2022 second quarter and first half year results conference call and webcast. We would like to remind you that today's call is being recorded. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question during the Q&A session, please press star one. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Federico Donati, Head of Investor Relations. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you, AJ. Good morning, everyone. We would like to welcome you to the webcast and conference call for Iveco Group second quarter financial results for the period ending 30 June 2022. This call is being broadcast live on our website and is copyrighted by Iveco Group. Any other use, recording, or transmission of any portion of this broadcast without the express written consent of Iveco Group is strictly forbidden. Hosting today's call are our Iveco Group CEO, Gerrit Marx, and the group CFO, Francesco Tanzi. They will use the material available for download from the Iveco Group website. Please note that any forward-looking statement we might be making during today's call are subject to the risks and uncertainties mentioned in the safe harbor statement included in the presentation material.
Additional information pertaining to factors that could cause actual results to be materially different is contained in the company prospectus published on November , 2021, as well as other recent reports and filings with the authorities in the Netherlands and Italy. The company presentation may include certain non-IFRS financial measures. Additional information, including reconciliation to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measures, is included in the presentation material. I will now turn the call over to Gerrit.
Thanks, Federico, and welcome to all of you joining our call today. Before going into the quarterly performance and what we accomplished during the period, I would like to say a few words about BEYOND Iveco Group Days, our five-day event that we held during the week of July 13, with around 4,500 guests on site and more than 1 million readers and online viewers on several media outlets and channels. We've included a slide about the event in the presentation, but first, I would like to personally thank all the guests who participated and our colleagues and partners who contributed in a decisive way to make this event a great success. The event was structured around three fundamental themes for Iveco Group and our industry, technology, sustainability, and partnership.
We discussed and exchanged ideas with valuable stakeholders and partners with whom we are moving forward together towards a connected and increasingly automated net zero future, with the common goal of ensuring access to reliable and sustainable mobility. BEYOND was an opportunity to showcase Iveco Group's ability to innovate both its products and service offering in a fast changing landscape that requires unraveling the future of road transport, urban mobility, powertrain and emerging technologies, smart factories, and a completely new business model. Some of that have been or has yet to be discovered, but we cannot innovate and transition alone in this journey. Which is why we have sought out strategic partnerships in our drive forward, partnerships that benefit both parties equally and in a mutually beneficial way.
As I emphasized during the event several times, change is good and offers the biggest opportunities for those, like us, who aim higher, think bolder, and question established industry paradigms for the greater good of a more sustainable society. Let's move now to our second quarter performance. I'm pleased to report solid profitability performances ahead of our preliminary indication at the beginning of the quarter, mainly due to net price realization, a better mix and higher volumes and price realization for used vehicles. This came about notwithstanding persistent pressure on the supply chain from continuous component shortages that caused delays, lowered our output, and further increased our net inventory levels with unfinished products remaining to be shipped to our final customers in the upcoming quarters. This is similar to what we already experienced during the first quarter in 2022.
Our focus has remained on the conscious management of our cash. Free cash flow absorption from industrial activities was almost entirely due to the aforementioned increase in inventories resulting from unfinished products, which we will deplete over the course of the next months. Similar to our first quarter, and despite a continued investment into our future technologies, we are traveling at a free cash flow break even during the first half of 2022, if you adjust for the net increase of unfinished vehicles in our fleet due to the supply chain situation. Looking at our financial results, the consolidated net revenues were up 1.5% versus the previous year, with the adjusted EBIT margin at 3.5%. Adjusted diluted EPS was 0.20 EUR per common share.
Our order book remains solid, with more than 30 weeks and more than 40 weeks of production already sold for light commercial vehicles and medium and heavy commercial vehicles, respectively. There were no exceptional cancellations of orders during the quarter, and our order intake meets our expectations and plan. At the end of the quarter, our net industrial cash position was solid at EUR 625 million, not withstanding a negative free cash flow of EUR 111 million in the quarter. Francesco will provide more granularity around this later in the presentation. Available liquidity was at EUR 3.5 billion as of June 30, 2022, up EUR 105 million from March 31st, 2022, including EUR 2 billion of undrawn committed facilities.
In summary, we have delivered a good second quarter, notwithstanding persistent pressure coming from supply chain and component shortages, particularly semiconductors. We expect the component availability situation to improve in the second half of the year, but remain quite volatile, permitting us to lower company inventory for the end of the year. Regarding the supply chain, the expectation for the remainder of the year is for a similar level of criticality experience in the first half, with the raw material costs of energy and gas expected to increase. There should be no impacts deriving from its availability when looking at our facilities. On a full year basis, we are still projecting an offset in production costs through pricing.
