Thank you very much indeed. Good evening.

Thank you all for joining us today. We are going to comment on our first half 2026 financial results.

I must say that Geox, as much as many other competitors, have faced a very challenging and sharply contracting market in this first half of 2026, which was already impacted by extremely fierce competition, which we all faced, and other extraordinary events, both natural events such as very high temperature for such a long period of time, in addition to wars that have created uncertainty in, many segments of the population and, in particular, to those who are the main component of our of our customers. How did we react to all of that, to all of these?

We, as you may probably remember, we started last year with a significant revision of our cost structure in order to equip the company to face a challenging situation. We were coming from a very challenging situation.

The result of that strategy has translated in a adjusted EBITDA of approximately €13 million for the period compared to €9 million the same period of last year, which is a percentage a very significant improvement. The adjusted EBIT for the period is approximately approximately €6 million compared to €1 million in the previous in the same period of the previous year.

The bank debt is has been reduced further to €95 million compared to more than €100 million at the same period of last year, at the end of the same period of last year. Working capital is representing 21.9%, 22% over last 12 months sales and is perfectly in line with seasonal dynamics.

Now, all the efficiency measures allow to generate a saving in operating cost of approximately €19.1 million in the first half of the current fiscal year. All these measures, rationalization measures, implement implemented in product processes and in order to facilitate time-to-market to our products, and the result of this has not really come to full fruition yet, but it will come into full fruition during the the current fiscal year.

We have changed timing and method in procurements, and sourcing strategies, that have generated already a very significant benefit in terms of cost, but, moreover, allow us to project a reduced bank debt by the end of the year in the range of approximately to to get to approximately 40 40 to €45 million at the end of 2026. This represents a very significant improvement considering that the debt stood at €93 million at the end of 2025.

Needless to say that to contribute to to this reduction, there is also the contribution by the, capital increase that is this part of the financial maneuver for approximately €30 million. Even by removing the €30 million, the the improvement is really significant, really dramatic.

Now, we reported sales in the first half 2026, with a decline of 8.8% on a comparable basis. What it means on comparable basis?

Some of it, some of this drop is market-driven. Some of this drop is driven by our own decisions, which are related to reducing participation or eliminating participation to sales channels that do not generate margins, clients that have conditions that are not acceptable under the current market circumstances, and, in addition to that, some additional credit control, which is very relevant as a market deteriorates for everybody, including, of course, ourselves.

The the on a comparable basis, the same period is 11.4% drop, and this is across all the all the channels: wholesale, retail, and even, unfortunately, the web. The second half of 2025 was further affected by it's a very delicate situation international markets as we as we all know.

Now, this Um, in all this very challenging environment, we have kept in mind investing. We have changed a number of things that are related to the our marketing spending.

We are spending far less in producing our our commercial, sorry, I'm missing the English word, ads, hm? We are spending more in terms of communicating.

We are we are investing a lot in our technological products. We have recently introduced, and was very successful, a new sandal that is called Clima Sandal, and we distributed approximately 20,000 pairs in our top shops around the world, and it was sold out in a matter of weeks.

This is a new technology was which is called the Ventilated Cushioning System, which allows an active ventilation of the of the feet while walking will make generated thanks to the natural walking motion. Now, this comfort and lightness makes this product unique compared to all other offers other products offered on the market.

In addition to that, we should consider that 2026 we have been we are still selling the collections that do not benefit yet of the investments we have made on the new designer who is being helping us, the new the new collection that will hit first the market in the first half of 2027 is currently sold to our wholesale channels, and we are recording a a quite significant interesting result in terms of success of this new collection. Now, this is all to say that we have not backed up in in despite the very the very bad market, we have we keep investing in in our product portfolio, we're keep investing on our technology, we keep investing in communication.

As a matter of fact, we invest more than before in communication considering that we have reduced by using artificial intelligence we have reduced dramatically the cost of production and therefore we have increased very dramatically the cost of distribution. I guess this is it for the moment.

We are happy to answer any questions. I will pass the floor to Andrea to get to Andrea Maldi to get deeper into the analysis of our financial results.

