Good morning. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, thank you for joining the Sogefi full year 2025 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, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Michele Cavigioli, Head of Finance. Please go ahead, sir.
Morning, everybody. Michele Cavigioli. Quick introduction since it's the first call for me. I joined here the holding company of Sogefi in 2005. I've been there as CFO for more than 20 years. This year in January, I was also appointed as Head of Finance and Investor Relations at Sogefi as we had to replace Mr. Olivier Proust, who left the company. First of all, I would like to thank Olivier for the work he has done for so many years in Sogefi and all the achievement he had in these years. I will quickly go through the presentation that we have published on Friday. Then we will leave time for Q&A.
As you can see on page three of the presentation, we had a good set of solid results in 2025. We had stable volumes and the declining sales, due mainly to foreign exchange. We had margins improving both at the contribution margin and the EBITDA adjusted, EBIT adjusted level, which I will comment later in more detail. Free cash flow was also positive for almost EUR 13 million. If we go to page four, comment, sales. As I said, global sales were flat in volumes. However, there was a different performance across the regions. We had almost -5% in Europe at constant exchange rates, of course, due to market and mainly due to a poor performance in Heavy Duty.
If you remember that we had a decline, already in 2024, which however occurred during the course of the year. In full year, in 2025 we're down, versus 2024 in Heavy Duty. The situation has more or less stabilized in terms of volumes by now, but still we had a negative impact on the full year. We had a very positive performance, and above market, in North and South America. We were also very positive, in China, thanks to a very brilliant market and slightly down in India, which is, however, very small, a very small production for us, due mainly to, the mix of products that we have there. On page five, you see the performance, of the business unit.
If we always refer to constant FX performance, we are slightly down in Suspensions. As I said, this is mainly due to Heavy Duty, whereas passenger cars was in line with the market. We have growth in China and South America. Air & Cooling was slightly up thanks mainly to North America, which was very positive. Negative in Europe. Also positive in China. We can now skip to page seven, where I comment the EBIT performance. As you can see, we have EBIT adjusted, which was better than in 2024. We're moving from 5.4% on sales to 6.6% on sales.
This is due mainly to a little bit of positive volume effect, because when we say flat at constant effect, there is a slightly positive volume effect and a slightly negative price effect, which we normally have every year, as prices are of our programs are decreasing according to contractual arrangements and the absent of course any special negotiations or any new product introduction. We have positive effects of gross margin, EBITDA percent, neutral from fixed cost and D&A. Then of course, we have a negative impact of exchange difference on P&L. You see a large amount of non-recurring non-operating items in 25, EUR 24.6 million.
This includes restructuring and other effects like such as warranties, foreign exchange, recorded in P&L, and other minor items. As you know, we have announced in Q4 the closure of the duet plant and of course this is the main part of these non-recurring items in 2024, with the way restructuring figure is a provision, and the cash out would be in 2025 and therefore the final amount is not known as the negotiations are still ongoing. On page eight, you see the P&L, which we have already commented to a large extent. You can now see that we have improving margins at all levels. Contribution margin, if it adjusted EBIT.
We have a reduction of interest costs, of course, thanks to reduction in net debt after the disposal of Filtration. The income tax also slightly down. We have a tax rate which is constant at about 25%. This is the average corporate tax rate. However, when you calculate the P&L tax rate, this is much higher because we have a few regions where we don't recognize deferred tax assets due to the existence of losses in the last few years. That's why you get a much higher P&L tax rate compared to the corporate, average corporate tax rate. We can now move to the free cash flow on page nine. Free cash flow was EUR 13 million, which is lower than EUR 24 million.
In 2024, we had substantial one-off components, mainly related to the disposal of Filtration, which contributed by at least EUR 13 million+ some positive, other positive effects from working capital in 2024. I would say that the free cash flow in 2025 is more representative of a steady-state situation at Sogefi. Net debt is up by EUR 10 million. However, we have distributed EUR 80 million in dividends to Sogefi shareholders plus, of course, something else to minorities. In 2025 we have used less factoring by EUR 4.4 million, which is also explaining why we are increasing net debt a little bit. Q4 in page 10 was about the same pattern of performance as the full year.
Sales almost flat at constant exchange rate, high FX impact. This was particularly concentrated in Q4. We have higher contribution margin. We have not a good performance as in the full year on fixed costs, mainly due to the fact that in Q4, we had some extraordinary costs in Heavy Duty related to maintenance, and some fixing of operational issues there, which we think will be by now over to a large extent, so it should not be a recurring situation. Therefore in Q4 we have a constant EBITDA margin, EBITDA adjusted margin compared to Q4. As you know, this number is lower than the full year due to seasonality because we have lower sales in Q4 and therefore fixed costs are, have a higher incidence.
We can now quickly comment on the to be used sales. We have already to a large extent commented. EBITDA of Suspensions on page 11 is growing. We are seeing the results of the efforts we've made in the past years in terms of continuously improving the operations. We're going up in contribution margin. This is also providing more or less the impact on the EBITDA margin. Fixed cost down also helped a little bit by the exchange rate, but also in a constant effect. If we move to page 12. Air Cooling. Air and Cooling is slightly up in sales at constant effects, thanks to North America mainly, which was very positive.
A negative contribution of Europe due to the market, but also due to a customer mix which was evolving unfavorably. Very positive EBITDA. EBITDA adjusted is down by one point, and this reflects mainly the decline in contribution margin, which was due mainly to production mix in NAFTA and Mexico in particular. We can now skip to the outlook on page 18. You have seen on the press release, we have given the new expectations for world car production, which is flattish and with a negative Q1.
