Good afternoon. This is the KOS Group conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the CIR 2025 half year results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on the telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Rodolfo De Benedetti, Chairman of CIR . Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon to everybody, and welcome to this sixth month investor call. I will go through rapidly the key numbers that were approved by this morning's Board of Directors with the semi-annual numbers, and then leave room for your questions. Maybe I should start on page six with the consolidated P&L, even though I know that it's probably not very relevant to mix the two different businesses, but we have to report it that way. Basically, you have revenues which were slightly down last year, mainly the effect of Sogefi's reduced revenues. EBITDA and EBIT are up, and we will see that both the operating businesses have improved profitability in the first half of the year. The financial result was worse than last year.
I remind you that last year we had an exceptionally good year from a hold co-financial asset results, and as you can see, the contribution was EUR 17 million against EUR 3.8 million this year. We'll go through that. The main negative impact has been dollar exchange rates on the private equity portfolio, which is not hedged against euros. Taxes were pretty much, and sorry, on this, on the financial result, on the other hand, we had lower net interest charges due to lower average net debt. The taxes are pretty much in line, and this brings us to a net result from net result group-wise of EUR 14.5 million against EUR 1.4 million last year. As you might recall, last year's numbers included, as you can see in the asset sales for sale, the positive contribution from the filtration business, divestiture, within Sogefi.
As you can see on the right-hand side of the page, the contribution from the core businesses is partly up, almost double, from EUR 8.3 million to almost EUR 16 million. This was negatively compensated by the lower result of shareholding, which is basically the lower return on the financial asset that I mentioned earlier. Net of the minorities, this is a decrease from EUR 19.8 million last year to EUR 14.2 million this year because we own 100% of the financial results, and we just own roughly 60% of the two businesses' net earnings. I will skip page seven because there's not much to report here. Basically, on a consolidated basis, net debt is positive EUR 191 million, and you have the bridge, and you have the composition across the two businesses.
On page nine, you have the simplified holding company balance sheet, where you have the pro rata share of book value of the two consolidated businesses, which is slightly down due to dividends that were paid out by both KOS and Sogefi in the first half of the year. The private equity portfolio reduces itself slightly. We would have had a positive return of about 3 percentage points in the six months, which became negative because of the currency exchange impacts. 100% of this, well, not 100%, but most of this private equity portfolio is U.S. dollar denominated, and historically, we have not hedged this position. We had a negative impact from currency, from dollar devaluation in the first half. This was partly reversed since the end of the quarter. If we did it today, it'd be a bit better. Obviously, it's a function of the end-of-period exchange rate.
The other lines, nothing major to report. We had an increase in the net financial position at the holding company level from EUR 341 million to EUR 363 million. You have basically, on the right-hand side, a bridge with the main changes. The main positive one was dividends that we received from Sogefi and KOS during the first half. Share buyback cost us EUR 5.4 million of investment in the first half, less than what we budgeted for because trading volumes were quite low, and we weren't able to buy more during the first half. On page 10, you have a brief description of the components of the shareholding P&L. You have the recurring costs, which are slightly down on last year, EUR 5.5 million. You have the income from financial assets I commented before, and then you have the taxes, and that result is EUR -1.5 million.
I'll now go through the KOS and Sogefi numbers, which seems to me the most relevant part. Starting with KOS on page 13, you have a summary P&L, first half 2024, first half 2025. As a reminder, first half 2019, which was pre-COVID and which was our peak result in terms of profitability from a historical standpoint. As you can see, we continued on our path of increased profitability, basically coming back on some of the negative impacts that we suffered through COVID. EBITDA was up to EUR 79 million. EBITDA pre-IFRS 16, it's EUR 38 million. This is probably the most relevant number, which is up on last year, not too distant from the 2019 number. Financial result is better because of lower interest charges. This brings a net result of almost EUR 8 million compared to EUR 5 million a year ago.
I remind you of the fact that there is seasonality in the results of KOS between H1 and H2, and this is mainly due to, and we've seen this in the last few years, this is mainly due to the fact that typically, when you have cost increases, mainly salary increases, they happen from the beginning of the year. It's only throughout the year that, month after month, we get tariff increases. Typically, we have a lower profitability first half against a higher profitability second half. This is particularly true in Germany. It's also true in Italy. In Italy, there is a further element, which is that during the summer months, we have abnormally high occupancy rate because of seasonal demand of those services during the summer months. You have a reminder on the lower end of the page of the real estate assets.
