Brunello Cucinelli S.p.A./ADR (BCUCF) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good evening and welcome to the presentation of the nine-month results 2026 of the Fashion House, Brunello Cucinelli. Speakers will be Brunello Cucinelli, who is the Executive Chairman and Creative Director, Luca Lissandroni, CEO, Riccardo Stefanelli, CEO, Dario Pipitone, CFO, Morino Ciarapica, Co-CFO Senior, and Pietro Annaboldi, Investor Relations and Corporate Planning Director. In order to receive help from an operator during the conference call, please press star followed by zero. Now I'd like to give the floor to Brunello Cucinelli. Good evening and it is really a pleasure to see you. We have installed new microphones and hopefully that is working. It is working properly. So thank you very much, analysts, investors, journalists. There's always all 10 of us here around my table to provide you with the results of the first nine months of the year. But being mid-October already, we basically, this call basically provides with the results of the end of the year. So this is how the call will run. I will read out the headline figures, then Luca and Riccardo will give you a worldwide overview of the markets. also with updates on Callimachus that we received the green light from the government and that we have started this great project together with Mark Benioff then I will take the floor back with expectations for 2026 then we will also provide you with quite good visibility on 2027 and then I will tell you about the conclusions we drew after the two days we spent together in early October, when we basically gathered and tried to understand who we are, in which market we are present, and how we operate, and what the great fundamentals of our fashion house are. Now, let me read. The first nine months of the year closed with very, very positive results, which allow us to raise up again our estimates for 2026, moving from an expected plus 10, 11 percent to a forecast revenue growth of plus 12 percent at constant exchange rates. So revenues of 1.123 billion euros up by 13.3 percent at constant exchange rates and 10.2 percent at current exchange rates. Third quarter revenues, very important, 374.2 million, up by 13.5% at constant exchange rates. The retail channel revenues of 741 million euros report an increase of plus 19% at constant exchange rates in the first nine months of the year. Then significant growth was reported in every quarter of the year, 17% constant exchange rates in the third quarter, with double digit increases across all geographies. The wholesale channel with sales of 382.6 million euros confirms a consistently very sound result, plus 4% constant exchange rates as of 30 September 2026, plus 7% constant exchange rates in the third quarter. Very positive performance across all geographies Sales at constant exchange rates of plus 20% in the Americas Plus 7% in Europe and plus 14% in Asia With a significant contribution coming from China Sales of the fall-winter 2026 men's and women's collections Currently in stores are very positive Then spring-summer 2027 collections The men's and women's order-taking campaigns are complete, both with very extremely positive results. We gathered particularly favourable comments from our sales teams, from our multi-brand clients, as well as from the international press at Pitti Uomo, the trade fair, last June, as well as at the recent Milan Fashion Week for Women last September. Our positioning in the absolute luxury segment and the pleasant atmosphere that we continue to feel around our brand allow us to look with confidence to 2027 as well. A year in which we expect healthy, balanced revenue growth of around 10%. Next week, in Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong, the important premieres of the documentary film Brunello, the Gracious Visionary, will take place following the great appreciation it received in Rome first and then New York and Paris. During the Shanghai event, we will also open Casa Cucinelli there in a captivating historic residence from the late 19th century in the city. it is really a splendid city. So next week, we will be traveling across the eastern part of the world. At the beginning of November, in Solomere, we'll host the second edition of La Poli, a prestigious biennial gathering that brings together some of the most important wine and champagne producers and collectors in the world. It is a relevant event for us and also for Solomere, which will give us the opportunity to welcome guests of international standing and to share with them the atmosphere and values that animates our village. If you have to spare days, please do join us. Now, let me read out what I wrote. The first nine months of 2026 ended with a revenues growth of 13.3% of constant exchange rates. And we consider this result to be very pleasing. We believe that the brand's image around the world reflects what we have always aspired to, a belief in absolute luxury. No logo, absolute luxury. We think of a brand that stands for authenticity, style, familiarity and simplicity, where the product is the fruit of exceptional craftsmanship, quality, creativity with a contemporary sensibility and a strong sense of exclusivity. The latter being of paramount importance to us. We also feel that ours is not a mass market notoriety or renown. The family's stewardship of the brand allows us to take a longer term view with the enduring hope of maintaining a sound and well-earned reputation and ensuring that the brand continues to thrive for decades to come. In light of these considerations and as the year draws to a close, we expect healthy revenue growth of around 12% in 2026 with a constant exchange rate, together with a sound level of profitability. following the excellent performance of our spring summer 27 men's wear and women's wear collection and the highly favorable reviews from the press during the bland fashion week last september we envisage healthy growth of around 10 for 2027 as well and now it will be up to luca and ricardo to give us a worldwide overview well very well rick let me start i have to say that we have closed the first nine months of the year very well indeed, as we have these first 15 days of October. You see, the results achieved and the information and feelings that we have regarding the last quarter of the year have led us to a second revision of our estimate, always guided by the desire to share our expectation with you promptly and punctually. The growth has been distinctly regular, steady and continuous, as the figures themselves demonstrate. In Q32, we are actually growing by 13.5% at constant exchange rates, perfectly in line with the results of the first six months. And even when we actually look at absolute values and no longer percentage ones, we can actually realize that the contribution to growth of each quarter at constant exchange rates has been entirely comparable. Therefore, we attach very great relevance to this growth. We attach a still greater value to two of its features that make this growth even sounder and more robust. On the one hand, we have its linearity over time. and then on the other hand, we have its spread across geographies and sales channels. This increase, the raising of the estimate about two points compared with the start of the year, rests on two reasons. On the one hand, the actual advantage achieved in the first nine months of the year and then the great confidence with which we look to the last quarter. As to the nine months, we have delivered three quarters or slightly above our expectations, thanks to four protagonists, we may say. Retail, our online boutique, then geographically speaking, North America and China, and then obviously the strength of our collections. The advantage gained is ascribable to the retail channel in a balanced way between the organic component and the contribution of the new stores and new spaces. In the stores, both the number of customers and the average spend of existing ones are growing, thus reinforcing our conviction that we have a network that is still very young, which has ahead of it both ample room for healthy organic growth and also further scope for expansion. so very good results for the physical stores and excellent results for a digital boutique as you know our online boutique accounts for about six percent of our sales but you see the image of the brand of the collections becomes really fundamental there and we see this thanks to the increasing number of customers who step into the store showing pictures they have seen online. And we have to say that Kalimikas was truly, truly instrumental here. And I would like to update you on this project. First of all, as Luca was saying, results we are delivering, we are pretty satisfied, not just for the economic results, but also for the quality of the traffic. So the traffic is steadily increasing and the visitors tend to stay there twice as long as before. And this actually proves that our customers are looking for something very specific, elegance, quality, contemporary style. And a lot of tips and a lot of advice is asked for during the whole stay on the website. And then, on the other hand, the great invention, but it is somehow another kind of business for us. We are happy to announce that on September the 28th, Salesforce, you all know this company, and with whom we enjoy not just a business or professional, but also a personal relation with Mark Benio. they have taken upon themselves the development and the growth of this invention of this project. So we have entrusted them with it and we are very pleased that a great company such as Salesforce decided to invest in this project, not just for the novelty and the innovation brought about by the platform, but also because of this balance between manual skills and visual together and technology and besides we are very happy to note that microsoft a few days ago taking inspiration from us decided to call it the human super intelligence which for us is a confirmation of what we have always maintained so so the government not only authorized but also sent a letter where they actually congratulated us on this deal.

