Good day, Welcome to Iveco Group 2023 Second Quarter and First Half Year Results Call. This meeting is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to hand the call over to Federico Donati, head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Sergei. Good morning, everyone. We would like to welcome you to the webcast and conference call for Iveco Group's second quarter and first half financial results for the period ending of 06/ 03/2023. This call is being broadcast live on our website, and it's 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 call are Iveco Group CEO, Gerrit Marx, and myself, Federico Donati, Head of Investor Relations, standing in for the financial part, usually covered by our CFO, where we are in a transitional period, as you know, from prior announcement made by the company. We will use the material made available for download on the Iveco Group website early this morning.
Additionally, please note that any forward-looking statement we might be making during today call are subject to the risk and uncertainties mentioned in the safe harbor statement, including the presentation material. Additional information pertaining to factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is contained in the company most recent annual report, as well as other recent reports and filings with all the, with the authorities in the Netherlands and Italy. The company presentation may include certain non-EU IFRS financial measure. Additional information, including reconciliation to the most directly comparable EU 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. Our transformational year two is proceeding apace, and another quarter just ended with strong profitability improvements across segments, particularly in commercial and specialty vehicles, where adjusted EBIT margin was at 7.1%, up 430 basis points versus the second quarter of last year. Also, FPT has consistently delivered well, stepping up EBIT by 120 basis points, aligned with our commitment to expand powertrain margins from now on by about 100 basis points every year, recovering this pivotal business unit. We are steadily improving the repositioning, hence customer appreciation of all our vehicles across industrial segments, supporting a stronger price realization that has more than offset production costs.
Supply chain disruptions and component shortages are continuing to affect our truck segment in particular, notwithstanding some favorable availability of components during the latter part of June, has permitted us to finish and deliver a good part of our fleet, thus supporting our quarterly free cash flow. While such supply chain disruptions are expected to continue throughout 2023, although to a lesser extent than in the prior quarters, we expect deployment of the remaining unfinished truck and bus products, which still sit in our inventories over summer and during the remainder of the year. Early May, we announced Iveco Group's full acquisition of the Nikola Iveco joint venture and related IPs, software, and operations in Europe, partially in cash, of which related net cash outflow was around EUR 24 million in the second quarter.
Partially in Nikola shares, about EUR20.6 million of Nikola Group shares, Nikola NKLA shares, which will be provided to Nikola later in August. Following this acquisition, as already stated in our first quarter earnings release, Iveco Group will focus on the European market and export opportunities for European heavy-duty truck configurations with electric traction, continuing its strategy to be a pioneer in both the battery electric and fuel cell electric heavy-duty commercial vehicle segment. Furthermore, we will also explore opportunities around the hydrogen combustion engine as alternative electric generator to the chemically and technically very sensitive and pricey fuel cell power source. We remain a partner and minor shareholder in Nikola and continue to supply Nikola with components such as our E-Axle and truck cabs.
Our heavy-duty truck segment further improved its profitability level on a standalone basis, continuing its path to mid-single-digit EBIT margins mid-term. Our light-duty truck segment ended the quarter with double-digit EBIT margins. Looking at our financial performance as Iveco Group, in Q2 2023, consolidated revenues were up 24%. The consolidated adjusted EBIT margin was 7.2%, up 370 basis points versus the same period of last year, despite the already mentioned continuous supply chain disruptions. Our adjusted diluted earnings per share at EUR0.57 at the end of the quarter was up almost 3 times versus the second quarter in 2022. Our order backlog remained solid, with 27 weeks of production already sold for light commercial vehicles and around 25 weeks for medium and heavy.
This is in line with our goal to decrease the number of weeks of production sold, enforcing a tight order and pricing discipline. We ended the quarter with industrial net cash at EUR 1.2 billion, and the free cash flow generation of EUR 131 million, versus a cash absorption of EUR 111 million in the second quarter of last year. Federico Donati will provide more details later in the presentation, also highlighting the delta performance on a year-over-year basis. Before moving ahead with the presentation, I would like to wholeheartedly thank Francesco Tanzi for his efforts during his time spent in Iveco Group as our CFO. We have worked successfully together, managing the spin-off from CNH Industrial, followed by our foundational year one and during the first half of our transformational year two....
Both personally, on behalf and on behalf of the senior leadership team, I would like to wish Francesco all the best for his professional future. Francesco relied on an outstanding and strong team, who will flawlessly continue in their proven fashion. The search of the new CFO is well underway, we are targeting the appointment in the next few months. Lastly, our share buyback program is continuing, as you have probably seen from our usual periodic update. During the period from April 14th to July 21st, 2023, about 3.2 million of Iveco Group's common shares were bought back, for a total net consideration of about EUR 25.5 million. On slides 4 and 5, we have highlighted, as usual, Iveco Group's main achievements reached in the quarter and in the subsequent weeks leading up to today's release.