No major changes here compared to last year. On page 14, you have the numbers broken down by nursing home, Italy rehab, Italy active care, and Germany. You have the total number of beds in operation. There's been an increase because of the increase on 2019. There's been a slight decrease on last year. You might recall that we dismissed the contract to run the Suzzara Hospital, which makes our numbers, the comparison, if you do it on a like-for-like basis, we had an increase in revenues about 5% that you don't see because it's flat. The difference is mainly due to the end of the Suzzara contract, which was in the numbers of last year. The occupancy rate in Italy for nursing homes continued to creep up. At the end of June, it was 93.4%.
We're about two points from the 2019 numbers and a nice increase from last year. This was not the case in Germany, where we had a very slight increase, but below what we expected for some capacity issues in certain structures that we think we're going to resolve over time. That has weighted on the performance of the first half. This, as you can see, increases revenues in nursing home Italy by close to 6%, which is good growth. The rehab business has been the most challenging part of the business because, as you know, this is 100% public tariff and public paid type of services. Tariffs are blocked since six or seven years now. We expect them to adjust to the increased costs that we have experienced over the last few years, starting from the beginning of next year. This year, this has not taken place.
This has had a negative impact on profitability we will see later. On page 15, you have a detailed P&L. You have just for memory H1 2019, and then you have the comparison broken down by Italy and Germany, 2024 against 2025. As you can see, there is an increase in profitability in Italy overall by 1.5 points. There is also a flat one in Germany in terms of percentage-wise, a slight increase in absolute numbers. If we go at the EBIT level, we had almost a 1 percentage point group-wise of better EBIT to EUR 31 million this year compared to EUR 28 million last year. We are pretty much in line with our expectations for the year. We had a bit of a lower Q1. Q2 was in line with what we budgeted for, and we expect to have a better second half of the year.
Basically, the guidance that we're giving here is for the whole year for a significant increase in profitability for the whole year. Passing to Sogefi on page 16, Sogefi had a weak first half in terms of revenues, mainly due to foreign exchange impacts because of NAFTA, China, and India, which are dollar denominated. Revenues were down in H1, but profitability was up about a point of EBITDA margin from EUR 67 million to EUR 69.5 million, despite the lower revenues. As you can see, EBIT was significantly up from almost EUR 28 million to almost EUR 32.7 million. This brings the group result from continued operation to almost double from the last year number before the discontinued operation, which is the filtration gain that I mentioned earlier. We're pretty satisfied by H1 result. We think the market was a difficult one in terms of volumes. We benefited from two elements.
One was lower raw material prices, and the second one was lower fixed costs. This is really to the credit of the management team, which has done a great job at lowering fixed costs despite the fact that in some parts of the business, we are heavily investing on new platforms. The outlook that we gave is for a mid-single-digit decrease in revenues for the whole year. We will continue to see the same effect as we have seen in H1, with somewhat lower stabilizing raw material prices. This should lead to higher profitability compared to last year before any either unforeseen market developments or extraordinary impacts that we cannot foresee at this stage. On page 17, you have a breakdown of the results over the two divisions, where you can see that the main reduction in sales was in the Suspensions division.
This is because Suspension is more focused on the European market, which was weaker, as opposed to Air and Cooling, which has a bigger presence outside of Europe. We had a good increase in contribution in Suspension. As you might recall, Suspension was a loss-making business up to a couple of years ago. We've turned around this business, and we still are not where we would like to be in terms of profitability, but on our way to it. Air and Cooling had a better performance in terms of sales, a slight decrease in margins, mainly because of the mix of products that we had, a slightly lower U.S. profitability in H1, which impacted those numbers. As you can see, overall, EBITDA increased nicely from last year and even from before COVID. I will pause here and leave time to your questions.
This is the KOS Group conference operator. We will now begin the question -and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. That's star and one. The first question is from Martino De Ambroggi of Equita. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. My first question is a general question on the operating leverage of KOS. If you can help us in understanding, because it seems to me that there are for sure explanations to be quite low compared to the increase in occupancy. There is a change in the perimeter that probably we need to understand. I really understand the 5% growth in like-for-like for sales, but I have some other elements that are probably missing. Also, taking into account that you increased prices during 2024, and this should have helped the performance. This is my first question. The second one is just to understand what's the timeframe to achieve the full capacity. In Italy, it seems to be just a matter of time. In Germany, more difficult.
The third question is on the visibility for the second half that you indicated as better because of the price increases. In Germany, if I remember correctly, are single-digit and so on. Just to understand what should we expect for the second half of the year?
Okay. As you know, we don't give precise numeric guidance as a matter of policy. I will not give you that indication. On a qualitative level, to answer your first question, we had about 5% like-for-like growth in revenues that you don't see because of the Suzzara effect. We basically had flat revenues here. If you take away the roughly EUR 20 million of Suzzara revenues from last year, we had about a 5% growth. This is the result of both increased occupancy as well as the tariff increase. I would say roughly 50/50. This brings EBIT from EUR 28 million to EUR 31 million. I think EBIT is probably the most relevant number because it's after everything, before interest and taxes, but it's after the amortization and the real estate cost. There, the number goes from EUR 28 million to EUR 31 million. You have an increased profitability percentage-wise, not only in absolute terms.
