We had two months of the tax incentive, and we believe that in the year, we will be able to offset the FX effects with the new tax incentives that are coming in. The main point of gross profit was the Fisia margin impacted by the FX rate and the new tax incentive in August, where we believe that that would help us in the year to offset the effects of the exchange rate in pretty much a complete manner. Next, we have operating expenses. We have expense dilution, even with the investments that we made, especially at Centauro for headcount.

Even though we've had these investments, we can dilute these expenses, showing that as we gain traction and improve the investments and the performance of these Centauro stores, we can dilute the expenses. We believe that they are absolutely under control. Moving towards operational leverage, given the growth, even with the new hires in stores and in the products area for Centauro. On the next slide, we have EBITDA that's highly impacted by the Fisia gross margin. We had a drop of 16%, mainly impacted by gross margin and also the FX variation at Fisia. In terms of net income, we could also explain that by the impact on the gross margin. Once again, it's pretty much expected, this impact for the third quarter. The actions to offset that are being carried out during the year.

Once again, the impact of the FX devaluation, when we look at that all year long and with all the tax incentives, when they are fully complete, we will be able to offset that during the year. We believe that the main point here in terms of net income is the gross margin. Moving on to working capital. Comparing year over year, we would say that we had an increase in inventory. That's normal according to the different seasons. We're going into the fourth quarter. It's a very important quarter. At the same time, we start to stabilize accounts payable as you have a more distributed purchase during the period.

In general terms, we're improving the financial cycle by four days, with a highlight to the normal seasonality of the company as now it grows inventory and getting ready for the end of the year, having a growth agenda. That's the main point here in working capital. It's cash generation for the company. We have an EBITDA of BRL 715 million. Net debt has grown a little. The net debt grew mainly as a result of share buyback and payment of dividends, especially given the share buyback. That's a decision that the company made. The company cash generation, considering EBITDA and working capital, was more than enough to pay the investment interest and dividends. The company is generating enough cash to pay its investments that are being made now to leverage growth.

In terms of leverage, we increased the level of leverage with a very comfortable indicator under one time. Without a doubt, we're controlling this indicator for the growth, and we also maintain an adequate capital structure. Those are the main highlights for this quarter. Now, we will move over to the Q&A session. Now, we will begin the Q&A session. To ask a question, please click on "Raise Hand." If your question is answered, just click on lower your hand so you can leave the queue. Please hold. First question is from Rodrigo Gastein, Itaú BBA. Good morning, everyone. Gustavo, Salazar, I have two questions on my side. The first one is I'd like to talk about the gross revenue dynamic, especially in the Centauro brand. In the third quarter, it has already shown clear growth rates.

When you look at the third quarter and the growth of Centauro, what's the level of comfort that you currently have that that's a level of a potential to increase for the fourth quarter? What are your perceptions for the end of the year? Centauro and Fisia, do you think there are anything else that would expedite things in the short term in terms of revenue? The second question, probably for you, Salazar, understand the dynamic of working capital, not just the fourth quarter because of the seasonality, but also for next year. Do you see any important levers for increasing working capital for cash generation next year? Thank you. Gastein, thank you for your question. I'll start off with the first, and then I'll hand it over to Salazar.

Just to repeat, the question is about how comfortable we feel with the results of the last quarter, not only from Centauro, but also Fisia. I can say that we are very comfortable with the metrics that we control. In the past two quarters, we've been ensuring that we would have a more assertive assortment in the store in all categories. We can see that the conversion and number of items sold have increased, and that makes us feel very confident that the products are there, that they are increasingly meeting the demand that our consumers have. There's also another very important metric for us, which is the average sale per salesperson, and that's maintaining a bit constant, even though we had an increase in headcount.

We're going into the last quarter of the year with a very organized operation and the size of an operation that will enable us to capture a higher demand. What happened on weekends and Father's Day? We believe that in the things that we control, we can execute well. The digital channel has been systematically, given the improvements that we had in the past quarter last year, has systematically been presenting expressive growth, and we've been maintaining it on our path. For Fisia, we can see that the operating levers are under control. We see NDIS performing well, and the level of inventory is becoming more stable during the year. For the things that we control, we are very comfortable that it will be well executed.

For inventory, we have adequate inventory levels, not only for volume, but also for balancing out the categories and price levels. Once again, in the things that we control, we're very confident that's going to be a good execution. Hi, Gastein. How are you doing? Thank you for the question. If we look at the three main points of working capital for next year that you mentioned in accounts payable, we don't have any major variations. We already have payment terms that are really reasonable for all our vendors, so I don't see a potential there. Accounts receivable as well, we're adjusting. Especially for 2024 and 2025, we had the adherence to PICs, so we were able to gain a relevant share of payments with PICs in accounts receivable. I believe that the share of PICs and debit cards shouldn't increase more significantly.