All of these new items and related press releases are already public. I will not go through all of them. Let me just highlight here some important progresses made in the quarter. As already mentioned in our previous earnings call, Iveco Group signed with Hedin Mobility Group, a letter of intent for the sale of our Iveco Group-owned distribution and retail commercial operations for light, medium, and heavy trucks in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark. This is an important step to further improve our truck segment's market share in Northern Europe while simplifying our structures. Closing is expected by the end of the year.
In June, following the finalization of the definite agreements with Nikola Corporation, as per the term sheets ended in May, in May, Iveco Group acquired the full and sole ownership of the Germany-based company, resulting from the former joint venture, Nikola Iveco Europe, now to be renamed Evico, for which we had a EUR 24 million net cash outflow in the 2Q, as stated before in my opening remarks. Evico stands for Electric Vehicles Company. We are going to consolidate all our electric heavy-duty truck activities inside Evico, exploring options to repartner for growth in zero-emission heavy trucking. I would like to highlight here again that Evico resides inside the vast site of Iveco Magirus in Ulm, a large site which was dedicated to heavy-duty truck production up until 2012. Hence, it caters for all options to efficiently expand capacity and scope as needed.
An important milestone has been made with the launch of GATE in Italy, which provides a targeted pay-per-use offer based on the new eDaily. Soon the range will be expanded to include battery electric and fuel cell electric heavy-duty trucks. Once this pilot will have been successfully proven in Italy, the plan is to expand the GATE business model to other European countries, starting from 2024. I would like to highlight here again that GATE is not limited to electric vehicles made and distributed by Iveco Group, but GATE will also deploy vehicles of other brands as commercial flywheel, driving electromobility at scale, regardless of the brand origin. At a later stage, we are going to share the ownership of GATE with strategic partners, who will support the scaling of such brand-agnostic platform.
Finally, our bus segment is keeping momentum, just winning yet again, an important supply contract for 225 new full electric Iveco Bus E-WAYs with GTT, the public transport operator here in Turin. This supply of GTT will be a leading example in Europe for a turnkey contract for our electric buses. It includes not only our vehicles and recharging systems, but also through winning teamwork, the energy infrastructure with Enel X and spare parts and service with Iveco Orecchia, our dealer joint venture here in Turin. Naturally, it fills us with pride to know that the most modern electric buses produced by our company will circulate on the streets of the city where Iveco Group is headquartered.
In the first half of 2023, we signed contracts for electric city buses for a total of more than 1,000 vehicles, which we expect to produce and deliver mainly in 2024 and 2025. Next slide, number 6, with a snapshot on sustainability. During our first Sustainability and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Week that took place in June, together with live streams and on-site events involving our people in all locations around the world, we launched our Sustainability Report Essentials, a concise version of our full 2022 sustainability report, which outlines our commitment to addressing environmental and social challenges while promoting sustainable business practices. It is available in the 8 official languages of Iveco Group.
With the publication of our first sustainability report, we have complete and detailed document available to stakeholders, and in particular, to rating agencies and investors, which serves to show our commitment and results. Thanks to this, we managed to improve the rating of MSCI from triple B to A. The upgrade is mainly driven by increased disclosure in labor management and safety management practices. We are working on the different areas of our sustainability journey to improve even more. Our commitment to be best in class in sustainability is clear and at forefront of our main priorities. Moving on to slide 7, we show the total industry volume percentage change versus Q2 2022. As you can see, Europe, excluding the UK and Ireland, was up double digits in truck segments, with light-duty trucks ending the quarter up 12%.
Medium and heavy were up 18% and broadly flattish in buses versus the previous year. Latin America industry volumes were double-digit down in both truck segments and up 37% in buses. On a worldwide basis, the market was positive double-digit across segments. The next slide, number 8, has our recurring quarterly update on channel inventory statistics. Company inventories were sequentially up, both in light-duty trucks and medium and heavy, reflecting high production activity to serve dealer demand. Looking at the year-over-year level for light-duty truck company inventory, considering that this graph depicts just the products ready to be delivered, it was up 21%, and medium and heavy company inventory was up 52%.
To a meaningful extent, this increase in company inventory was related to a higher share of rigid chassis versions versus ready-to-be-delivered articulated tractors, queuing before bodybuilders, awaiting finishing before being invoiced to end customers. Restarting our business with such rigid chassis versions, especially in our heavy-duty truck segment, has been a key priority since the launch of the S-Way in 2019. I'm happy to see how we have been building momentum in this healthier margin part of the market, under also specialty versions such as X-Way and T-Way. Dealer inventories finished the quarter also higher than at the end of June 2022, for similar reasons, serving strong order backlogs. More than 80% of actual dealer inventory is already sold to end customers.