Let's go back to physical for a second. All geographies have given a positive contribution to the nine months growth, including the Middle East. In the last nine months, it's been slightly positive, thanks to a great start in the first two months of the year. And here we have to get accustomed to the idea that every year something may happen which is out of our control and may actually set us apart from our expectations at the beginning we thought the middle east would give us a good contribution it's still a youngish area and geography for us and it has a it holds great expectations for us but we also have to say that the american market was even more favorable than we originally expected it to be. And actually, a good part of the extra performance comes for us from the US, where in the first nine months of the year, we grew by as much as 20%. And in the third quarter, we kept growing at 19% at constant exchange rates again. So the performance here is really, really good. And then this beautiful expression is absolute luxuries growing in America, not only in terms of width, but also in terms of depth. And so we believe that authentic luxury is becoming more and more rooted in the lifestyle of many american customers as to department stores they're still really important in the american market and everything continues really well for us with the exemplar luxury group there's full mutual satisfaction about the results and we're growing in uh uh each of their three banners uh nima marco Saxenburg of Goodman and within each banner both men's and women's are growing and positive results have been posted for all three quarters and we had no problems on payments they were perfectly punctual at all times. We can also confirm that for winter 2027 we will extend the men's and women's locations at Berndorf which we believe remains one of the most prestigious and most beautiful luxury stores in the world now from the west let's move to the east we are just as happy with the results of asia and china in particular which maintains a fine growth trend of the previous quarters and about 14 percent of our global sales were posted from asia from this region with a quiet and gradual and constant growth in market share the golden week was very successful in all territories in our geographies and we were discussing this with Pietro one year ago we said our brand seems to be experiencing a wonderful springtime in China. One year later with the revenue base which is more significant we seem to perceive the same freshness and to see the same excellent opportunities. Now we should remember at all times that we're specialized in ready-to-wear and clothing, at a time when the appeal and interest in this category is very high and growing, we are protected and favored by our size, starting with that of our notoriety. Brunello, in his quote, says that we don't seem to have mass notoriety, not China, and hopefully we'll continue like this, but we can certainly benefit from the fact that many new customers have kind of discovered their brand. There's a lot of attention towards us, a lot of magazine covers. We're dedicated to our brand because of positioning, image, but also because of the values we speak of. And, you know, when you are dedicated to a magazine cover, that means the product is top trend. There's a beautiful expression in Chinese tradition that says flowers in the spring, fruits in autumn. And we do trust, really, that the perseverance and the spirit of protection we've used in working in this region will truly bring us very good fruits for the future. And even today, we're very happy to celebrate the opening of Casa Cucinelli in Shanghai and the extension of the Plaza 66 tour, which is going to be completed before the end of the year. finally Europe we believe it is solid and strong once again the domestic customers are fundamental for the European market and we are closing the best quarter as a percentage and in absolute terms for the whole year we just completed the extension of the Geneva store and I'd like to point this out because we actually carefully look at balancing investments carefully to obtain a well-balanced retail network across different continents. And finally, as far as the products are concerned, the first part of the year was marked by a very successful summer collection, and we can say the same about the winter collection, which is now in stores. We received very good feedback when we presented the collection to journalists, and we received very good feedback from our in-house buyers and the multi-brand clients, and now we see the appreciation from end customers too. We see it in our own DOSs, and we see it in the wholesale channel too, which have already received numerous reorders. It is good. It's important for us to underline that in these first months, growth is entirely comparable and fully balanced between men's and women's. As to the good health of Sellout, as Luca said, we need to thank all of our collaborators who this season two enabled us to deliver the winter collection which is currently in the stores with very, very interesting punctuality and a degree of craftsmanship that gives tribute both to the capability of our creative teams to come up with these products and to the artisans who make them. We now stand at about 70% manual work in our constructions and this is really important. Once again I like to point out that this capability is the outcome of the direct relationship we have with each and every one of them. We work with 400 artisan workshops that represent 9,000 individuals, 9,000 artisans. We had the first general meeting in On September 18th, we met them, we shared work plans for next year with them because actually our plans will be there working orders too. And we shared with them the main challenges that concern us all, such as the fair and pay workplaces and the transmission of artisan know-how, which is fundamentally important for us. So here, once again, we still believe that the schools of style and hard craftsmanship of Salome are extremely important to us. Both are the main sources from which we draw to secure those manual skills and capabilities which are so precious to our casket model, to our fashion house. Back to products and to Luca's comments, we all know that in every question it's really important to have a fair balance of colors, shapes, and most importantly, weights and temperatures to follow the needs and requests of customers that are really located all over the world. Now, this is precisely one of those issues which we discuss and we bring up with multi-brand customers. And their contribution is very valuable because they understand individual places and customers and so this allows us to design our collections better and to decide what we should do in our own direct store soon. Let's now talk about exchange rates. In the third quarter, the currency fact was still negative by a couple of points, but despite that, we successfully grew by 11.7% current exchange rates in this quarter and 10% of the nine months. For the fourth quarter, we still expect a slightly negative currency fact, which should mean that the exchange rate headwinds should be about 2.5 points by the end of the year. Let's look at the last quarter. Many of the pieces of evidence that we have presented so far support our confidence for the last part of the year. Last year, in the last quarter, we grew by over 15% in retail and achieved the best results of the 12 months. And despite this, we are still confident that we can achieve beautiful organic growth fully in continuity with the previous months. The lesser specific weight of the new openings in the second half of 2026 has already been reflected in our guidelines. And so we believe that today we are in best possible conditions to complete this year as we imagine it with beautiful growth of 12% and we can plan concretely for a healthy growth of 10% in 2027 as well. Now let me say a couple of quick things about what Brunello said earlier, the movie. We're very happy with how the film is being received. The latest premiere in Paris generated a really moving atmosphere. Next week, Brunello will be traveling to Asia. Unfortunately, Brunello The premiere cycle is going to be completed in December with another tribute to Hollywood in L.A. yeah actually we would have loved to go to the middle east and russia and we are planning to go there as soon as it's feasible so just to give you a piece of information on the italian market the movie has been made available by the sky platform in atelier last weekend it's now available on the main british platform sue you are receiving very beautiful comments not just from our clients but also from people who are less familiar with the story of Brunello. And so we believe that since Tornatore is the director of the film, this is the best way to tell the world about ourselves and our business. But that's not familiar with our company. But also it's a really powerful tool for our people to really source motivation from what they see in the film of our way of doing business. and it should serve as a daily inspiration for their work and their daily behaviors too. To say something else about the movie, it was translated in eight languages and subtitled in nine other languages, so that's quite a good achievement. I mean, watching a movie in your own language will actually make a difference. We also prepared the translation of the movie in Arabic and Russian and hopefully we'll be able to use it as soon as possible. Now, let me say a couple of things about the forecast for next year. After hearing from Luca and Ricardo, as we said, we think we will grow by 12% by the end of the year over 2026. The EBIT margin is expected to be around 17%, up from 16.8% last year. Investments should be around 6% by year-end. But please remember, do not think this is a low figure. Because when we speak of investments, for the next three years, we'll always be around 6%. Because for the next three years, we're not going to have to make any further industrial investment. Because that's what we did in the last three years. However, these investments on production are likely to give us a healthy and sound safety network for the next 10 years at least. Production is very important for us. Net financial position is expected to shift from 14% of revenues last year to about 10.5%. So from 188 million euros to around 160 million euros. So that was done in 2026. As to 2027, these are forecasters, but reasonably concrete ones, given the excellent sell-out year-to-date and having completed sales campaigns with good feedback on them. So because of all those factors, we may imagine that for the first half of next year, multi-brand stores and directly operated stores will be equipped with the products that have been very, very well received by the market. So this gives us a good peace of mind. And so we can actually tell you that we are looking at the final forecast for the next year, where we are thinking of revenues growing by around 10 percent, investment 6 percent. Please remember, this is not a low figure. Net financial position improving further. And we have no plans to change the dividend policy. As usual, we expect to maintain our 50% proportion and that's been going on for about 10 years now. Okay, let's take a few more minutes for some other important pieces of information and then we'll look at the floor of questions. So we did meet at the beginning of October. We spent a couple of days together, so we had finished pretty much our world tours. We had completed collections, orders, and so on. And so we got together to listen to people and to discuss and trade insights. So we met with clients, journalists, investors, analysts, bankers, and we gathered to be together and to discuss who we are, who we are today, what we can expect for our future, and to state once again our fundamentals for us. Right now, when there are different visions on the future of action, and we discussed the greater things, the value of style identity, the value of absolute luxury, the value of made in Italy, the value of exclusivity, the value of uniqueness, the value of healthy growth, as you know, call it. The value of healthy profit, because that's the way we call it, the value of family, the value of generational turnaround and handover, and the brand, hopefully, of the brand's long life.

