Good evening and thank you very much all of you for taking the time to attend Gestamp Automoción Half 1 2025 results presentation this afternoon for you. I'm Ana Fuentes, I'm an AI and IR Director, and before proceeding let me refer you to the disclaimer of slide number two of this presentation that has been posted on our website and will set out the legal framework under which this presentation must be considered. The conference call will be led by our Executive Chairman, Mr. Francisco Riberas , and our CFO, Mr. Ignacio Mosquera . As usual, at the end of the conference call we will open up for a Q&A session. Now let me please turn the call to our Secretary.
Good afternoon and thanks for attending this call in which we will be presenting the H1 and Q2 results of our group. Basically, we have delivered a very positive set of results in H1 despite the difficult market conditions in Europe and in North America. In this context, the revenues of our auto business at FX Custom have been reduced by 1.1% in Q2 and by 0.9% in the first half 2025 compared with the previous year. Even with slightly lower volumes, we have been able to increase our EBITDA margins up to 12% in the second quarter of this year. We have also recorded EUR 182 million free cash flow in the second quarter and close to EUR 100 million in H1. Very solid set of results which help us in order to be able to have a good visibility to reach the full year 2025 guidance.
Global Light Vehicle production volumes have been quite solid in the first half of the year, reaching 41.3 million units in our footprint, meaning an increase of 3.7% compared with H1 2024. Even if it's a solid growth, it's mainly driven by a very positive performance of manufacturing volumes in Asia and mainly in China. On the other hand, in Q2 and also in Q1, volumes in Europe and North America have been lower than the previous year and especially in Western Europe, with volumes far behind the ones we had before the pandemic. In this context of a very heterogeneous market, stand out of business. Revenues at FX Custom have been reduced by 0.9% in H1 2025, meaning an underperformance of 4.6% compared with the market by regions. We had a slight underperformance in Western Europe, but it has been compensated with a very good overperformance in Eastern Europe.
In America we had some underperformance in North America and a performance in line with the market in Mercosur. The main impact is coming from Asia where we have reduced our revenues in H1 by 3.3% while the market has grown by 8.2%. Gestamp reported revenues in H1 have amounted to EUR 5,844 million, meaning a - 4.8% compared with H1 2024. Out of this decline of our reported revenues in H1, 2/3 of it is coming from negative forex evolution due to the strong performance of the euro versus most of the currencies apart from FX. H1 revenues have also been impacted by the decline of scrap prices and also by the decrease of auto manufacturing in Europe and North America as already stated.
We had record profitability for the second quarter despite a difficult market environment, especially in Western Europe, which remains to underperform versus the market and with high volatility arising due to the tariff uncertainty, especially impacting North American volumes. In Q2 2025 we have generated EUR 332 million EBITDA, meaning a 12.1% EBITDA margin, which is 101 basis points better than second quarter 2024, and with lower revenues. In full H1 2025 our EBITDA has reached EUR 626 million excluding finished cost, an 11.3% margin which is also 49 basis points better than the one in H1 2024 and again with lower sales. We have been able to do that due to the implementation of structural and short-term actions such as important cost reduction initiatives, implementing flexibility measures, having some kind of constructive customer negotiations, and of course very focused in a good delivery in FX.
Strong profitability has helped us to have a very good visibility for the full year 2025 guidance in terms of Fenix. Of course, we have lived during the first half of the year a complex market environment also in North America, with a decrease in terms of the units of manufacturing in the first half of the year of 4.1% in North America, especially decreasing in U.S. In terms of the Phoenix Plan, we are on track, we are doing well, even with lower expenses than expected. In the first half of the year we have accounted EUR 9.5 million expenses and a CapEx up to EUR 5 million. We have been able to improve our EBITDA margin quarter-on- quarter.
In the second quarter 2025 we have generated 7.7% EBITDA margin which means a substantial improvement versus 6.4% we have in the first quarter 2025, and in the complete semester, we have reached a 7.1% EBITDA margin, compared with 6.6% EBITDA margin in the first half 2024. We are clearly in line to reach the target of the 8% EBITDA margin for this year, even if we are facing worse market conditions. Of course, as stated several times, Phoenix remains as a very high priority for our group. Moving to slide number 10 in scrap. Very good performance also of scrap in the first half of the year, despite a scrap prices decline. This decline of the scrap prices has happened in the first half of the year, mainly in Europe, but also in China.
This decline in the scrap prices has forced our revenues in the first half of this year to be reduced by 11.3%. Even if we have less revenue than the previous year, we have been able to sustain quite well the EBITDA margin, the EBIT margin. We have reduced this EBIT margin from 7% in the first half 2024 to 6.7% in the first half 2025. Overall, we are quite satisfied with the performance so far of scrap, because this is offering a good financial return and also a good strategic fit. Within the strategy of Gestamp, we see growth opportunities for scrap. In this Q2, we have closed the acquisition of the company López Soriano, a company which is based in Spain, a company that will help scrap to consolidate and enlarge our market position.