Finally, looking at production activity versus retail, we overproduced retail sales, both in light-duty trucks and in medium and heavy, by 19%, respectively, continuing a strong delivery trend. Let's move, move on to the next slide with order intake and delivery statistics at the end of the second quarter. Deliveries were up 23% on a worldwide basis, versus the second quarter of 2022, driven by higher deliveries in both light-duty trucks and medium and heavy, up 24% respectively, versus the same period last year. Europe was up 36%, with light-duty trucks up 31% and medium and heavy up 53% versus second quarter 2022. Bus deliveries in Europe were up 24%.
When looking at order intake level for trucks, it was down versus the second quarter, 2022, mainly on the back of continuous efforts to purposely lower weeks of production already sold, through a tight price discipline to preserve profitability on the back of a very solid and historically high order backlog. As well as in anticipation of the launch of our Model Year 2024 across segments, that will start in the fourth quarter, 2023, and for which we have not yet opened our order books. Worldwide, total book-to-bill for truck and bus was at 0.7, and at the end of the second quarter. These book-to-bill ratios tracking below 1, are largely by design, to shorten our order books for a healthy cutover and introduction of our Model Year 2024, as already mentioned.
The next slide shows our market share performance in Europe, excluding the U.K. and Ireland, in our light-duty truck segment and in medium and heavy. Starting with light duty, we ended the quarter with a solid 13.5% market share in the 3.5-7.49 tn segment. We maintained our market share leadership in the cab chassis sub-segment, ending the quarter at 30.4%, and reinforced our historical leadership in the upper end of the light duty, from 6-7.5 tn segment, with market shares at more than 60%. In heavy duty, we ended the quarter with a market share up 70 bps, versus the 2Q 2022 to 7.7%.
In medium and heavy combined, up 80 bps to 8.5% versus the same period last year. In heavy gas, we ended the quarter at almost 50% of market share, up from 10% versus the second quarter last year. In conclusion, despite supply chain issues and component shortages, which are continuing to challenge all our business units, our expectation, as already stated before, is to deploy remaining unfinished products throughout the course of the second half of 2023, bringing this part of our working capital back to normal levels by year-end. Our eDaily is continuing to perform well, with more than 1,400 firm orders already taken at the end of June.
Our unique market positioning in light-duty trucks and other electrified vehicle platforms across ranges, confirm that our product portfolio is at the forefront, providing a great opportunity to further solidify our leadership positioning in both segments. I will now hand the call over to Federico, who will take you through our second quarter financial highlights, which. After which, I will conclude with some final remarks.
Thank you, Gerrit. I'm on slide 12 with our financial highlights. We ended the quarter with consolidated revenues at EUR 4.2 billion, up 24% versus the previous year. Financial services net revenues were EUR 117 million, up EUR 57 million compared to Q2 2022. Net revenues from industrial activities were at EUR 4.1 billion, up 23.4% versus the previous year, mainly due to positive price realization and higher volume and mix. Consolidated adjusted EBIT was at EUR 301 million, up EUR 183 million versus last year, with the adjusted EBIT margin at 7.2%, up 307 basis points versus Q2 2022.
The industrial activity adjusted EBIT was EUR 266 million, up EUR 175 million versus last year, with positive price realization, higher volumes and better mix, more than offsetting higher raw material and energy costs. The industrial activity adjusted EBIT margin was at 6.5%, up 380 basis point versus Q2 2022. We ended the quarter with our consolidated adjusted net income at EUR 156 million, up EUR 96 million compared to the same period of last year. The adjusted diluted EPS was at EUR 0.57, up EUR 0.37 compared to Q2 2022. Financial expenses were EUR 83 million, slightly higher than in Q1 2023, with full year expectation of about EUR 300 million, mainly due to higher interest rate base, base rates, combined with hyperinflation impacts in Argentina and Turkey.
The adjusted effective tax rate was at 28%, in line with Q1 2023. The adjusted effective tax rate reflects different tax rates applying jurisdiction where the group operates and some other discrete items. Free cash flow of industrial activities was positive for EUR 431 million, EUR 242 million higher compared to Q2 2022, primarily due to higher sales, positive price realization, and lower level of unfinished product due to increased components availability in the latter part of June, partially offset by the cash out related to the already communicated acquisition of the full ownership of the former Nikola Iveco Europe joint venture. I will talk about our performance in more detail later in the presentation. Our industrial net cash position was at EUR 1.2 billion at the end of June 2023.
Finally, available liquidity, including undrawn committed credit lines, remained solid at EUR 3.8 billion at the end of June 2023. On the next slide, our second quarter industrial net revenue split by region and segment, as well as a walk versus Q2 2022. Looking at the split by region and segment, as you can see on the left side of the chart, Europe was strongly up 33% versus the previous year, while other regions were flat or slightly up. Moving to the revenue split by segment, all our industrial segment were up by double-digit versus the same period last year, with trucks up 32%. When we look at the contributors of the increase in net revenues, as you can derive from the graph at the right-hand of the slide, both volume and mix and gross pricing contributed positively to the improvement.