So as to our great values, the one in which we have always believed, you want to restate them because this is a high time for us to really restate them because we need to survive for the coming decade. We feel we enjoy a kind of excellent, healthy reputation. Of course, this is all feedback that we all gave ourselves. you know nine of us were present in attendance a family control over the company allows us to plan further ahead this being a strong wish for the life of the company here in solomeo and as to the responsibility uh well or for the it was the community as a whole you are fully familiar with solomeo and we'll always have to stand for the place where everything happens a very place of the utmost importance to us and then even in times as favorable as the past few years have been for us truthness allows us to work with greater serenity and with it greater creativity well perhaps you can't really hear it but there are the bells tolling and ringing with the holy mary um chant tolling and it's really always beautiful then another thing supporting and Believing in healthy growth and healthy profits gives us strength and determination because we want to envisage that the enterprise will live for a long time. But this idea, this concept generates in everyday life positivity, creativity and humanity, because you see creativity is stronger if it is surrounded by positivity and humanity in the working environment. And then, of course, what matters is also what we call humanistic capitalism. We need to believe and act so that the brand may live hopefully for more than a century. Then another really instrumental theme here, recruiting co-workers or partners. We need to recruit people of integrity and empathy as co-workers. And wherever the atmosphere is pleasant, everything feels more human, harmonious, and people are far more creative. and I have to say that this is specifically felt now as much as it was felt back in 2022, the pandemic. You see, passing on crafts, and as I was saying, 70% of our designs are manual. Well, we fully believe that it is essential to raise wages and to make workplaces slightly more pleasant because after all, who would advise their own children to become manual workers? You see, this is the greatest wager for the future of products made with exceptional manual skill like ours is. And then we need to continue to seek out talent and to recognize its value so as to build a company that is contemporary, modern and human. You see, talent is important. but you see talent means that someone is better at working with colors the other with fits so we really need to be able to recognize talent size and finally the product which we call our king and we want to tell you how we build we put together our product you see human beings need to feel trendy every day by wearing fashionable products and wearing fashionable brands as history teaches us and this need is really as old as humanity and it does not just apply to clothing therefore everything depends on how contemporary the product and the brand are we do not believe for a moment absolute luxury is waning today quite the opposite it is growing all the time actually it is becoming even more important because everybody takes selfies and posts them so we want to look better tomorrow than today how do we build our collections well there are about 100 people working in the design department of whom 19 are first level people have dedicated to menswear women's wear 50 50 they we are all in constant dialogue with one another well when we hold large meetings with everyone to discuss the men's and women's style and the market everything is always organized collectively like we did yesterday you know we have never believed in collections made up largely of evergreens for me even the word evergreen it really means that you make your collection age quickly so it's not that you don't have to have them at all but you see the their presence should be slightly less than what it is usually in the other collections. You see, visual merchandising plays a very important role here. We actually started off drawing inspiration from Ralph Lauren. We want to keep feeling grateful to him. Visual merchandising and styling. These are in-house teams. The fact that we have our own in-house styling team means that we are able to daily combine all the different items and this really makes the difference because you then learn how to combine jackets whether to wear a tie with a denim or without a denim changes the whole picture so even the schools that ricardo was mentioning these fully fledged schools where usually they these schools they welcome around 250 young men women every year they encompass every single kind of subject matter visuals styling and we believe that as a result what comes out of it is a strong identity style identity and this is the reason why in 23 24 25 this were we were presented with major awards and they were all based on the identity of our brand and we are very pleased with this that we have our own identity we continue to believe as always in no logo absolute luxury you know you know I have always been mistrustful about logos because some of you might know that I was modeling for LS the number one sportswear in in the world back then and that's what happened when they used the logo and the brand went downhill you see products should stand for authenticity simplicity familiarity style and also manual skills quality creativity and exclusivity and exclusivity in particular has is very much in the moment has always been a powerful theme in luxury but especially now so products must have an identity of style and lifestyle and the style and lifestyle identity of the of our fashion house must always be embodied by a team a team of people and never by a single individual because in our company no one is allowed to make any decision alone this is not part of our culture and this applies not only to the collection you know we always discuss of every single subject so as far as product is concerned well it is overseen by myself with my two daughters Camila and Carolina and Riccardo and this is my job and I devote 80 percent of my time to it products and communication but you see product is my background and if someone actually submits to me any financial deal you know I'm not interested whereas if you submit to me a wonderful top notch quality cashmere then i'm interested you see we are working on cashmere denims cashmere jeans and i tried them on today and we are so happy with them and this is what interests me uh the most more than any financial deal that might be offered to me so final remarks uh we have always claimed that products and brands go out of fashion quickly, and perhaps far faster than we imagine. Therefore, this is what matters the most. And Jean de la Brouillet reminds us of it when he was writing in the age of the Stun King, Louis XIV, in 1688. You see, he was a writer, someone who was savvy about fashion, and he wrote a statement that I agree with fully. One fashion has just barely replaced another when it is itself replaced by a newer one which in turn yields to the one that follows and that will not be the last and such is our fickleness so if we look up if you look up the word fashion in the dictionary it says in fashion out of fashion it means that it is a passing trend And this applies to everything in restaurants, nightclubs, bars, music. When I listen to some music, you see my daughters turn up and they say, what kind of music, outdated music are you listening to? So if this is so, we must work even more intensely to try and remain contemporary and modern. And how? Well, we need to listen to the market without ever compromising on our taste and style identity. Then one minute on generational changeover. At 58, I set up an irrevocable English-inspired trust, and I started talking about this with Moreno when I was 50, and this was to be for the benefit of my two daughters, currently our vice presidents. So according to pursuant to this trust during my lifetime, I may act freely. The day after my passing, as far as our fashion house is concerned, everything is already settled, so no worries there. At 63, I took on the role of executive chairman and creative director and decided to appoint two chief executive officers, Ricardo and Luca. Ricardo from the family and Luca from outside, whom we nonetheless consider family. And on average, they are, you know, lucky them, only 47 years old. So I really strongly wanted to create some sort of alliance in terms of values and generations. so i strongly wanted to build this alliance so some of you quite rightly one one day we might write what happens after brunello well after two after brunello as today the company will remain in the hands of many capable people where all everybody's useful but none is indispensable and you see this is what we have always cherished because we are not the owners of the company mind do, but we are its major shareholders and those chiefly responsible for it. But the company itself belongs to the world. Let us conclude by saying that undoubtedly we are experiencing a wonderful momentum for our fashion house across the world. And we can also add that things are going even better than we expected you know we work serenely always very focused and always aware that for both the product and the brand we must be truly exclusive contemporary unique modern and why not cool if we're not cool and it doesn't work that way so thank you so much And now we have all the time in the world for your Q&As. You see, this was supposed to be wanting to restate who we are today and who we aspire to be in about 10, 15 years. And we have walked you through this discussion. Let's open up for questions.