We've done a lot to try to optimize that as much as we can, and I don't believe that we're going to have a very big lever to work on in that case. In installments, I think it's fine-tuning about the minimum amount per installment and number of installments. That's some fine-tuning that we will have, and we go through specific aspects or regions. I don't see many positive impacts in that. Inventory is also something that we do a lot of work that we will do in the future and do this year, and the impacts in a structural manner that we have, I don't believe that in 2026 that would happen because it's a year of carrying more inventory, especially because of the growth of the plan that we're implementing and because of the strong sports year that we will have next year.

At this time, I can't specifically predict for 2026 any major levers in those three fronts of working capital. In the others that we have, the tax credits and so on and so forth, I don't see many variations there either. I believe it's going to be a year about continuing to invest in the companies, to grow the companies, and also to eventually prepare something more structural for the midterm, and especially for 2026. Okay? Excellent, Salazar and Gustavo. Thank you for your answers. Next question is from Ruben Costa from Santander. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I'd like to follow up on Gastein's growth question. The strong growth levels, especially at Centauro that we saw in the third quarter, has that continued in the beginning of the fourth quarter?

Just so I can understand how much that rate is moving not only into the fourth quarter, but also moving forward. My question is about what should we expect in gross margin for Fisia? There's an FX effect and a channel mix effect. There's also the new tax benefits that will help to offset a part of that impact to the exchange rate, but we probably won't see all of that in gross margin. Can you help us to understand in the upcoming quarters how we should expect the dynamic for gross margin in Fisia, at least for the next three quarters? Okay, I'll answer the first part of the question in a very shortened manner because it's about the fourth quarter that's ongoing, and then I'll hand over to Salazar. Ruben, thank you for your question. Once again, we control what we can control.

We follow the metrics on a daily basis, the operational metrics on a daily basis. What we do not control is direct flow. Once again, I would say that we are very comfortable with the quality of our operations and our portfolio, but it's still early. Still early to speak about the performance of the fourth quarter. Back to Salazar. Hi, Rubens. Basically, we start having the tax incentives in its full mode. I'll try to be brief, but it's not that easy. We have tax incentives for brick-and-mortar stores in Fisia and for wholesale in August. As of the fourth quarter, we will have tax incentives for all months. In the third quarter, we had two months of tax incentives, and that helps, but it doesn't help us to offset the FX variation fully.

We believe that we should have reinforcement, so to speak, for the fourth quarter, which is three months of extra tax incentives and three months—actually, if you think of it, if you think of the previous year, three months of tax incentive in wholesale and stores compared to three months of FX rate. That helps. In addition, this is also for the upcoming quarters. We have a dynamic where the gross margin or gross profit that you generated before with a lower exchange rate was taxed. When you offset that exchange rate with the tax incentive, you have a non-taxed gross profit. The rate drops. Even if you do not fully offset it in the gross margin, you will offset that in the net margin because the gross margin that is going down through the tax incentive is not taxed. That is a dynamic that happens.

We have to—oh, sorry about that. AI here is getting in the way, is a little upset. Going back, when you look at the second and third quarters, you can see that even though there's an EBITDA that's relatively stable or dropping, you have higher net income because we offset that with the net margin of the tax incentive that we were able to capture in these, mainly in the second quarter. In the specific case of the third quarter, we did not do that totally because we had one month less. After that, we will have the full dynamic of the incentive and a lower net margin because the gross margin will pay less taxes. At the end of the day, that's how our dynamic will happen.

For next year, just to give you some light on that, what I believe is that we'll have two different dynamics next year compared to this year. We have a first quarter that will look more like 2025, especially as of the second quarter, where you still feel the impacts of a higher exchange rate in the first quarter. At the same time, you'll have full tax incentives, normal life, everything is normal. In the second quarter, as the FX rate dropped in the second half of 2025, we'll have a lower exchange rate compared to what we see now because the hedge that we had for 2026 had a lower exchange rate than the hedging that we had in 2024. Therefore, we should have a gross margin that would be favored by the positive exchange rate.

In terms of tax incentives, nothing changes because we will continue to benefit from them. I believe that is the scenario. Short-term, full tax incentives with a trend to offset the exchange rate, especially in the fourth quarter, three months of tax incentives and three months of the exchange rate. The first quarter would be similar to the second, third, and fourth quarter where you had a higher exchange rate. In the second half of 2026, we believe that as a result of the drop in the exchange rate in the second half of 2025, we should have a positive effect to the gross margin, maintaining the other conditions constant. I think I was a bit complicated, my answer, right? No, no, it was great. Thank you. Thank you, Salazar, for the answer. Next question is from Danny Ager from XP. Hi, good morning, everyone.