Now, moving on to the industrial activities adjusted EBIT walk by segment and driver. As I've mentioned before, net price realization was the main driver of the improvement profitability, with a lower stance volume and mix that were also positive. The net price realization alone was positive for EUR 367 million, more than offsetting higher production costs, increased SG&A and R&D spending, as well as negative ForEx translation effect. The adjusted EBIT margin ended the quarter at 6.5%, up 380 basis points versus same period last year.
Looking at the performance of each segment for the quarter, the commercial and specialty vehicle adjusted EBIT was EUR 252 million, EUR 174 million increase compared to Q2 2022, driven by positive price realization and higher volumes, partially offset by higher product costs, mainly due to increased raw material and energy costs. Adjusted EBIT margin was at 7.1%, up 430 basis points versus Q2 2022. EBIT trucks on a standalone basis is continuing on its recovery path, ending the quarter with another positive adjusted EBIT level, with adjusted EBIT margin north of 3%, following the Q1 2023 positive performance. We keep grinding through opportunities to continue this health trajectory.
In powertrain, the adjusted EBIT was EUR 66 million, up EUR 19 million compared to Q2, 2022, mainly due to positive price realization, more than offsetting increased raw material and energy cost. Adjusted EBIT margin was at 5.8%, up 120 basis points versus the same period last year. The next slide, number 15, deals with our second quarter financial services performance. The adjusted EBIT was EUR 35 million, up EUR 8 million compared to Q2, 2022, primarily due to higher receivable portfolio and a better collection performance on managed receivables. In this regard, we recall that the Iveco Group managed portfolio, including unconsolidated joint venture, was EUR 7.1 billion at the end of the quarter, of which retail was 40% and wholesale 60%, up EUR 1.4 billion compared to 06/ 30/ 2022.
The receivable balance greater than 30 days past due, as a percentage of on-book portfolio, was 2.3% versus 3.6% as of 30th June last year. Look at our return on asset on the upper right-hand of the slide. It remains solid at 2.3%. Moving on with our industrial net cash walk and related focus on main dynamics. Let's have a look at the various components of the walk and related performance versus the same period last year. The adjusted EBITDA contribution was positive at EUR 470 million, up EUR 187 million compared to last year on the back of solid profitability performance.
Working capital cash inflow was at EUR 46 million, compared to a cash outflow of EUR 133 million last year, primarily due to lower inventory level deriving from high demand, as well as heavier component shortage and supply chain issues in Q2 2022, versus second quarter this year. Investments were up EUR 31 million versus last year. Our free cash flow figure includes a net cash outflow of around EUR 24 million related to the cash portion of the full ownership acquisition of the Nikola Iveco joint venture. On the bottom right of the slide, we show, as usual, our free cash flow performance by quarter. As already clearly stated, we expect to be able to deliver the remaining number of unfinished products throughout the second half of the year, as already demonstrated in 2022.
Moving now to my last slide for today, which shows our available liquidity components and the debt maturity profile. Our available liquidity as of 06/ 30/ 2023, stood at EUR 3.8 billion. This includes EUR 1.7 billion in cash and cash equivalents, and EUR 2 billion of undrawn committed facilities. As you can see, our cash and cash equivalence level continue to more than cover all the cash maturities for the coming years, totaling almost EUR 900 million. This concludes my remarks on the financials, I will now turn it back to Gerrit for his final remarks.
Thank you, Federico. Let's conclude with the preliminary industry and financial outlook, as well as with some final takeaway messages. Our preliminary industry volume outlook for 2023, on a worldwide basis, is confirming light-duty trucks and buses to the level forecasted previously. While we are improving medium and heavy-duty trucks, now forecasted up 10% year-over-year, whereas previous forecasted broadly flattish on a worldwide basis. Improved industry volume forecast in heavy duty is mainly driven by a stronger demand in Europe and the rest of the world, and easing supply chain challenges, allowing to shorten order banks. The percentage changes year-over-year by segment and region shown in the table reflect our current visibility. The next slide, number 20, has our full year 2023 preliminary financial guidance.
While we are continuing to maintain a certain level of prudence here, especially with regards to the fourth quarter, however, with solid price realization, strong order backlogs, and still no signs of unusual levels of order cancellations, the company, also on the back of strong first half results, is raising its full year 2023 guidance again as follows: Group adjusted EBIT increased at between EUR 750 million and EUR 800 million, from the previous at between EUR 600 million and EUR 640 million. For the industrial activities, net revenues, including current currency effects, increased up between 5% and 8% from previous 3%- 5%. Adjusted EBIT from industrial activities increased at between EUR 650 million and EUR 700 million, from previous EUR 510 million and EUR 550 million. SG&A over net revenues confirmed at around 6%.