This is the Chorus Collaborator. We're now going to start the Q&A session. If you have a question, please press star 1 on your phone. If you want to leave the list, please press start 2. So please ask your questions using your receiver. If you have questions, please press star 1 now. Now, you will hear a silence for a couple of seconds to make sure we can book all requests for questions. The first question will be asked by Chiara Battistini of JP Morgan, please. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I have two questions, please. So the first question is about North America. It's still performing really well. Can you please give us some more details about the product mix you're selling there? Or better, the mix between existing consumers and new consumers and how loyal existing consumers are behaving in terms of their spending patterns. What about the price mix in North America? We are seeing some changes there. My second question is about your strategy for source. I think that new openings are focusing mainly on larger stores. So can you please remind us of the average size of your stores and where do you think we are heading in terms of the optimal size for new stores? And finally, I need a clarification. I think you said that October is off to a good start. So did I get it right? Is Q4 going as well as the rest of the year? Yes, Chiara, you got that right. Q4, the beginning of Q4, is as good as the rest of the year. Now, for North America, people tend to buy beautiful pieces, special pieces, and they tend to buy entire outfits. So much depends on what you suggest and how you mix it, especially for men's. That really makes it a good fit. You can buy a two-piece suit and then just use the jacket with denim, trousers. So it's important to suggest it. And so this is why styling is so important and how we present it. As to the size of the store is pretty much unchanged. 500 to 600 square meters for large cities, 400 square meters roughly for a second tier city, And then for smaller tourist locations, they may be like 70 square meters and cost as much as 600,000 square meters in a second tiered city. But, you know, nothing much has changed. We do believe it's really important for customers to see how we put things together and we style them. And Kalimukus helps a lot there because people ask Kalimukus, I'm going to a dinner in LA tonight, what should I wear? And Calimacus provides suggestions and examples. So we have seen that to be very, very interesting. So it is true, we do 7% on e-commerce, but people normally walk into the stores with some pre-done research from the website before. So people are looking for unique, beautiful, well-done, well-constructed things, well-styled, and so well put together. So this is what Ralph Lauren has been teaching us for like 50 years now. So put things together, style them well, and they should be very, very charming. Next question will come from the English conference, and it will be asked by Atria and Duverger of Goldman Sachs.

