El Pulpo Shifts Strategy: Nanos Brand Licensed to Portugal’s Pontos Supremos

El Pulpo changes strategy to focus on its core brand. Less than three years after rescuing Nanos from the courts, the Galician company has decided to outsource the historic Spanish children’s fashion brand. El Pulpo has licensed the design, production and distribution of Nanos to Portuguese company Pontos Supremos.

As explained to Modaes the founder of El Pulpo, José Antonio Chacón, since the acquisition of Nanos the company has tried to seek synergies between its two brands, but the differences in the business of men’s and children’s fashion, as well as the liabilities assumed in the purchase, have made it difficult to generate them.

“The premium children’s segment, due to its specificity and dynamics, requires a highly specialized operating model that is different from that of El Pulpo’s main brand,“ explained the company, which last March obtained a participative loan from Xesgalicia.

For this reason, El Pulpo has ceded the Nanos brand to Pontos Supremos, a historical supplier of the children’s company and specialized in the segment. The company, which has been operating since 2006 and is based in Paredes (Porto), has taken a global license for Nanos (worldwide and for all categories) for five years.

El Pulpo rescued Nanos in September 2023, but has failed to generate synergies with its main brand.

Nanos’ first collection in its new phase under Portuguese management will be the fall-winter 2026 collection, albeit under the former El Pulpo team. The Pontos Supremos project aims to maintain the high positioning of Nanos, founded in 1963.

As part of the agreement, Pontos Supremos will also take over the ten corners in El Corte Inglés currently operated by Nanos, with a view to opening up the international market by focusing on the high-positioned multi-brand channel.

Stores, staff and offices

As part of this change of strategy with Nanos, “El Pulpo has initiated a process of financial and operational reorganization, aimed at adapting its structure to the current business reality, reinforcing the group’s solidity and accompanying its strategic plan in the medium and long term”. “This decision guarantees the continuity of the activity with a higher level of efficiency”, the company points out.

When El Pulpo took control of Nanos, it took over the brand, a network of ten stores and the staff. Over the last few years, the company has reorganized the Nanos points of sale, converting them into mixed stores in which it sold both Nanos and El Pulpo. Now, detecting that synergies between the two brands do not exist, the company will dispense with all Nanos stores except one, Hermosilla, in Madrid, which will be transformed into a flagship store of El Pulpo only.

The company will close all Nanos stores except the one in Hermosilla, Madrid, which will become El Pulpo’s flagship store.

Thus, El Pulpo will reduce its network of stores to nine (compared to the 18 it had until now), in addition to the corners in El Corte Inglés (19 men’s, ten children’s and twelve teen) and presence in 300 international multi-brand points of sale.

The workforce will also be adjusted. El Pulpo had 160 employees until now, which will be reduced to 120, mainly due to the closure of the ten Nanos stores and the transfer of the brand’s corners in El Corte Inglés to its new licensee. “We adjusted the company to the reality of El Pulpo in order to achieve sustained growth,“ says Chacón.

The company begins this new stage with new offices. Until now, the company centralized its structure in 3,000 square meter offices in Bergondo, in the province of A Coruña. The teams of El Pulpo, Nanos and the CHC brand distributor worked there.

The distribution business of third-party brands has moved to a new warehouse in the same municipality, while the headquarters of El Pulpo has been installed in the center of A Coruña, in offices of 1,500 square meters in Manuel Murguía street. Fifty people work there.

The company changes offices and will close the current year with a turnover of 12 million euros.

Forecasts after the change

All the group’s efforts will now be focused on El Pulpo. Last December, the men’s fashion brand (which has a tailoring line, a children’s line and one aimed at teenagers) opened a store on Príncipe de Vigo street, and next spring it will open in the center of Santiago de Compostela, in a 300-square-meter store.

In 2026, the company will aim to consolidate its presence in Madrid (with the store on Hermosilla Street) and in Barcelona, as well as in El Corte Inglés, where its competitors have more presence. International growth will come from Mexico (where the brand has twenty points of sale in Liverpool and now introduces the tailoring and teen lines) and markets such as Japan, Portugal and Italy through the multi-brand channel.

The company closed the last fiscal year (ending February 2025) with a turnover of 12.5 million euros and a gross operating profit (ebitda) of around 10% of turnover, according to data provided by Chacón.

The forecast for next year is for turnover to reach 12 million euros, a reduction due to the disintegration of Nanos (half of the year). El Pulpo, however, will post a 20% increase in sales. Chacón expects to return to growth in 2026 after completing the reorganization.