Industrial net cash, including transactions already communicated and related impacts, now also the full year share buybacks at around EUR 2 billion, still excluding any additional extraordinary transactions. Investments in property, plants and equipment and intangible assets confirmed up about 15% from EUR 775 million in full year 2022, mainly due to the energy transition, Model Year 2024 launches across all ranges, and the consolidation of the investments that can be capitalized in relation to the new transactions announced. In conclusion, let me summarize, as usual, the messages we gave today in our presentation, providing some takeaway messages. Prudence in our current outlook is backed by continuous, though less severe, challenges in the supply chain, at least in the near term, and industry dynamics in the fourth quarter of the year that will be potentially still impacted by yet unclear macroeconomic developments.
It is important to highlight that the transactions already announced and their related impacts on the net cash position have been included in the updated financial targets, to which we add the total buyback that will be executed during the year, including what has already been communicated. Second, our second quarter's profitability, especially in trucks, has been visibly strong due to a steadily improving repositioning of our vehicles, supported a strong price realization. Our profitability path is continuing apace, with the year-to-date results reinforcing the solid trend, further confirming Iveco Group's ability to deliver a continuous year-over-year margin improvement. Third, after the transaction announced with Nikola and related consolidation of the European joint venture announced in first quarter this year, Iveco Group is now working to find an equity partner to our firefighting business that shares the ownership of the business headquartered in Ulm.
Our goal is to provide Magirus with the strength to compete more efficiently and effectively in its very specific markets, while focusing our group's activities on our core businesses. We are in discussions with various strategic partners, we will target this transaction to close within a time horizon between end of this year and middle of 2024. Fourth, as already clearly stated several times during our quarterly earnings call, as well as during conferences or roadshows, we will continue our efforts to manage our order books and preserve profitability, as well as maintain tight control over cash and prepare for the best launch of our Model Year 2024 full range. In November, we will present the market with a renewed and leading electric and combustion engine-based powertrain lineup for our light, medium, and heavy-duty trucks.
Furthermore, the incomplete units that remained in our inventory still at the end of Q2, are expected to be fully deployed during the second half of the year. Fifth, to maintain a sound level of available liquidity is our commitment and will continue throughout the entire strategic business plan period. Sixth and last, we are planning to host a Capital Markets Day during the first half of 2024. With such progress made so far versus our plans presented during our Capital Markets Day in November 2021, we think it is about time to update our ambitions and provide more granularity to our individual segments, particularly to the comprising segments of commercial and specialty vehicles. We will provide you with more details of this Capital Markets Day later this year.
To conclude, before opening up for questions, looking at the actual figures year to date and what we have delivered in Q2, we are certainly maintaining a good pace in our long-distance cross-country run. Since the creation of Iveco Group 18 months ago, we have worked hard as a united team on constantly improving our products and the efficiency of our processes. This effort is already yielding returns. Therefore, we are once again lifting our targets for the full year 2023, with now an embedded expected adjusted EBIT margin at industrial activity, activities level of around 4.5% already this year. 1 year ahead of what we committed to reach by 2024, as presented back in November 2021.
This is certainly something that makes us proud, but I can assure you that it doesn't divert us from a tight and tireless execution, targeting the margin gaps to the very best players in our industry. We maintain a prudent approach regarding the near future and our medium-term targets. We are all focused on what we must do to always go beyond, continuing to move Iveco Group in the right direction, both in terms of margin improvements as well as competitive product offering. That concludes our prepared remarks, and we can now open it up for questions. Operator, please go ahead.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. Our first question comes from Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I, I have 3, if, if possible. The, the first one, basically, can you comment on the, the heavy-duty segment margin, where it was in Q2, if possible, in comparison? I think you gave some qualitative commentary in 1Q. That's the first one. Maybe I'll ask one at a time.
Hi, Daniela. Yeah, we, we commented that the heavy duty EBIT margin, was north of 3% in the second quarter.
Okay. Sorry, I missed that. Thank you. Then just in terms of your slide where you have the dealer inventories, and I know this slide only extends to 2019, which might sort of be not so much of a normal period. Can you comment sort of like if we had there pre-2019, where, where do you think is the normalized level? Take your commentary that you're restricting the order book a bit to, to ensure a healthy, but if you give us some points of comparison, because it does look like dealer inventories are already quite elevated in that chart, but I assume that's because from 2019 is not so relevant.
Yeah, Daniela, when you compare it to 2018, our, and let's say, taking light, actually, and we are measuring this in forward months sold, our dealer level, our inventory levels now in 2023 are substantially healthier than what we had in 2018. The percentage of inventory, dealer inventory sold is, is around 80%, so this is also substantially higher than in 2018. A very similar message you can derive also for, for the heavy duty or the, the, the other segments, yeah? We are, in terms of dealer inventory, when you measure it as forward months sold, in a much better place, and a, a lot more is sold compared to 2018 at this stage.
As you know, as I already mentioned multiple times, on the used truck inventory, we are almost sold out. I mean, we had quite elevated levels in 2018, and we have managed to bring that back and down to, to levels where we just have a few hundred units per range in, in our inventory at this point in time. Overall, I feel pretty good about the health of the pipeline.