Before moving ahead, let me just inform you that on July 20, Iveco Group executed a dissolution agreement with the Russian joint venture, Iveco-AMT, also formally presenting our withdrawal from the legal entity. Accordingly, the Iveco Group stake, which was 33%, was returned to AMT. The price was appraised at net asset value. License agreements, namely the trademark license of the Eurocargo vehicle licenses and trademark license agreements have been terminated. Supply agreements for CKD units ordered but not delivered due to sanctions have also been terminated. Warranty claims and technical support on sold vehicles will no longer be attributed to AMT. On the next slide is a summary of some of the main events that occurred during the quarter. On April 28, we signed a letter of intent with Eni.
The two companies will bring together their competencies to explore potential cooperation on sustainable mobility initiatives in the commercial vehicle sector in Europe and accelerate the decarbonization of transport, in which both have been active for quite some time. Iveco and Eni aim to define an integrated, sustainable mobility platform for commercial vehicle fleets by offering innovative vehicles powered by biofuels and sustainable energy vectors such as HVO, Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil, biofuel, biomethane, hydrogen and electricity, and the related infrastructure, of course. Again, with Eni and together with CNH Industrial, on May 25, we signed an MOU for potential joint social development initiatives in countries of common interest in the areas of agriculture, sustainable mobility and education. Each company contributing to their respective industries.
Specifically, the parties will focus on enhancing the value chain in the agriculture sector to promote food security, increase the efficiency of farming and farmers access to the market, including through the development of solutions for sustainable logistics and the movement of goods and people, of course. Finally, on June 20th, Iveco Bus announced plans to restart production of buses in Italy. The vehicles will be based on state-of-the-art technologies, including those linked to electric battery and hydrogen propulsion. The project will contribute to Italy's energy and ecological transition of public transport and will positively impact the development of the associated supply chain, the acquisition of new technologies and know-how for the country and employment in the areas concerned.
More specifically, the expansion of engineering and manufacturing activities for electric batteries is being studied for the plant in Piedmont, while the company is considering the installation of new lines for the final assembly of high-tech, zero-emission battery electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles and low emission, latest generation methane, biomethane and diesel, obviously, buses in Foggia, where we already have one of our biggest engine plants today. This initiative will also benefit the other group sites that are already dedicated to Iveco Bus production. Because the initial manufacturing steps concerning said new buses will be launched at these plants. The process will then be continued and enriched with value-added technology in Foggia by means of, alternative propulsion systems produced in Turin and hydrogen fuel cells. Production will be completed in Foggia, with additional components largely supplied by the Italian Automotive Mechanic supply chain.
The research and development and manufacturing of batteries, as well as the supply of engines for the low emission vehicles, will be entrusted to FPT Industrial, the group's brand specialized in powertrain technologies and the global leader in the design, production and sale of powertrains. Subject to the approval by competent Italian authorities of our application for a development contract, the transition to an advanced design phase, and therefore an operational phase, will take place by the end of 2022, with the goal of producing the first buses in spring 2023. This production will result in incremental volumes versus our business plan. More than 3,000 low and zero emission buses in the first few years then, if the market responds positively with an annual rate of about 1,000 units per year, aiming for increasing substantially our current market shares in Italy and Europe. Moving to the next slide.
To 10% this year for nearly newly registered vehicles. We do see a similar trend to come in India, yet with a very different timing and product configuration. This agreement is the first step in a potential long-term partnership to leverage the specific characteristics of India's commercial vehicle transport market. A total truck running park of about 3.5 million vehicles, and buying decisions strongly driven by total cost of ownership. Once the TCO parity threshold with traditional engines is reached and considering India's increasingly stringent emission standards, now comparable to Euro 6 already, the adoption of LNG technology is expected to be quite rapid. The engines will initially be manufactured in FPT Industrial's Turin plant in Italy, which specializes in producing this type of medium displacement engines.
On the following day, July 13th, Iveco Group and Iveco Bus announced that it would partner with HTWO to equip their future European hydrogen-powered buses with world-leading fuel cell systems. HTWO, the fuel cell system-based hydrogen business brand of Hyundai Motor Group, was launched in December of 2020 as part of Hyundai's strong commitment to a hydrogen economy. With its proven fuel cell technology utilized in Hyundai's fuel cell vehicles, HTWO is expanding the provision of fuel cell technology to other automobile OEMs and non-automobile sectors to make hydrogen available for everything. Moving forward quickly to shape the mobility of the future, Iveco Bus is already participating in European tenders for fuel cell buses powered by HTWO.