It's also adding new activities to the group, such as the recycling of electrical and electronic equipment. With this, now I hand it over to Ignacio Mosquera.
Thank you very much, Paco, and good evening to everyone. We move to slide number 12. We can have a closer look to our financial performance in the first half of 2025. As Paco has already explained, Phoenix Plan aimed at restructuring our NAFTA operations has had a EUR 9.5 million impact on our P&L and a EUR 5 million impact on CapEx for the first half. As a reminder, in the first half of 2024, we had an impact of EUR 12 million in our P&L. We have included comparable figures for both periods, excluding Phoenix. For the first half of 2025, we have reached revenues of EUR 5,844 million, which entails a 4.8% decrease when compared to the EUR 6,140 million from H1 2024, mainly due to the strong forex impact in the period.
Revenues for the auto business, excluding Gestamp at FX constant, have been almost flat with a 0.9% decrease year on year in H1 2025. Thus, FX has negatively impacted our results by EUR 205 million. In terms of EBITDA, we have generated EUR 641 million in H1 2025, meaning an 11% margin excluding Phoenix impact. EBITDA in absolute terms would amount to EUR 651 million with an EBITDA margin of 11.1%, improving 2024 profitability in almost 50 bps and providing visibility to reaching full year 2025 EBITDA margin target. Reported EBIT is almost flat in the period, increasing by 0.1% year-on- year to EUR 286 million with an EBIT margin of 4.9%. Excluding Phoenix impact, it would amount to EUR 295 million, reaching a 5% margin. Net income in the first half has been EUR 75 million, that compares to the EUR 106 million reported in the first half of 2024.
This lower net income is explained mainly by the negative financial result performance, which has been strongly impacted by forex evolution in the first half of 2025 and a comparable first half of 2024 which was positively impacted by one-off hyperinflation. Net debt has closed the first half in EUR 2,141 million, reducing net debt by EUR 50 million compared to the first half of 2024. As for free cash flow, we have had a strong positive free cash flow generation in the quarter, offsetting Q1 negative free cash flow due to normal business seasonality. As we will later detail, to sum up, solid set of results considering the volatile environment with less sales where we have demonstrated our ability to improve profitability in the period, providing visibility for the year and preserving our balance sheet discipline.
If we now turn to slide 13, we can see the performance by region on a year on year basis. Looking at each region in detail, revenues in Western Europe have decreased by 3.9% year-on- year in the first half 2025 to EUR 2,117,000,000. Revenue evolution in the region has been affected mainly by volume pressure in the period and to a lesser extent the continuous fall in raw material prices. In terms of EBITDA, it reached almost EUR 217 million and EBITDA margin stood at 10.3% in the period, down from the 10.9% reported in the first half of 2024. Profitability in the first half has been impacted mainly by volume drop with still limited operating leverage. Western Europe is a region where, despite flexibility measures being taken, these are slightly more challenging to implement and see the result.
In Eastern Europe, the performance in the first half of 2025 has been very solid, providing again our strong positioning in the region. On a reported basis during the first half of 2025, revenues have grown year-on- year by 5.4% up to levels of EUR 999 million. Despite the strong impact of forex evolution in the region, EBITDA levels have increased by 29.9% to EUR 153 million with an EBITDA margin of 15.3%, beating the 12.4% margin reported last year. First half the profitability improvement is mainly attributed to a better project mix, highlighting the strong project ramp ups in Turkey during the period. In NAFTA, Phoenix Plan continues to show signs of improvements in the year with good underlying operations that led to a sequential EBITDA margin improvement.
Quarter on quarter in the period, core revenues have decreased by 11.2% year -on- year, mainly due to a complex market environment leading to a negative volume production performance in the first half. However, on the other hand, EBITDA has decreased to a lesser degree by 5.6%. If we exclude Phoenix impact of EUR 12 million in the first half of 2024 and EUR 9.5 million in the first half of 2025, the good evolution of Phoenix Plan leads to an EBITDA margin of 7.1%, improving last year profitability in around 40 bps and setting the pace to achieve the target of around 8% EBITDA margin range for 2025. As you all know, turning around the operations in NAFTA to improve our market positioning and profitability is at the top of our priorities.
In Mercosur, the first half of 2025 has been marked by the forex evolution in Brazil and Argentina leading to lower revenues in the period, decreasing by 6.8%. At FX constant, we grow in the region more than 9%, outperforming the market once again. EBITDA levels dropped in the quarter by 5.6% that led to an EBITDA margin of 10.8%. Despite the decline in revenues in reported terms, we have been able to maintain similar levels of profitability thanks to the flexibility measures we're implementing in the region and a favorable comparative with last year due to the floods we suffered in May 2024. In Asia, reported revenues have decreased by 5.4% year -on- year in the first half to EUR 904 million within a complex and very competitive market. Our negative performance in the period is mainly due to the extraordinary revenue growth in first half 2024.