Thank you. Then maybe just trying to bridge in the second half from your guidance upgrade at the group EBIT level to your guidance upgrade at free cash flow, which is not as high. Can you help us out with sort of where inventories and interest are likely to be given, I guess, your near CapEx, you didn't change your guidance. Just to help us think about the inventories and also the interest, which seems to still be impacted by a few things on the second half.
I think on the inventory levels, we target a normal inventory level by year-end. We also, as I mentioned, we are taking a prudent approach to the, let's say, our ability to deliver everything that is scheduled for the quarter, by before year-end, given the supply chain volatility. It's much better now, supply chain, than we had in the first half, but there are still a few of those popping up in a fairly unpredicted way. We are, right now, very well trained to deal with those, but it's kind of annoying, to deliver the full potential. Hence, we took a prudent approach here.
Regarding the fleet, just to highlight, we had the peak of fleet, which are the unfinished products, last year in the second quarter, and we basically depleted most of it in this... Or all of it, in the second, mostly in the fourth quarter. This year, we have already started to deplete the fleet in the second quarter, which certainly levels out that impact over the second half of the year.
On interest?
We don't foresee any change in interest.
Interest expenses?
Yeah.
As we stated during my prepared remarks, we are expecting EUR 300 million this year, Daniela.
Okay, thank you.
Our next question comes from Martino De Ambroggi from Equita. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody. My first question is on, is a follow-up on the heavy trucks. Just to have an idea, where do you plan to achieve, or what do you plan to achieve in the second half in terms of profitability? Am I right in assuming EUR 1.3 billion-EUR 1.4 billion in the second quarter of the year, just for this business?
We see the heavy-duty truck broadly in the second half, similar to where it, where it is in the first half. We expect that level to continue, but first half, similar to second half. You know, the third quarter, usually for all segments, is given three weeks of shutdown in August, usually. No, it is season from a seasonality point, a weaker quarter, and then the fourth quarter is coming back up again. On average, we expect a similar margin than we have in H1. On the sales side, also here, I think similar levels in the second versus the first. However, the supply chain situation might, might influence this, a couple of hundred million up or down, depending on what we actually can deliver off the yards as complete vehicles by year-end.
Okay, the second question is on the, on the full-year guidance. I suppose, it still includes the firefighting. Am I, am I right in assuming EUR 30 million losses on a full-year basis? I don't know what is your assumption on R&D capitalizing this guidance. If I look at the second half of the year, implicit in your midpoint of the guidance, I clearly understand your prudence, but what should justify 200 bps, roughly 200 bips, lower return on sales in the second half, apart from, I suppose, some seasonality, second half, weaker and prudence on the volumes?
Yes, you're right in the first question. Magirus is included with 12 months in the numbers, and it is, you know, actually more than 10% negative in its revenue. Yeah, I think your assumption of EUR 30 million-EUR 40 million loss is correct. That's in the numbers. Regarding the margins in the second half of the year, the prudence that we have deployed is predominantly in the fourth quarter here around our ability to supply. We have taken less, but still cautious actions here, forecasting the remainder of the year.
What I would like to highlight, though, is that we have now fully consolidated in our numbers in the second half, well, starting from the closing of the transactions with Nikola, but we have now fully consolidated the operations in Ulm in our numbers. That has been properly reflected as well in our CapEx guidance that we'll keep, as I mentioned, yeah, and in our capital outlay for the remainder of the year. That is, it's all included.
The R&D capitalize is, much higher than last year, implicit in the guidance or, or not?
It's the capitalized R&D is at around EUR 500 million, EUR 455 million .
Okay, very last on your 2026 guidance, because you guided for a 5%-6% industrial adjusted EBIT. I understand there is a Capital Markets Day next year, am I totally wrong in assuming this could be achieved at least one year earlier?
Yeah, as I, as I mentioned, one key trigger for us to have the capital... A couple of triggers to have this Capital Markets Day. First, we, we owe you an update on our individual comprising business units. The deconsolidation, the projected, expected deconsolidation of Magirus, is another one that will allow us to, you know, unfold a greater granularity of reporting. Also in terms of financial performance, in, in the current year, with the guidance that we have given, we already achieved the industrial activities EBIT, 1 year ahead of what we forecasted or targeted for next year, 2024. In order to re-aim and to reset, those ambitions on a more and pretty profound and solid basis, we aim at having this Capital Markets Day in the first half of next year.
Thank you very much.
Monica Bosio from Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Coming back to the top-line guidance, if I did well, my math, the second half would imply an industrial top line at -5% flat versus the second half of 2022. I understand that you take some caution, but I was wondering if you can elaborate on the pricing outlook that you are expecting for the fourth quarter and above all, when entering into 2024. My second question is for the pricing environment as for the heavy duty. The third one is for the new Model Year range. When do you expect to open the book for the new Model Year range? Thank you.