Furthermore, the recently announced plan to restart production of buses in Italy that I talked about earlier, will provide another opportunity to manufacture new buses powered by HTWO hydrogen fuel cells. This initiative aims at leveraging the exceptional technology and competencies of both entities in the urgently needed renewal of Italy's public transport. As mentioned in my opening remarks from the 13th to the 17th of July here in Turin, we hosted our BEYOND event at the OGR, the former giant workshop for railway repair and maintenance. We were delighted to host representatives from some of our partners to speak along with leaders from different industries with the aim to discussing three main topics, technology, sustainability, and partnership.
The event also provided our guests with a chance to see firsthand our latest vehicles and power trains, many of which will be making their commercial debut at the September's International Truck Show in Hanover, IAA. However, at the IAA, we are going to showcase numerous advancements of what we put on display in Turin last week. Additionally, several innovations such as the all new and all fuels capable heavy-duty engine Cursor XC13. It will combust liquids as well as gaseous fuels such as biomethane, hydrogen, or blends of both, which is called Hythane. Additionally, during the press conference that opened the event, we presented our company purpose. Why do we need a purpose? I mean, simply put, it defines the reason our company exists and illustrates how our products and services positively impact customers, stakeholders, and the communities we serve. Here it is.
Iveco-
Please have your.
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Has focused on energy, saving energy and, you know, playing things quite effectively and efficiently throughout our footprint. Energy supply is clearly very high, but we feel well covered as Iveco Group.
Okay.
Francesco, on the first two questions, maybe.
Yes. Thank you, Gerrit. For what is concerning the backlog, we are managing the backlog in the sense that we would like to have a healthier back orders looking forward. We are fully booked for 2022. We are already taking orders for 2023. In general, our business do not yet include advance for this order, with the exception of the defense sector, which is probably aside from the technicality of the business. Therefore, we manage it in order to be in a position to protect profitability and to increase the quality of the order book looking forward. Again, for what is concerning advances so far in the sector is something that we do not see and we do not push to this extent.
Okay. For the pricing, should we still expect positive pricing as you are getting order that will enter in 2023? Is it correct?
Let me say that our pricing policy will go up to the end of this year. We see that there is some portion of the market which already has been in a position to absorb some increasing pricing, but we will be carefully monitoring according to the macroeconomic drivers, especially of Europe, but worldwide in general. This is something that is a work in progress also for the pricing for what concerns 2023.
Okay. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you. We will now take the final question, and it comes from Martino De Ambroggi from Intermonte. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my question. Just a couple of questions on your guidance. First one is on the your new top industrial top line guidance implies for the second half of the year plus something around plus 6% of sales growth in the second half. Can you just give us some more granularity on what kind of how this is split between volume and pricing? Then on the EBIT side, so yeah your new guidance is still implies some contraction of circa EUR 30 million from what you achieved in the first half. Where does that come from? I saw that in the second half you had a very good performance again on the financial side.
Do you expect, so the financial services to start reducing their contribution, or would it just follow the overall trends you mentioned earlier on the industrial side? Just to have some more granularity on that. Thank you very much.
Okay. If I may, Gerrit, I will start with the final question on the financial services side. Yes, the performance of the financial services was good in relation to the market trends. We see a flat quarter- on- quarter delinquency. We see that we can be in a position to let me say point out in P&L a positive provision that we started during the pandemic. This trend probably is going to continue during the second half of this year. This is basically for what is concerning the financial services. Gerrit, do you want to address the.
Yeah. We're very happy with our financial services business, so there is no slowdown. On the top line, given the supply chain situation, we do have on a year-over-year look at 2022 versus 2021, there is a slight, in the bridge, there's a slight decline due to volume and mix simply because we just can't get the product out the door. In terms of pricing, there is an uplift in top line expected between EUR 800 million and EUR 900 million for the full group just on pricing, which is underlying our ability to price well in this market environment as we speak.
There is a bit of a headwind of exchange rates in the top line also between EUR 200 million and EUR 300 million, depends on how the second half will go with the currencies where we have most exposure.
Those EUR 800 million-EUR 900 million for pricing at group level is for the full year or the second half?
Full year.
Full year. Okay. Thank you. Just quickly, in the first half, how much was this impact?
Francesco? It's, I think it was probably about half of it, maybe slightly less than half of it. EUR 350 million.
Yes. EUR 370 million, more or less.
Thank you.
At this time, speakers, there are no further questions, and that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. Have a nice day.
Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.