Good evening. Thank you very much for taking my questions. The first one would be on the different geographies. Have you seen any differences in terms of the, you know, consumer spending patterns, I don't know, between the U.S., Europe, and Asia? And my second question would be around margins. So with the recent investments in the production capacity in retail and in client engagement, which should support long-term growth, when could we expect the investments to begin generating stronger operating leverage? And what could drive, you know, margins above the current gradual progression? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Adrian.

So, first of all, as to customer habits and behavior, one of our strengths is what Brunello was saying before. So, the capability to sell more than an individual product, but rather making our customers fall in love with a complete outfit and style. And this is visible in the US, Asia and Europe alike. The way our customers behave in different geographies is really similar. Yeah, Adrian, this is Brunello speaking. We see it from the events we organize, normally organized events with 100 to 150 guests, and our customers are very similar throughout the world. As to your question on margins, Adrian, we need to say that we are already very happy with the fact that over time, year after year, we are improving successfully. So that means the investments we're making are going hand-in-hand with the return on those same investments. Now, this is true for retail, for the growth of our stores network, where, of course, retail expansion goes together with higher personal costs and rental costs. But we've always appraised the size of our investments carefully in order not to have a bad impact on P&L, but rather to have some operating leverage at the end of the year, which is what we expect for this year. And let me add that the investments we've done over the last few years have been focused on developing production capacity first and foremost. I would like to say something else too. I mean, should we decide to raise prices by 15% tomorrow morning, we may still sell successfully. But this strategy of having a healthy product profit is a business related strategy we're not um see what i mean i mean we're not looking for uh anything in in unusual so if i were a young buyer i wouldn't really look at what companies do uh i mean if uh margins are reasonable i would be very happy to buy if they are too high that would kind of bother me so someone said don't you buy that coin and i said No, because they're even too profitable. So, you know, questions that customers put to the forefront are very diverse. I mean, of course, if we get 20 basis points more, we'll be happy. But we won't change our strategy. That's the key thing. Next question will be asked by Charles Scutti of Kepler-Chevreux.

Yes, good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three. The first one on the store network, could you give us an idea of the contribution of the new store openings to organic growth over the first nine months? It seems that this contribution has been more significant than in previous years. And if you could give us also some granularity by region, this would be also helpful. My second question is on Europe, where the growth doubled in history compared to the first half. what were the main drivers behind this acceleration and was it related to a recovery in tourist pendings and if so, which nationalities contributed the most? And lastly, I know that you are relatively under-penetrated in China so you may not be fully representative of the broader market there. However, given the recent tax reforms that is targeting action on Chinese consumers, have you seen any impact on demand? and have you also experienced the same trading patterns as some of your peers with a more challenging summer in China and some kind of improvements in September and October?

Thank you.

