Gustavo de Lima Furtado
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here with us during our earnings call for the first quarter of 2026.
I have with me Salazar, our CFO, Vicky, Victoria, our IR officer, and Luna, our IR manager. On the first 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, and lastly, we will begin our Q&A session. Let's talk about the main highlights for this first 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, and 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, and once again, we're presenting consistent results with net income going up almost 15%, ending at 1.8 billion, the gross income also grew well, 17%, achieving 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 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 in 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 is now sponsoring, and 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, with 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 first 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 first 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 first 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, but 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. Now 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 stores of the store was 12.4%, and 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: so a new assortment, 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, and 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, and then we would like to be closer to distribute to other major centers, smaller distribution centers closer to the stores so 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 digital, and 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 to 13 percentage points above the mirror stores in the same region, and 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, so 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 and 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.
We reset the running portfolio completely last year. We mentioned a lot about road running that has the three main franchises: Pegasus, Structure, and Vomero.
These products have been performing well, new categories performing well, the entire category is performing well and 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.
This year is a World Cup year. It's a very important year to consolidate all these strategic advances that we conducted last year.
Now I'm going to hand over to Salazar, and he'll go into details about the financial results. Go ahead, Salazar.
José Luís Magalhães Salazar
Thank you, Gustavo. Good morning, everyone.
Now let's go into the financial details. Here we can see at Centauro a very solid results, healthy margins, approximately 51.3%, revenue growth 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 unlocking things. 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 on the platform had a growth even higher than that, we had GMV growth of 20 20.8%, 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 in 2Q '26, 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.
There's 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, but the main thing is that we've been able to maintain a healthy margin at Centauro. In gross profit, 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 feel more pressure in 2026. As a result of the initiatives such as the tax incentives 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 the sales, not only the recovery of the channel, but also selling World Cup products. It is lower growth than wholesale, obviously—but the digital channel that was growing in a slower manner, but in this first quarter, we see that channel going back to normal with the reallocation, to speak, between the channels that took place as a result of many discounts that we gave in the past.
Wholesale is recovering its space, and digital is going into a more normal path of growth. Obviously, that is greater as 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, but 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 DNAs, 7.8% in casual, and wholesale with great growth, solid recovery, almost three 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, we were able to offset 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%—oh, 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 the 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 unlock plan, the Destrava plan.
Then 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.
Then 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 six 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, so 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, but 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 nine months and distributed across 12 months, so 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, in 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, and then 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 reflex 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 $250 million, $280 million of CapEx; we went up to almost $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, 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 '25 to 1.6 times when we look at the seasonality of December '25 to March '25—'26, 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 result of the growth that we expect for the year and as result of the seasonality of the World Cup in 2Q. Next slide.
Now we'll move on to the Q&A session, Gustavo and I are available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
Gustavo?
Gustavo de Lima Furtado
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. Now we will begin the Q&A session.
To ask a question, please click on raise hand.
Operator
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.
Danniela Eiger
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 marketplaces in that war between them, enabling that through coupons, and other players 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, sales, where do you see the main gains in the performance after these renovated stores were opened?
José Luís Magalhães Salazar
Dannie, 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. 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, Dannie?
Danniela Eiger
Perfect.
José Luís Magalhães Salazar
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 in markdowns or pricing.
Things are as they already were last year, there's not much I can say about that. About the World Cup, that's not something new either.
During World Cup moments, we always see things that happen, unfortunately, fake products, other companies taking advantage of that demand to attract the foot traffic, but 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.
We close the self-service part and renovate that footwear, and then close footwear and try to renovate something else, 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.
Far, we see that it's according to the metrics that we have determined as success. No,
Danniela Eiger
I have nothing to add. Clear, thank you very much.
Operator
Next question is from Eric Wong from Santander. Go ahead.
Eric Wong
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.
Gustavo de Lima Furtado
Thank you for your question, Eric. I'll let that first part of the exchange rate and how we were able to offset and the dynamics for the year to Salazar, and then I'll answer the rest of the question.