Thank you very much for your listening.

Thank you, Francesco, and good afternoon, everybody. I will try to deep dive you through the numbers of the first half of 2026.

Let me start from the page number seven of the presentation that has been distributed, which is starting from the commenting on sales. As you can see, the sales are setting at the level of €270 million in the first six months of 2026.

This means clearly registering a decline compared to the first half of the previous year in the range of €45 million. Out of the €45 million, more than €8 million are coming from reduction in perimeter effect.

Perimeter effect, which means a reduction mainly of physical shops or closing of platform, as we will see later during the presentation, that we did consider not profitable at the time. The gross margin, on the opposite, is giving us positive signals because it's moving from the 52.2% of the first year to the 50 51.2% of the first year to the 52.6% of first half of 2026.

This is mainly driven by improvement in the way we manage our operation and the purchase of our products and thanks to the mix of channel, which is most favorable when clearly the D2C channel is improving in terms of weight compared to the total sales. The last comment, which is clearly very important, is about the EBIT, which is moving to the level of €5.6 million positive compared to the €500k positive of the same period of 2025.

This is another important positive result of the semester, which is basically result in the story in which, despite the decline of sales, our profitability is strongly increasing, mainly due to the efficiency that we are driving in the operation. Just to further explain what I was mentioning so far, if we move to page eight, we can see a bridge on the net results, and it's clearly coming out from looking at the chart that the results from operation mainly focusing on the attention of what we are driving in terms of operation, is showing a decline on gross margin of €14 million, which is the result of the decline on sales of the €45 million, but this is completely offset by an improvement on cost, OPEX, in the range of €20 million, which is basically saying that, at the end, the performance from operation is improving compared to last year for about €5 million.

This is clearly one of the positive element of the first six months for 2026. The company strongly focused on improving operation and driving efficiency while, at the same time, cleaning the marketing and trying to position the product to in a way softer the decline of the market in terms of sales.

If we look at the sales by channel, and we move to page nine, I think that is a need to comment the fact that the wholesale market is declining from €100 million to €88 million. No big surprise in the first half of 2026, this was pretty much expected because this is mainly driven by the order campaign that we have registered the year before when we conclude our campaign with our wholesaler distributor.

Instead, what is a bit disappointing in our performance in 20 in the first half of 2026 is the decline on the retail side, which is down 8.5% compared to the previous year, the same period in the previous year. It's worth to say that, out of the 11 out of the €11 million decline, €4 million are driven by perimeter effect, reduction of shops which were not profitable, and the negative performance, the performance which is directly linked to our operation, is amounting to €7 million, which is clearly mainly impacted by the decline in the store traffic.

The decline in the store traffic, and let me say, in our shop is something that the entire retail market is experiencing. Part of this decline is surely due to the economy, macroeconomic and geopolitical condition, which are clearly impacting the capability of consumers to spend, especially on goods that are not considered primary goods or If we look at the sales on the digital channel, I think that it's worth to comment the double speed.

The positive one is the one related to our .com, which is still growing up with a like-for-like performance in the range of 10%. Despite we are increasing over the period the discount that we applied on the website.

If we look at the wholesale business, instead, is mainly decreasing significantly in the range of €8.6 million, which is clearly coming mainly from some clean of the market, order reduction on the Russian area, and on other important key customers. If we would like to move directly on the financial element of the performance, which is page 16, as we can see, we are managing an operating working capital as of June 26 of about 21.9%, which is improving from December 2025, which was setting at 22.3%, and in line, more or less, with the same period in June 2025.

Worth to say that the improvement in the operating working capital is mainly driven by efficiency in inventory. Inventory is improving significantly in terms of aging and quality of the stock, as well as in terms of quantity.

We are reworking with new approach on the way we purchase, and we're working with better sell-through and better efficiency, which means clearly a better management of our stock and a better management of our cash flow. The results are pretty evident because our bank debt as of June 26 amount to €95 million, which is €5 million lower than the one that we had the same period in June 2025.