Look, on the top line, let me highlight one specific, and that is actually the effect that is, you know, accounting for a couple of hundred million top line. We had a peaking fleet last year. in the second quarter, which obviously helped the second half of last year when we depleted this fleet. This year, we had as well a peaking fleet in, let's say towards the beginning of the second quarter, we could already start depleting the fleet during the second quarter. It means the effect of building and depletion of fleet is this year more balanced between the two half years, while it was last year more geared towards the end of the year.
That is the main factor, and we do have, as I mentioned, the prudence in the supply chain still, still kept here. In terms of pricing, pricing is stable. We do not see pricing on orders we take to decline. The pricing environment remains quite healthy. As we are in the launch phase of our heavy-duty truck, or if you will, our entire Model Year 2024 lineup, we do see space for our heavy-duty truck to even further increase, given that the new Model Year 2024 heavy-duty truck, and I would like to highlight that here, is aiming at a fuel consumption reduction of about 8% or more versus our prior model.
With that is, let's say, a leading position in fuel consumption in the heavy-duty truck in sight, and with that, obviously a substantial improvement of total cost of ownership, and hence also additional pricing power that comes with many other features that this new Model Year 2024 has, that are very much built around the driver, the driver centricity, digital clusters and better seat adjustability, better connectivity and many other features. The core is really an 8%+ fuel consumption improvement, has TCO step up, which will allow us to further keep the pricing upwards. Bearing in mind that our heavy-duty truck in Europe is still among the cheapest, when you look at the net pricing. In logical terms, I do not see any technical product-related reason anymore that we should not further narrow or even here and there, close the pricing disadvantage we have in heavy-duty trucks versus strong European competitors.
Okay, sorry, maybe I, I missed that. As for the opening of the order book?
The opening. It's not open yet, okay? We are considering to open the order book on the light commercial vehicles, in autumn, and then towards, at a later point this year, also for the medium and heavy-duty trucks.
Okay, thank you very much.
Miguel Borrega from Exane, please go ahead.
Hello, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one, just on the margin in Q2. Pricing has obviously been very strong, and the biggest contributor to your bottom line. I'm wondering, how do you see the price cost spreads moving forward? Do you think pricing will come back down while maintaining the same level of costs, or do you think you can sustain the pricing because component costs are also going up?
Look, for the remainder of the year, we expect a similar price cost ratio to continue, and we need to see what happens during the winter and what kind of energy shortages might await us, which we all don't know, yeah, and we are not planning for those, obviously. We do not expect component prices to increase significantly. I think the effects from the, from the last 12 months or from, you know, end of last year over, over the winter are largely reflected in the cost base, and we are, you know, confident that we can keep a similar cost level at similar price at similar prices.
However, I would like to add here that, for 2024, I think the markets are in the heavy-duty truck side, certainly not building on anything that would allow the market to grow, okay? Next year, I would expect maybe a flattish to moderate decline in heavy-duty markets, yeah, and that certainly might put here and there, prices under pressure. So far, for the orders we are taking, nor for that, what we have in mind, we do see any of that. I've been commenting on this dynamic since the beginning of the year, and it didn't happen.
For that point, we remain curious how next year will unfold, and in particular, how industry volumes will develop, where we are having quite high confidence in the vehicle, Model Year 2024, which even in a flat to maybe even slightly declining market, will perform really well vis-a-vis competitors. Don't forget, we are, in heavy-duty, a player that is about, in terms of size, one-third or half, the size of the next one, where, you know, obviously a very competitive product can clearly offset market weaknesses in this environment.
That's great. On the new model year, the orders that you think, you know, you'll take over the next couple of months or quarters, what kind of impact will it have? Can you give us a sense on the pricing differential relative to your current model? You said no reason why the gap shouldn't narrow. Give us a sense how this compares to your current model.
Well, look, I, I'm not commenting on pricing, never, in terms of clear numbers. We do see a good headroom for these vehicles to further price as, again, on the heavy-duty truck side, it is aligned or even more than aligned, even better here and there than pretty well-known names in, in, in German companies, okay? We will further push the product with its position where it belongs.
That's great. Thank you very much.
José Asumendi from J.P. Morgan, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Gerrit. 3 quick ones, please. The first one, can you comment on book-to-bill on light commercial vehicle? Is this basically, you know, market related, or destocking related, or what is the reason for, for maybe the, the weakness in Q2? Second, powertrain used to deliver high single-digit margins with lower revenues. Can you comment a little bit around what, what are the changes there? Is there a change in product mix or anything we should be mindful of to see margins escalating higher from these levels? And then 3, Gerrit, Q3, do you think Q3 for commercial and specialty is going to be substantially different from Q2? Do you see a slowdown in Q3 versus Q2? Thank you.