I have a question first about growth. We've seen consistency in improving Centauro results and also about improving the operation. I have two questions that come from that. First of all, it's about store expansion for next year and the other, not just the sports, but all events, but also to resume growth. There is a dynamic that the macro could impact that decision, but even the brand is already doing so well in the operations that you can give it more expansion plan for the upcoming year. First one, in the Centauro dynamic growth, what do you see as the increase in stores 2026 forward? The other thing, how about the disparity between the stores, be it regional or the evolution of the initiatives? We can understand the potential of the operation. As staff, for instance, are some stores still lagging behind?

You would have room to close that gap regardless of the macro helping or not. That is my first point here for Centauro. The second question, and that is mainly about Fisia. In fact, we did see a great recovery in wholesale. DTC is a bit behind. You were talking about inventory. The plan of purchasing resize for 2026, but should we expect that DTC would still feel more pressure in the short term and eventually reduce the margin because of the concept? A first thought of receiving from the On stores, we just heard from the Guatemal call that they are going to come in with stores next year. Do you see this as a risk for Nike? Hi, Danny. Thank you. I will try to capture that. The first one is dispersion, a difference in the growth profile for the Centauro stores.

With that, eventually, it enables us to capture more gaps to support growth moving forward. The second one for Centauro is regarding the expansion plans. Given the very positive results that we've had, if we have a different mindset regarding the expansion. The last one is, or two more, one about TTC for Fisia and how we see that in the short and medium term. The last one is regarding On getting stronger in the country. Did I ask everything? Yeah, that's right. Sorry. I asked four instead of two. Okay, Danny, about the Centauro store growth profile. We've already seen that historically we had a growth that was driven maybe by the high-power stores and the low-power stores were lagging behind because we were concerning that when it's like a prophecy, right?

The store starts poorly, you have to adjust SG&A and so on and so forth. We have seen an expressive recovery of the stores that were lagging behind. We also examined the growth of high-performing stores. It really depends on the comp. I believe that there is still going to be periods where growth will mainly be driven by the stores that historically were not performing as well. As the business advances in the second half of next year, we should expect more homogeneous growth. The good side is that growth is coming. We do not see any signs for concern because growth is being sustained by some stores' profiles that had a larger gap, but that should become more normalized as we go into the end of the next quarter.

For expansion, it's very clear to us that in the upcoming years, we will focus on modernizing our older stores. We have 103 stores that are old generation, and we're very confident that the modernization will also bring about the growth in these same stores. That's going to be more interesting. We're increasingly more excited about that perspective. Obviously, we are always talking to entrepreneurs, right, at Centauro to see if good points come up, and we will always invest with a high ROIC in good places and good shopping malls. There is a clear avenue of growth when we look at NDIS. We are under-penetrated in NDIS, but once again, we're very selective and concerned with the shopping mall and the points of sale where we present the newer Nike collection.

In summary, we will continue to focus in revitalizing the stores, but always looking for growth opportunities because we're talking about good capital allocations. When we talk about DTC channels, we were already saying that for this year, we expected a recovery in wholesale, especially for Fisia, and we expected the conservative growth of DTC for 2025. Looking at 2026, all the channels will be pretty much affected by the incremental revenues that we're putting on our distribution network, meaning World Cup and new soccer clubs. There's a leverage for growth across the board. There are some operational improvements where we have NDIS, and we really trust a more sustainable growth. In NDIS, we have a, I would say, more timid basis for comparison this year. Next year, it's a very significant year for the sports calendar, and all channels would benefit.

Your last question about On. On is an increasingly greater vendor for Centauro. We are very happy that the level of the partnership has become tighter between Centauro and On. We've increased the number of doors where we offer the product. It's a very interesting sale considering its price range and margin. Based on the Nike point of view, we do not see that as a major threat in the short term. It is a market that is historically very competitive here in Brazil. I believe that by changing the running portfolio, we've seen a lot of attraction where we face On directly. Centauro always takes advantage of the new brand type, right? Nike and Fisia, consequently, have been able to maintain a leadership position. These shares are mainly disputed amongst the other brands. I think that's it.

I would like to add one point, Gustavo, about the expansion, because obviously, you know, we can't say how many doors we're going to open in this earnings call. Brazil has 600 shopping malls, 200 of them we don't want to be, and 400 we do. We already have 230 stores. There's a gap there. As the opportunities come up, as Gustavo mentioned, we have that gap when we look at that potential. In the case of Fisia, it's a bit different because we have few stores. Based on the assumption of Fisia and NDIS, we wouldn't have the same capillarity as Centauro because the average ticket is higher and so on and so forth. Based on the assumption that you have 10 open stores, you still have a potential of expanding in the short, medium, and long term.