So I will answer, you know, on China because we have seen the covers of major press in China. We don't have high revenues, but the brand exclusivity plays a high role. We award very important prizes, so it is a healthy brand. When a few days ago, some Chinese investors came to visit, one Chinese investor of them said, well, you know, your brand in China is all the rage. We could have three great years ahead of us. And I replied, yes, yes, but this does not mean that we want to open 20 stores a year, enjoy great profits so that he can make money and then our brand goes down the drain. So we want to be slightly and stay slightly exclusive and unique and exclusive. And this is a topic we mentioned during our meeting in October and it is very important. And contribution, new spaces, organic growth, as I was saying before, Luca is speaking now, is always very well balanced. As far as Europe is concerned, we enjoyed a good summer. Partly it was expected because Europe is the main tourist destination in the summer and also local customers also played an important role. Yes, very, very important, Bromello says. Local customers are very important. In the first three quarters, we had a double-digit growth in retail across Europe. In all three quarters, actually, we had excellent restocking and reorders from European multi-brand clients. And this has resulted in this Q3 growth in revenues. But our feedback, our judgment on Europe does not change. It's the thing that we said before. We believe that we have a distribution network that is quite good in Europe. And we think we believe we have very key customers there. Brunello now. As I was saying before, I don't think that the interest for luxury is waning or shrinking. You know, customers are in the lookout for more exclusive, more unique products. truth be told and also the fact that we do not have a considerable size in China that also matters and we want to still pursue exclusivity there because I attach a paramount importance to it when I was I was saying before eyewear and fragrances are going really well there but their positioning is extremely high you see average price retail price is 800 euros for our eyewear as Luxottica said this is the high end 280 euros for fragrances so everything we do we would like to have it positioned in one single segment which is the absolute luxury one next question from Alberto Cecchetto City City yes Alberto Cecchetto speaking thank you for taking my question and congratulations on your result my first question um concerns wholesale i would like to know whether the seven percent acceleration in q3 also includes the timing of shipment and uh what about wholesale performance in q4 second question i would like more color on the progress of mix in like-for-like and to what extent the product mix, how actually product mix tends to change from the start to the end of a customer life, from the first purchase to the adoption of the total look, for example. Ricardo, I can answer on the product mix. We see a homogeneous progress on the one hand, collections have increasingly high weights of manual work and you saw Alberto as far collections are concerned, knitwear is pretty strong in our collection and we have a very refined sophisticated, handmade pretty costly and expensive collection, but one year it could be knitwear is all the rage, then it's the t-shirts and trousers there are no significant changes there Ricardo is back on the line. Yes, what we were saying, both thanks to our salespeople and Calimacus, you know, we achieve great results by putting together the outfits. You see, by the way, we forgot to talk about sales associates. This really is paramount because when you step into the store, generally speaking, other brands have this idea of wanting to hassle you to sell you at all costs whereas if as if you want to try and push something and force something upon me i will definitely abandon your store and we were talking to all sales associates the other day we were saying to them do not push i said that was the first thing i mentioned of course they are sales associates and they receive 85 percent of us revenues sorry of their wages are fixed so but if you behave like that with me if you hustle me I will stop coming into your store I actually stepped into a store the other day the two sales associates were just browsing through their phone and I just left I've never seen it before some president and you know they were sitting down and and they were basically checking their phones and they asked me yes what would you like you know without even standing up to welcome me and this really really matters you know so much so that it is definitely not easy to find the right people for your stores because they need to work on Saturdays, Sundays. And yes, this is definitely another important topic, as Brunello, as Luca is saying, because we want our people to be amiable. Because at the end of the day, if you are a customer in a restaurant or in a store, As soon as you step in, you immediately are met by the kind of atmosphere in the store itself. So also, we are really able to put together the team, all individual people, but the general atmosphere is very pleasant. Yes, Brunello repeats, we do not want to be hassled. And then I will stop coming to your store, to your brand, and shopping from your brand altogether. that's why we want to keep guaranteeing 85% of fixed salaries so that there is no rivalry that is peaked, that is stirred among the differences. Associates you see there was someone who was really insisting on me buying a car and in the end I bought it from someone else. So Alberto we can say that we what we don't want to be done to yourself. We don't want to be done to others, vice versa. Then about your question on wholesale. So very punctual shipment and great restocking, as the card was saying. You see, Brunello says, this production structure that we put together is very flexible. And if you are able to restock and reassort in just a few days, you see, it's not the same as doing the reorder in just in a month or so so things are going well also thanks to the taste the style of the collection collection also the value of the brand that you know we can say it the brand is cool right now and this makes the difference so i don't know whether we answered your question hopefully we did.

The next question is going to be asked by Maria Meita of Bernstein, please.

Good afternoon and thank you for taking my questions. I have a follow-up and then a second question. So first it's actually on wholesale and my question is given the significant acceleration that you have seen this quarter and sort of looking maybe beyond the fourth quarter what are your growth expectations for the channel in the next year and then second you have obviously acquired a lot of new customers both in the us in china over the past quarters and i was wondering if these show the same loyalty and sort of return purchases um as previous cohorts um given the acceleration in growth in this region thank you very much well i can answer myself says brunello

Well, this acceleration between 4% and 7% is not just due to new clients, but also to quicker reorders. Also, because in terms of absolute values versus last year, we are talking about a growth of 8 to 9 million. I mean, a collection which is slightly more or less attractive already makes a difference. As to purchasing behavior, we see no big difference. I mean, we have a lovely multibrand in Tokyo or in Hamburg or Harrods in London. Then they all go just as well. We have 440 multibrand customers globally. But you said something beautiful. I like it very much. We look for beautiful, young multibrand stores that are likely to become the leading multibrand stores in the next 10 to 20 years. The 440 multi-brand stores we have today, as an average, have anywhere between 120 and 125 years of age. I was at our multi-brand store in Paris recently, and it's an 80-year-old store. And it's joyful. I mean, customers walk in, they chat away, and then they say they'd like to see a brand or another. And it's a very interesting selection in terms of their taste. And so when customers walk by a less time in a brand, you realize their reaction is different immediately. So it's really, really interesting to spend time at multi-brand stores, also because they have a very open judgment about what they see. So if they say their collection is so-and-so, well, that's the comment you'll never receive from your in-house store team. They'll always tell you you're fantastic, but they've seen nothing from outside. whereas multi-brand customers have seen like 300 collections every season so the next question will be asked by Andrea Randone of Intermonte please thank you thank you very much good afternoon everyone and congratulations on your results I have a curiosity you answered many questions already so it's about the movie impact did it have on usage of the website did you see any interaction there and in particular did you have any new information about traffic on the website i'm also interested to understand how you see your customers because your brand suggests There's cultural values too. And so the success you're experiencing in China today is maybe something that could not have been done 10 years ago. The cultural backdrop for a brand like yours was not there 10 years ago. So what's the impact of the website? What's the impact of the movie? And what are the possible new areas where you might actually grow the brand in the next five years, maybe areas where it's less known. Well, Andrea, I'll try and answer you first. So, the movie is actually raising a lot of interest and growing interest and it's about what Brunello was saying in this call and as you pointed out, our communication is based on principles and values and fundamentals and the movie is about this. Also failures, Andrea, because So, you know, now when kids are 15, they should be able to be successful and do something in their life. When I was 15, I didn't have that kind of pressure. So, you know, this happens with very young people too. They feel a lot of pressure. You know, this morning at the board of directors meeting, we were talking about a U.S. boy, a very young one in his 20s. son of an acquaintance of ours who wrote a beautiful message and says i saw myself mirroring in the story of young brunello because i feel these values as my own and uh even in uh failures even in starting from scratch so you know and these are important values you know it's also true in the first part of the movie there's this uh a whole part on life in the countryside which It is just no longer existing without electric light or whatever. It looks a bit poetic. But the movie is really very satisfactory for us. You were asking whether it has an impact. Well, hopefully, yes. And, you know, for two years, I spent 60 hours in interviews. It was quite fun. But at the same time, it was quite demanding. But it carries the name of the brand around. Thank you. Thank you, Andrea. The next question will be asked by Oriana Cardani of Intesa San Paolo.