As I said earlier, we are slightly below what we budgeted for because Q1 was a bit weaker. Q2 was spot on line with our budget, and we hope that we can make back in the second half some of the shortfall of the first half. We see those levels of profitability confirmed in the second half, given the seasonality that I said earlier. When you say that you would have expected a higher growth in revenues because of the tariff increase, as I said, you have roughly two points, between two and three points of that effect in H1, and you will have more in H2. Because of the seasonality, the impact on the bottom line will be substantially greater in the second half as compared to the first half. In terms of growth, you had some greenfields that contributed to the growth during the period.
As I mentioned earlier, the impact of the cost increase versus the tariff increase was particularly bad in Germany. In our budgets, we had that we would have a weak first half because we had, I remind you, about a 10% labor cost increase from January 1st this year in Germany. The way it works in Germany is that once you have the cost increase, you then negotiate with the authorities to have a tariff increase. That can take a few months. If I just take the month of January, you have 100% of the cost increase and you have almost 0% of the tariff increase. It's a continuous process during the year in which, at the end of the year, if you've done a good job, you've recovered 100% of your cost increases, but it's not retroactive from January 1st.
Full capacity in Italy, or in general, is a reflection both of the ability to fill up the capacity, but also of the greenfields. The more you have greenfields, the less you have full capacity because you are putting online beds that are empty, and that will take some time. We have had a number of greenfield developments, both in Italy and in Germany, and obviously, that takes away some of the occupancy numbers. I think I've answered your questions. In terms of guidance, looking at the year, we anticipate a significant improvement in the whole of 2025 compared to the whole of 2024.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is a follow-up of Martino De Ambroggi of Equita. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Sorry to bother you on this issue, but it is an unavoidable question. Is there any update on the minorities of KOS? One more question on Sogefi. I clearly understand that there is always price pressure in the car business. In your personal opinion, do you foresee a worsening scenario considering the tariff, what changed for tariffs and these kinds of things? I perceive there will be a tougher negotiation going ahead in the car sector. I don't know what's your personal opinion.
Okay. So the two questions, the evolution of the shareholding of KOS, there's no news. We haven't had any change in it. It remains that, as you know, H2I, as a matter of policy, will have to exit this investment. They confirmed this to us, but you know there hasn't been any agreement or change in that. We'll obviously let the market know if that happens in the future. On Sogefi, as you rightly pointed out, this is a very competitive market where the relationship with clients is one which is a continuous negotiation on prices, on terms, on volumes. I don't frankly see this as having worsened compared to the past.
I think the trade issues have introduced very significant volatility for our clients because, particularly our North American clients have been exposed to the issue of having most of their production in Mexico and in Canada and exporting from those countries into the U.S. to serve the domestic demand, as well as European car makers exporting mainly to North America, particularly the German car makers, and having been hit by those increased tariffs. Sogefi has not been impacted directly by those tariffs. Basically, other than very marginally, we supply locally our clients. For example, in our North American business, we supply our customers in Mexico and in Canada where they produce. It's their job, in a way, to pay the increase in producers when they import finished vehicles in the U.S. Same thing for our European business that is exposed to U.S. export. Obviously, we are indirectly impacted.
The lack of visibility and the negative effects that increased tariffs will have on the market in case those extra costs are passed on to final customers will have an indirect impact on Sogefi because of lower volumes. We have seen some of it already in the last few months. The market has been very weak in Europe and pretty weak in North America. You don't really know, but probably part of it is due to this uncertainty and volatility. This clearly doesn't help. As always, certainty even of a bad outcome is better than uncertainty. We hope that the situation will be clearer for our clients. Some of our North American clients have announced some reshoring of production capacity in the U.S., mainly from Mexico and a bit also from Canada.
Obviously, we need to understand that for the time being, we continue to supply those clients from our existing production capacity in Mexico and in Canada. We have to judge over time whether that is sustainable, whether we will need to move some of that production into the U.S. I think it's early days, and the lack of predictability is also clearly hurting everybody because you cannot plan significant production CapEx that you amortize over a 5- 10-year period when the rule changes every two weeks and are very unpredictable as they are right now. We hope that we will have a more clear situation in terms of duties. At the end of the day, experience tells us that economic players adjust to whatever rules will be in existence. The problem is when you don't know what the rules are.
This is a bit the situation in which, unfortunately, we are right now. I'm not sure that this is going to go away short term.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Rodolfo De Benedetti, there are no more questions registered at this time.
Thank you very much, and thanks to everybody for having joined this call.