That's very significant. That's the only mention that I wanted to have for Gustavo's question. Thank you. Next question is from Felipe Hached, Goldman Sachs. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I have a quick follow-up for Ruben's question. The exchange rate effects and wholesale effects and the tax benefits that help are very clear, but I'd like to understand the pressure of prioritizing more important commercial partners. Would you say that they have better terms now or that they're more relevant in the sales mix? I'd like to explore the opportunities that we currently have in Centauro in terms of categories. The performance was strong. It was mainly driven by footwear. How are you planning other categories and accessories that may have lost some relevance in their format? If you could talk about that opportunity in the midterm, that would be very interesting.

Thank you. Great. Thank you for the question. I'm going to repeat the question just to make sure we understood them. First of all, to understand how the channel mix and the US dollar are very evident on the impact on Fisia, but you'd like to understand the details about how in wholesale the customer mix influenced and if we have any future perspectives that it will continue to influence the margin of the channel. About Centauro growth, it was mainly different led by footwear and then the potential of other categories moving forward. Let's start off with the wholesale channel, Salazar. I'll go to wholesale, and then you can add if you want. When you look at Centauro's growth, we do see growth that was mainly driven by a category that represents a lot in our sales.

We also see a potential to capture in the categories that still have not presented such great growth when compared to last year. That does not mean that we have any concerns with the footwear going forward, because there is a rebound effect. The first movement is conversion and having a midterm effect, which is the recurrence and recovery of the perception that Centauro has a very comprehensive portfolio in all its categories. In footwear, we remain confident with good performance going forward. We believe that soccer, which was a category that was challenging, is back to perform, and will be back to performing well again in the upcoming quarters because of the World Cup, the new soccer clubs, and the strategy that we will launch new jerseys in Fisia and Centauro.

Soccer is a hype again as the soccer players will be wearing the cleats that are launched by Centauro. We have some tailwind for the soccer category. In apparel, we believe there's a potential as well. In apparel, we still haven't seen the full potential because of inventory and other brands. With the constant improvement of our own brands and the licensed products that will be sponsored by Fisia and other licensed products from SBF and Oxer and ASICS performing well, we are truly confident that they will. If we do better work in balancing that out in our own brands and Fisia brands, there's a gap to be captured. The other categories that we call supplementary, we also see a potential for significant growth.

The supplementary categories also have a share in Centauro that's lower because it's about continuing to do great work that the team has been doing in footwear and capture the tailwind for soccer and also the inventory for apparel and continue to adding with the supplementary categories. It's the profile between the Centauro categories. When we talk about margin, how we've distributed the sales among the wholesale customers, Centauro has been growing a lot in the past quarters and consequently been increasing the receipt of all brands. Centauro does have an impact not only in the channel mix, but also in the gross margin pressure in the wholesale channel. Must mention that it's a sale made in the same group, but when you look at the wholesale channel, there's no pressure.

We do not see any other dynamics in which the customers, bigger customers, would somehow compress the margin of the channel going forward. There are some collections that we could expedite more to major customers depending on the sell-through. Going forward, we do not see that margin being compressed by the customer mix in the wholesale channel. Salazar, would you like to add to that? I would like to add. The important thing here is what Gustavo mentioned before, Rochette, that Centauro is growing more than the market. It is important if you look at Fisia alone, that affects, so to speak, the Fisia margin. When you look at the consolidated figures for the group and you see the entry margin at Fisia and the exit price at Centauro, it means that we are gaining share in our own channel for the company. It is good for the company.

As Centauro is growing more than the market and even in its own universe of customers that Fisia has for wholesale, like Gustavo mentioned, it pressures the Fisia margin because it's selling to a major customer that has a good markup. On the other hand, for the group, that's good because we're selling more units in the same group. That's important. The other important aspect to think about is that that happens for all brands. As Centauro is growing, it's growing for all brands. That's good for the brands in general. That's the only thing I wanted to add. Hope my answer is clear, Rochette. Thank you, Salazar. Very clear. Thank you, Gustavo. To ask a question, click on raise hand. The Q&A session is now over. I'd like to hand over to Gustavo so he can make his final remarks. Okay.

I would like to thank everyone for participating during this earnings call. I would really like to thank all the other shareholders, our board of directors, but especially our team for all its dedication and commitment to deliver the results that we have so far. I hope to see you in the earnings call in the fourth quarter. Thank you. The SBF conference call is now over. Thank you for your participation. Have a great day.

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