It's worth to say that, clearly, despite the reduction from June 2025 to June 2026 of the sales and the reduction of sales of €45 million in the last semester, we have been able to prevent any kind of cash erosion because our cash is resulted in an improvement compared to June 2025 of about €5 million, as I already mentioned. If we try to forecast and to have a look of what will be our full year 2026, basically, we can see that we are still seeing a decline on sales compared to the full year 2025.

We will be in the area of the high single digit for about, let's say, estimate in the range of about €550 million sales at the end of the year, with an EBITDA adjusted still in the range of the 30 €33-plus million, which means that we are still working well in terms of recovering profitability, and we are confirming the estimates for the EBIT remain unchanged in the area of the 2% to 3%. The dramatic improvement is coming on the financial position.

We were expecting to close the year in the range of the 40 €45 million, which means that the new approach on managing working capital and the cash that is produced from operation, despite the decline on sales, is strongly positive. I think that the last point that I would like to comment is the fact that we are still working deeply on finalizing our review of the business plan, mainly an adjustment and a communication related to the year 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029.

We are expecting, and we will be ready to make further communication on this point probably in early September. Thanks.

We are really open to get questions.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions.

The first one is on the evolution of the gross margin. Do you see further room for expansion in the second half of the year?

The second question is on the one-off cost. Can you provide us with an estimate of the one-off budgeted for this year?

Third question is on current trade. Can you give comment on July trends and have you got any first preliminary feedbacks on the spring/summer collection by customers?

Thank you.

I did not really take note.

Do you?

The first one is related to the gross margin. Gross margin is improving.

Is improving from I guess it's 52% or 52.something percent compared to 50% last year, if I'm not mistaken, or the previous period?

Yes, we are still seeing an improvement going to the end of the year, and this is mainly driven, again, by the mix effect, because we are still counting on a weight of the direct-to-consumer, thanks also to the website, which is going to give more weight to the direct-to-consumer compared to wholesale, and at the same time, we are expecting to get more efficiency that we have embedded in the fall/winter campaign, which is clearly a campaign where the cost of goods is normally higher, and therefore the percentage, our improvement that we made on the way of purchasing is going to give us another boost in the range of 0.5 overall basis point.

In any event, the gross margin is going to go from 49% to 51%, more than 51%. Second question was, if I may ask again?

The one-off cost. The one-off costs are estimated approximately €3.8 million for the full year 2026.

Current trade. Hm?

The current trade.

Then the

current trade. Current trade is an is an interesting is a nice interesting question.

Market is still tough, no doubt about it. We are facing a slight improvement, as a matter of fact.

Not not enough to recover, needless to say, the loss that we have recorded for the first year for the first six months, sorry, for the first two quarters. As far as the spring/summer 2027, we have we are now selling the new collection to the wholesale channel.

Our first results is that we are improving significantly on on almost all the collection. We are seeing a bit of more reflexive on the women sneaker, not massive problem.

However, we should always consider that we are rationalizing very significantly some of our sales channels and clients. We are getting out of clients where we feel we have too big of a credit risk.

Under this stage, with this market, not only we suffer, but our clients suffer as well. The the the the danger is to consider that nothing changes while everything changes.

We we do have clients, not just in Italy, but also in Italy. Our very most important client in Italy is currently a question mark for us, and we are we are reconsidering our commitment to to this customer.

I can't make I can't make a disclosure at the moment, but in due time we will we'll do it. We do have the same issue in Russia, for example, where we have clients asking for terms and conditions that are unacceptable in terms of payment terms, in terms of not being covered by proper insurance or insurance companies.

This is a problem that is affecting many some other regions. We are facing is enough to open newspapers or listen to news, there are significant issues with temperatures across Europe.

France is is on fire, Spain is on fire. There are issues, and these issues do have an impact on the on on our and their creditworthiness.

We need to we need to keep that in mind, because there is no point to run after to run after turnover if that turnover does not translate into a sustainable profitability.

Clear. Thank you.

Thank you.

This is Francesco. If there are no further questions, we're very happy to take any, but if there are none, I would like to thank you very much for the only questions we got from our analyst, and I do hope that our reaction or our feedback was satisfactory.