Despite the difficult comparable, we slightly improved our performance at FX constant quarter-on- quarter from - 5% in Q1 2025 to - 1.6% in Q2 2025, leading to a lower underperformance in the region. EBITDA levels in absolute terms have decreased by 4.9% and EBITDA margin stood at 14.6%. We have been able to maintain a stable profitability in the period due to the good performance of our new project in India. Our approach continues to be focusing on premium products in the region and we keep on working to gain positioning in this region, maintaining strong levels of profitability. Finally, Headscrap has seen revenues decreasing by 11.3% to EUR 281 million and EBITDA in absolute terms by 9.1% year-on- year, reaching EUR 24 million for the period. This situation is mainly due to the sustained decline in scrap prices as Paco mentioned before.
Nevertheless, we have slightly improved profitability levels that led to an EBITDA margin of 8.6% in the first half of 2025. Overall, we have seen that our unique business model and geographic and global diversification has driven our profitability improvement in the first half of 2025. Turning to Slide 14, we see that as we already mentioned in our Q1 results call in May, we are back to positive free cash flow generation in line with our typical business seasonality as shown on the slide. Excluding finished costs in Q2 2025, we have generated EUR 182 million of positive free cash flow, a record free cash flow generation in the second quarter, providing a strong visibility for the full year. As a result, during the first half of the year the company has generated a positive free cash flow of EUR 99 million, offsetting first quarter negative free cash flow.
The EUR 99 million free cash flow generation considers dividend payment of EUR 39 million, EUR 25 million of minorities, M&A and equity contribution, EUR 65 million of forex impact in the quarter, and excludes Phoenix Plan's impact of EUR 9.5 million of P&L and CapEx of EUR 5 million. From now on, as mentioned in Q1 2025, we will exclude the forex impact in our reported free cash flow to eliminate the effect, either positive or negative. For 2025, we're committed to meet full year guidance generating free cash flow in the 2024 range. As a result of this, we move to slide 15 where we see that we ended first half of 2025 with a reported net financial debt of EUR 2,141,000,000, which implies a net debt/EBITDA ratio of 1.7x . If we exclude Phoenix Plan impacts in H1 2025, leverage ratio further decreased by up to 1.6 x in the period.
We have managed to improve our net financial debt, delivering the lowest first half levels since IFRS implementation and sustaining the same leverage as first half 2024. Our priority is to preserve our financial strength and we remain disciplined over leverage in absolute and relative terms as we turn to slide 16. As we have just announced, we're proud to share that we have signed today a partnership agreement with Banco Santander that will contribute to deliver on our strong balance sheet and leverage commitment. The agreement foresees Banco Santander making a capital injection of around EUR 246 million in a set of proposals, taking a blended of around 39% stake on Gestamp Automoción's Spanish real estate assets. This new company will be the owner of our 23 industrial plants in Spain with a total value of EUR 379 million according to a third party valuation.
Will.
Keep full control of the assets that will continue to operate through a lease agreement, and the shares owned by Banco Santander will be included as non-controlling interest in Gestamp Automoción's financial statement. With this partnership, with entrance to a reference shareholder crystallizing value from Gestamp Automoción's asset and strengthening our balance sheet profile, furthermore, we will be able to reduce our net debt leading to a leverage ratio pro forma for the first half of 2025 of 1.5 x. This would be the lowest ratio Gestamp Automoción would have reported and in line with our commitment presented in our 2023 Capital Markets Day. With this, thank you all, and now I hand over the presentation to Paco for the outlook and final remarks.
Okay, thank you Ignacio. Going to the next slide, slide number 18. Light vehicle manufacturing in 2025 has been difficult to forecast, especially due to the uncertainties around tariffs. Even if volumes were expected to fall in April after tariffs announcement, at the end of the day H1 has been positive versus H1 2024 and the latest forecast is showing an increase of 0.4% compared with the previous year. Of course, we need now to take into consideration the latest tariff deals, the one which happened between U.S. and Japan some days ago and also the agreement with Europe and U.S. which happened yesterday that probably will provide more visibility for the rest of the year. In any case, the growth expected for full year remains very heterogeneous, which means that it's going to be some decrease expected in North America of around -4%.
In the case of Western Europe, we are also expecting a decrease for full year of something around 5% compared with the previous year and an improvement in Mercosur of 7.1% and also in Asia of 2.5% compared with the first half 2024. In any case, in Asia it's expected some decline in H2. We have a sustainable strong financial profile. We had good results of this first half of the year which clearly shows the commitment of our group towards reinforcing our strong financial profile but also preserving our strategic leadership position in the market, a market which seems to be with a limited growth ahead of us and also with high uncertainty.