Good evening, Brunello. Good evening, everyone. I have a question on France. I was wondering, have you noticed lately that local French customers are slightly weaker, so to speak, than customers in other European nationalities? What is the weight of France overall and whether the weight of tourism in France is slightly higher than the average of the group or whether it is in line? We do not see any marked difference, you know, coming from French customers. France, for us, still accounts for an important European market. umbrella says for visibility because france is always will always be france paris will always be paris are two different uh so to speak realities you see fashion that's the home of fashion paris is milan is london my neighbor back in the years on saturdays he would fly to paris to shop there because his wife wanted to come home sporting her um you know carrier bags with the brand chanel Paris. So perhaps you are thinking of this, you know, demonstrations and stuff. But you see, I myself was brought up at the end of the 60s, and I grew up with all the demonstrations in November 1968. So I know all about it. But I think that we really are in dire need, a kind of young cultural revolution is called for so i think that we need to change something to bring about change truth be told besides the business young people well i am positively impressed by the fact that the demonstrators are 17 18 years of age right moreno yes we lived we lived through it so allow me but there is a need for the for raising the awareness of this young people they need to be aware that something needs to change Luca we are performing pretty well in France you know double digit growth and as to the weight I would say approximately half of the Italian market, perhaps even less. But the image that you enjoy once you have a presence in Paris or Saint-Coupé in French Riviera, it's really a high level. You know, we always go through Paris and whenever we travel, we stop over there and we always take a look around. And fashion is really high on the agenda there. Next question by Natasha Bonnet, Morgan Stanley.

Hi, good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. This is Natasha Bonnet from Morgan Stanley. First, for 2027, for your growth of 10%, can you clarify your expectations of retail versus wholesale and also your store opening plans for 27? So what should we be expecting in terms of contribution of space next year? My second question is just on the U.S., if you could, you know, clarify what has been the split of sales between new and existing clients for the brand for the past nine months. And then the third is, you know, we've observed a reduction in Brunello Cuccinelli products available online at a discount. To what extent does this reflect, you know, stronger full price sell through and healthier underlying demand versus a deliberate tightening of the off price distribution? So are you seeing, you know, an improvement in full price sales across your wholesale partners? Thank you.

Well, Natasha, as far as the expectation for 2027 is concerned, we believe that 10% is delivered by a retail that grows above 10% and then a single digit wholesale. Yes, five mid single digits. so the result of the wholesale in the first nine months is somehow a proxy of what we expect in the coming year then as far as the ratio between new and existing customers we benefit from a positive contribution from both so spending from both yes we had estimated 470,000 clients and now at the end of this year perhaps we have 20,000 more compared to our estimates but across the world we should have about 500,000 customers then as far as the online performance is concerned I am pleased that you perceived a reduction of discounted products it was just a kind of awareness raising operation that we performed when we talk with our multi-brand customers well we wanted to convey this message during the sales campaign and it was welcomed and received promptly as for the rest it is important to restate that this is a quite a negligible phenomenon that in no way impacts our full price sales. It is something that is somehow natural in the remain goods in clothing because by nature, I have never met a customer who said I saw a price that was highly discounted, you know, because the truth is that we need to be exclusive in the number of stores because exclusivity ranks very high for us. And at least for us, you should not sell a coat for $18,000 and then an entry price item for $100. This is something that will never, never happen. We will never have an entry price, first product, first line, no way, because this runs counter our idea of true luxury. Luca, sorry for the interruption.

No, no, but I was done. Next question, Nick Lafioniati, RBC.

Hello. Thank you for taking my question. Just one for me, please. On the 2027 guidance, could you please confirm if that 10% growth is in reported terms or organic? And then you kindly provided the FX impact for the current year. Could you share with us any early indications of the FX into the coming year? That's the one for me.

So the impact on this year at the end of the year, 2.5, the negative exchange rate effect. As for the guidance for 2027, we do it at constant exchange rates. Yes, and that's the way it is, Brunello says. This is just normal. Nick, I would like to add, we always look at constant exchange rates. But as a matter of fact, financially speaking, current exchange rates also matter. So at the end of the year, we always have to come to terms with this. So that's the true revenues. Thank you. Thank you, Nick.

Next question by Paola Carboni, Equita.