We have based on the evolution of our portfolio of contracts, we are now projecting a revenue decline, which could be low to mid single digits, including a 1% or 2% effect of foreign exchange in there. Adjusted EBIT margin, which we expect to be substantially in line with 2025. I would then stop here and open for Q&A. Please go ahead.
Thank you. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone 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. The first question is from Monica Bosio, Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everyone, thanks for taking my questions. First of all, thank you for clarifying the impact of the Forex change in the guidance. Net of the Forex, can you just give us a flavor on the regions where do you expect the companies expected to outperform the market, maybe China, North America? What about Europe? My second question is on the Heavy Duty segment. Can you remind me the size of this business in 2025? You mentioned that the situation is stabilizing. I'm just wondering if this area will grow in 2025 or if the company will offset a poor trend of the Heavy Duty segment with other businesses, maybe in the railways or others. My third question is on the divisions.
Suspensions performed very well in term of margins. Should we expect a similar progress also in 2026 in term of EBITDA margins? What about the Air Cooling? Should we expect a stabilization of the margins? Thank you very much.
Okay. Let's start with the Heavy Duty. Heavy Duty was in 2024 about EUR 110 million. 2025 is a bit below EUR 100 million, so EUR 98 million almost. This is due to a decline which started in 2024. That's what, that's why we have a full year in 2025 lower than 2024. In 2026, we expect a stabilization of volumes, not a recovery yet, unfortunately. However, we have relaunched our turnaround efforts in Heavy Duty. We have new management in place. We have a plan which is focused mainly on restoring a good level of operational efficiency and reliability. We had a few issues in 2025 there.
We are expecting to recover starting gross margins and then all the way down. 25 performance was in fact quite disappointing. We have upside there. We have a lot of work, and we hope to be able to stop having this drag on the Suspensions Business Unit performance in 26. It will not be over in 26, but we're planning to have a substantial improvement. In terms of the performance of the different business units in 26, we will probably, as I said, we will have a better performance in terms of volumes.
In terms of the business unit, we are planning to grow in Air & Cooling at a stable price and stable FX by a couple of percentage points. Have a slight decline in Suspensions.
That's for the top line. Sorry.
Yes.
Okay. In terms of margins?
In terms of margins, we're going to improve EBITA adjusted Suspensions by half to 1%. We are going to have EBITDA adjusted at Air & Cooling level flat. This is our expectation, a slightly declining EBIT adjusted figure in Air & Cooling due to increased D&A. As you know, we have invested substantially at a growing pace in Air & Cooling for product development, new EV products. We will have higher D&A due to that.
Okay. If, if I may follow up on the group's expected performance versus the markets in 2026. Should I imagine that the company will keep going in outperforming the North American market? What about? Please tell me if it is correct, and what about Europe and China? Thank you.
In terms of 26 in Europe, we are expecting to be a bit below market, mainly due to, again, Air & Cooling. We expect to be flat in South America, whereas the market would be probably growing a little bit. We expect to outperforming in North America, outperform market and grow there instead of having a contraction. In China, we are planning to have a positive development of our business portfolio, so better than market, and then India. India will also be positive in our assumptions and a bit better than market. You know, the operation is very small there.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from Milo Silvestre, Equita. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. Two questions from my side. The first one concerns the Romania plant. If you could elaborate a little bit on terms of profitability in 2025 and 2026. On, say, the project related to EV, main OEM are, say, cutting the project related to EV. Here, if you could elaborate regarding the reduction of or elimination of this project and whether you will get some kind of compensation.
Okay. Romania is now on a good trajectory. we have worked on this plant for a long time. we have now reached a good level of operating performance, a good level of margins. we have the plant loaded probably 70%-80%, so we still have room to increase production there and move production from the plants that we are going to close. profitability is of course better there than in Western Europe. in 2026 we plan to go ahead on that performance path.
We expect to grow the margins a little bit more, maybe 1 point more in terms of adjusted EBITDA, which is now at a satisfactory level in 2025 and will be almost up to standard, so in line with the budget performance in 2026, in line with the BU performance on, in 2026, and still on a good trajectory to further improve. I understood you were asking about the project cancellation. Any project cancellation that we had from customers in particular, Stellantis. Is that your question?
Yes.
Okay. In general, we, I mean, project cancellations is something that happens on a regular basis. I mean, it's part of the business. Our customers from time to time delay or cancel projects. Then depending on the situation, we have to sit down with them and discuss whether an appropriate compensation is required or not. I mean, it very much depends on whether the new platform that's canceled or delayed is a substitute platform for another program that we already have with the OEM. If that's the case, maybe there's not a big impact for us because we continue producing on the old platform. If we have a new project with a new customer and that's canceled or delayed, then normally we sit down, we have a fair compensation with that.
We have not so far had any communication on a major cancellation that would alter the outlook for us. We'll see. In any case, I would like to take the chance to invite you to a further conference call where we will have a follow-up with the two BU CEOs, Mr. Lubrano for Suspensions and Mr. Sebagh for Air & Cooling. We plan to have this conference call on Wednesday afternoon at 3:00 P.M. I would encourage you to ask those questions based on product innovation programs and specific BU performance on that occasion.
Thank you. Once again, 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. Gentlemen, Mr. Cavigioli, there are no more questions registered at this time. I turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much. As I said, as I just said, I would invite you to the next conference call on Wednesday at 3:00 P.M., where we'll have the opportunity to interact with the CEOs of the two BUs and deep dive on any business trend and the performance of 2025. Thank you very much for attending this conference call, and see you all on Wednesday.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.