José Luís Magalhães Salazar
About the exchange rate, what we've been seeing is that that negative aspect compared to a quarter, it happened what we would have in this first quarter, a negative pressure. We eventually see at Centauro a potential positive situation given the sale of the Brazilian jersey.
In the third and fourth 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 third and fourth 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.
Gustavo de Lima Furtado
Salazar, your connection wasn't that good, you had some issues there, maybe Eric might have not heard everything, I'm going to summarize what you mentioned, and feel free to jump in. The exchange rate did put more pressure us in the first and second 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 a dynamic that we expect for the year. I believe you also mentioned the fact 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?
Eric Wong
Yes, very clear. Thank you for your answers.
Operator
Next question is from Pedro Peroni from UBS. Please go ahead.
Pedro Peroni
Good morning, Gustavo, Salazar, Victoria, and the whole group. 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.
Gustavo de Lima Furtado
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 gross margin this quarter quarter-over-quarter.
You'd like to understand if there are any drivers and how they should behave moving forward. The second part is about the working capital dynamics and how that would change or continue moving forward.
Is that correct?
Pedro Peroni
Yes, perfect, Gustavo. Thank you.
Gustavo de Lima Furtado
About the gross margin of Centauro, like Salazar mentioned, it was 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, and we had some help from the World Cup items, licensed products, and 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 in gross margin.
Now I'm going to hand over to Salazar to answer about working capital.
José Luís Magalhães Salazar
Let's see if my connection is better because Gustavo is in Brazil, I'm in the US, we would expect that things would be better here, right? Anyways, I'm in the US 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 SBF Group is that you're going to 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 going to 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, to speak, higher because you're buying more inventory for an event that doesn't usually happen, and then 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, on and so forth. The working capital dynamics will follow that company pattern solely influenced by the second quarter event, making us feel more pressure during the year in working in working capital.
We will maintain the leverage of the company it will remain still healthy. We have some specific things for accounts receivable to for as 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.
Then 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 in 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?
Pedro Peroni
Yes, we heard your answer. Thank you, very clear, Salazar and Gustavo, thank you.
Operator
Next question is from Renan Sartorio from Safra, Safra Bank. Go ahead.
Renan Sartorio
Good morning, everyone. Congratulations on your results.
I have a follow-up about inventory as it's high and there's going to need high sales to normalize that. I'd like to know what the demands is in sales for these recent months and what your expectation is for the rest of the year.
Gustavo de Lima Furtado
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?
Renan Sartorio
Exactly.
Gustavo de Lima Furtado
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, but 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, and 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. Because it's very concentrated, very focused, right?
It's important that the inventory comes in much earlier than for conventional inventory build-up that we would have. Looking at things that's 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 these 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, 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?
José Luís Magalhães Salazar
No, that's the idea. Nothing to add.
Thank you, everyone.
Operator
Next question is from Mr. Philippe Hached from Goldman Sachs.
Go ahead, please.
Philippe Hached
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 of 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.
Gustavo de Lima Furtado
Thank you for your question, Hached. I was following the translation, 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 of the contracts with Nike. I'll answer the second one and then hand over to Salazar.
We're very confident about the conversations that we've been having with Nike. The partnership has been growing stronger year after year, 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 3 to 5 years.
We are very comfortable. Now I'll hand over to Salazar to talk about the expenses.
José Luís Magalhães Salazar
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 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 headcount, 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, but instead of having that specific Christmas every single year, it will happen in the second quarter of a specific year, which is 2026. We would imagine additional revenues given the World Cup, and 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.
Philippe Hached
Perfect, very clear. Thank you, Salazar.
Thank you, everyone.
Operator
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.
Gustavo de Lima Furtado
Very well. Once again, I would like to thank all of you for your interest and participation in our earnings call for the first quarter of 2026.
I would say that we are 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 SBF Group conference call is now adjourned. Thank you for your participation, and have a good day.
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