The book-to-bill for light in Q2 is clearly driven by our order discipline that we are having, because we keep having a very high interest in our LCV. Yet for this one, we are going to open the order books for Model Year 2024 the earliest. Basically, this one will be the first one to come. In order to manage the cut-over between the model year 2022 and the 2024, we are on purpose, you know, slowing things down here, and therefore, the book-to-bill is in LCV in Q2, clearly by design. We do not see in light commercial vehicles in the market, any noteworthy, you know, decrease in TIV or so, yeah. Therefore, this is, this is by design.
On powertrain, as you might remember, back in 2020, a big contract was lost that with Fiat Professional or Stellantis today. We have successfully managed to backfill this volume loss of engines with multiple other customers in on-road, but also off-road, so in the construction and agriculture segment. These platforms are ramping, and they are taking time to develop and mature in their also marginality, so this is why it takes time. The FPT keeps delivering like clockwork, a year-over-year margin expansions of 100 bp s or even now a notch more.
That is a pretty steady trajectory that will bring us back to high single-digit margins, we are happily providing you more details on how this is actually unfolding during our Capital Markets Day early next year, where, you know, we will unfold the strategy of FPT in greater clarity. Another point in FPT to mention is we have become leaders in electric axles. I think I mentioned this at another occasion, that in the current combustion engine world, powertrain consists of an engine, a clutch, a transmission, a prop shaft, and an axle. All of that, in the future, will become an electric axle. We have pioneered heavy-duty truck electric axles in our partnership with Nikola, and this axle is now in production. The strongest E-A xle for heavy commercial vehicles to date.
We have by now complemented this lineup with medium and light-duty E-Axles, and we are in quite fruitful discussions with multiple truck OEMs to supply them such E-Axles as the key power source of zero-emission propulsion and commercial vehicles of the future. All of this is as well, sitting in the numbers of FPT. We are developing these platforms, and we are ramping these platforms. We are working through this transition while growing our combustion engine business steadily back to the levels where we were. That's a longer run, but it builds quite nicely quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year. Your Q3 question, well, commercial and specialty vehicles, and that is then also true for powertrain, is we are running into the month of August.
In, in the month of August, on average, we are shutting down our plants by, like, some 2 to 3 weeks, and this is from a seasonality point of view, obviously, impacting the financial strength of the third quarter in particular. Q3 is, is certainly traveling on a lower level than our second quarter, just because of 3 weeks of shutdown, in principle.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you, we'll now take our final question today from Shaqeal Kirunda from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Shaqeal from Morgan Stanley. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on a great result. I noticed the market outlook has changed for European LCV from +15% to now 10%-15%. We've seen our performance in the LCV market, driving upgrades with some of your peers, and clearly, Iveco Group has benefited, too. Just wondering what's driving this incrementally less positive view?
This is incrementally, as you say, and I think I would not debate five percentage points left and right. I mean, we are traditionally very strong in the, in the cab chassis segment that develops quite nicely as well, while I think probably our peers are commenting more on the, the light van segment, the door-to-door, you know, delivery for parcels and mail, yeah. I think that would probably explain the difference in outlook, but I would not, you know, read too much into a five percentage points difference of a market guidance, yeah.
Okay, thank you. Also, when the medium-duty market obviously hasn't been the same since 2008, but volumes have been picking up recently. What's your kind of view on the drivers of that? Do you expect it to last?
I mean, the medium-duty market is fairly stable and small. There's a year up, a year down. I would not read any trend into a medium-duty market increase necessarily. I mean, we have very nice orders in medium-duty for our CNG, compressed natural gas, version of the medium-duty, which then goes into solutions and with bodies for municipalities. Because I keep highlighting this every time, that if you want to drive the most economic and cheapest zero-emission medium-duty truck from a well-to-wheel point of view, there's only one, and that's the Iveco Eurocargo CNG running on biomethane.
That comes at a cost or price, depending, you know, take the chassis, it would cost you around, I don't know, EUR 80,000, yeah, on the medium-duty side, while you would need to pay for an electric version, like, EUR 200,000. I think there's a very clear business case for municipalities who have access to renewable, biomethane from landfills or from biodigesters nearby to refuel these trucks, and that is a little bit of a push in this fairly stable segment, yeah? I would not read any trend into what you see at this point.
What we find particularly inspiring is, I mean, if you look at the 60% market share that we have in the Daily segment, in the 7.5 tn segment, yeah, you can obviously start thinking about why don't we even stretch that Daily into a heavier, more medium-duty part? I mean, clearly a question we wonder, we wonder about, yeah. I think the medium-duty segment is stable, but, you know, we rather will see it being probably penetrated from below and maybe also from above, yeah. We'll see how the market evolves, but we are pretty much prepared for this, you know, further development of a medium-duty market.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This concludes today's Q&A session, and now I'll hand the call back over to Federico Donati for any additional or closing remarks.
Thank you very much, everyone, for participating in today's call. Have a nice day. Bye-bye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.