Yes, good evening. Thank you for taking my question. So I will be brief about the reassortments that you mentioned before. Your idea was to be able to restock in 16 days. I think that this is a pretty important result. And I was wondering, how does this compare with the past? How has your capabilities changed from this point of view? And do you maybe have pursued different policies in the retail or in the wholesale channel? And perhaps was this helpful to result in the high performance of the brand? Yes, Brunello says, it's a very interesting question, but there is never any difference. On the contrary, we always, so first thing first, so it's not really proportional, the revenues. You see, we still have the same number of items in our collection, 800 and 800, like many years ago, of course. Our collection is 85% clothing, so I'm not saying that it is easier. but we have always maintained that you are able to restock earlier and to ship earlier you have a higher opportunity but not just for sale because your shop window looks better and your boutique looks better. Albert Eickhoff 30 years ago used to say to me if I fit the wind shop window in June with you delivering three days before, if a competitor arrives three days later, I will not take down your clothes there. So your advantage lies precisely in the fact of delivering of shipping earlier. So delivering a few days earlier translates in an advantage. Of course, you do not change your shop windows every night overnight. But what matters the most is that your brand needs to be healthy, your product needs to be young and your visual merchandising must be specifically, you know, appealing. We came back from our travels across the world for research and visual merchandising by our esteemed Ralph Lauren is always excellent. The way they show the product, the way they display, the way they combine it. And you see, if you're blending, putting together pairing items in a way is not the same as pairing in a different way. A specific footwear matched with a suit ages the suit and the opposite if the footwear is the right one. You see, the product is really important, but if your brand ages, your product ages along the same lines. And let me wrap up by saying that I was modeling for a less 1982 top in the world in 1984. It was the owner called me and said to me, Brunello, you know, take a look at this collection. You are young. Why are we not able to sell it? And I said, well, because they are fed up with your logo.

It was a beautiful collection, but the logo had aged. the company had aged and no people nobody wanted to buy so i don't want to really tire you but this is the way it works next question by deborah eitkin bloomberg hello thanks for taking my question um i'd like to understand a little bit on your basket sizes please by region um what are those average basket sizes and how have they moved and then also um It's great if you could give us some updated detail on your cohorts by income level across those regions, please.

Well, as you know, our business by geography is very similar to our business by nationality, if we got your question right. So it's a good proxy. I mean, when we look at geographical data, that's a very good proxy of the data by nationality. Of course, Europe receives travelers and tourists from the rest of the world. But what we can tell you is that the collection is the same globally. And so there are no specific products that are designed only for China, only for America or whatever. What may be different in different locations is sizing, of course, because sizing in Athens and Hamburg may be very different. And the actual warmth and weight. so you're buying for Athens there should be much lighter things than for Hamburg but there's no specific collection designs for any specific location. Now let me tell you something there was a Chinese partner some years ago he said why don't we do some striped cashmere sweaters we could sell 10,000 but we never did it and we didn't want to because the style and design identity should remain the same at all times we need to change sizes and weights for different nationalities because of course if you sell to Japanese or German customers that's completely different next question from Melanie Grippo I have

one question to remind you of the openings and expansion in Q4 and also 2027 what can you say on this, thank you so as far as Q4 is concerned, we envisage an extension of the Geneva store, as we were saying, as well as the Shanghai Plaza one. That one will happen right at the end of the year. So then 2027 major openings are the following the extension of China awards in Beijing, as well as a second store still in Beijing and we have postponed to early 2027 from 2026 the opening of the Abu Dhabi store the growth which had been planned for September this year but it was brought forward but ahead but Milania what we want to say to you Brunello speaking is you never know if the opportunity arises then you must be able to seize it but our strategy remains unchanged opening three or four a year maybe you're restoring refurbishing a couple expanding another couple this is the strategy to try and stay exclusive of course we need to do our maths in order to achieve our level of growth the ideal level of growth 10 so three or four percent is the price mix out of this 10 but the strategy stays the same so it was a good question from you to ask us where what the destinations are of our openings but you can really not really know because if the great opportunity comes to you we need you need to seize it you know but at the very same time we should not change our growth rate or our growth strategy because otherwise we we do not compromise on that yes we grew well over the past three years and you quite rightly say wow what an extraordinary growth but this is not true we grew by 10 11 12 percent but we do not believe that this is really preposterous because if if we were to consider the three year period from 21 to 23 that across the the fashion industry we all doubled whereas 24 25 26 i would call it a healthy growth in this three-year period so there was a good rebalancing and besides our growth was very steady and gradual so someone asked how can you do that how can you grow like that well we grow by just 10 and a company needs to grow at least by four or five percent to bear costs and support the organization so we are basically reaping the benefits of the fact that we are in a good momentum for our brand but the strategy does not change as a result of that you should not expect us to double our openings because that's basically what the Chinese investor was saying the other day that I mentioned yes of course we can open 25 stores a year and then what you do you then you exit your investment was, you've made a lot of money. And so I said, this is not the right way ahead. Because you need to move slowly and steadily, not all of a sudden, because we would like to try and stay here for many years.

Thank you. Next question.

It's a follow up from Natasha Bonnet Morgan Stanley.

Hi, thank you so much for taking my follow up. Just a quick question on Net debt, I know you gave a guidance for this year, but can you share what you have in mind for your net debt position, what you're aiming for for the end of 2027? Thank you.

So the idea is that it will be improving. We have planned for investments of around 6%, dividend policy unchanged, so there will be no changes in terms of strategy. So what worries us the most is to still be appealing and to design beautiful collections. It is a healthy growth, allow me. And here too, we have established our dividend policy of around 50% 10 years ago. And so you basically have a different strategy than ours. we like it this way and we don't think that we are a company in debt it's not even half of the BPA so we we still have this trend but for the first half we are sure that we have beautiful collections on display and of course for the second half of 2027 in full winter we're still working on it there are no further questions booked thank you thank you very much have a nice evening and if you have any follow-up questions pietro is available for questions thank you and good night chorus call operator speaking the conference call is over you can now disconnect your phones thank you