In this sense, we have focused our efforts and we will focus our efforts in improving profitability, implementing all kinds of cost control measures at all levels of organization no matter whether it's plants, divisions or corporate, having constructive negotiations with our customers, focus on operational improvements and also implementation of flexibility measures in order to preserve profitability with the market volatility and of course with a strong commitment in the delivery in the Phoenix Plan apart of improving profitability.
At the same time, we want to preserve a strong balance sheet profile, trying to find the right balance between growth, profitability, and CapEx, with a CapEx strategy more and more focused on return on investment, with a clear focus on free cash flow generation, preserving a strong liquidity level, and also trying to crystallize the value of some of our assets with transactions such as the one that has been commented by Ignacio recently, which is a very important milestone for our company. Moving to slide 20, despite the difficult market conditions and following good results in H1, we reiterate our guidance for the full year 2025 for our auto business in terms of revenues.
Even if we have underperformed in H1, we are looking for an improvement in the second half of the year, and in terms of EBITDA margin, we have a good performance in H1 and we are targeting an improvement for the full year compared with 2024 for scrap. Even if we have lower prices of scrap, our profitability should be in line with the one we had in the previous year, and in terms of leverage and free cash flow, we are confident to reach 2024 range on full year basis or better. I would say that we have had a very good set of results in the first half of the year, which is providing strong visibility in order to deliver in the full year 2025 guidance.
Of course, Phoenix Plan remains as a key priority for the company, and we are quite confident that we will reach all the EBITDA margin targets and, of course, very focused in reinforcing our financial profile in terms of profitability and free cash flow. With that, now we are open to your questions.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the Q and A session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star five on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star five again. Please ensure that your device is unmuted locally before proceeding with your question. Our first question comes from the line of Francisco Ruiz from BNP. Please go ahead.
Hello, good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation. My first question is on this situation in terms of growth. I mean this reminds me to one of your local competitors, which is something that I like. Do you think that this situation of lower growth but higher forcing profitability is something for the medium term and not only for the short term, or this is something that you are adapting to the current situations and probably growth will return in the coming years? Also, in line with this question, probably this effort will come with a lower level of CapEx, which has not been the case in this semester. Could we expect a weaker CapEx in the second half? The second question is on the deal with Banco Santander. We got the proceeds, but could you tell us what is the impact in the P&L?
I presume that Gestamp Automoción will pay a fee to this company and this will come as a minorities or something like that. If you could give us the final impact on net profit as well. Last but not least, you are reiterating your free cash flow guidance when.
You are already at EUR 100 million versus.
130 of last year. Don't you think that this is quite conservative taking into account the traditional seasonality effect on working capital in Q4?
Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. I take the first two questions and thank you for your question. Regarding the lower growth and better profitability, I think we are all aware that in the last years we have seen very limited growth and a lot of uncertainties around. The messages that we are sending to all our teams and all our plants is that we need to be able to deliver in limited growth. That does not mean that we keep on moving in some projects in different areas in the world. The idea is that we need to be able to reduce and not just trying to improve our profitability whenever the volumes are going up. Always there could be some kind of short term wins.
The truth is that we are now committed to be able to increase this profitability in the long run, no matter even if the volumes are not really growing. That's the point. I think here when we talk about the cost control measures, we have a lot of opportunities. We should not forget that our company has been continuously growing throughout the years and a moment of stability or more stability is helping us in order to find a lot of opportunities and advantages in a cost basis. We can talk also about flexibility. Sustainable, yeah, without higher volumes. In terms of CapEx, I think we have already announced that we were in clearly to reduce the intensity in terms of CapEx for our model. We have stated that it takes some time because we have some commitment and these commitments take some time until they are materialized.
That's why still we have some CapEx in place. Probably for this year and part of next year, we will still have this kind of high CapEx . Clearly the trend that we have for the future is that we don't need to have such a CapEx intensity for the future. We should be able to use our existing investments in terms of generic assets in order to be able to deliver on new projects. Maybe Ignacio, you can talk about Andromeda.
Sure. With regards to your question and deal with Banco Santander, first of all, we will not be paying a fee to Banco Santander as such. As minorities holder, they're entitled to shareholder remuneration, such as dividends, in the same way as we are entitled to it. That shareholder remuneration will be subject to the shareholder agreement and the Board of Directors of such company. Basically, there is no commitment with Banco Santander to pay any fee with regards to the cost. Certainly, it's a cost which is below our cost of equity and weighted average cost of capital. At the same time, you have another impact, which is basically that the liquidity will be used to reduce debt and will reduce certain interest expense. Overall, it provides an attractive cost ratio which is well below our average cost of debt.
Finally, this deal provides the value realization of our assets. Certainly, the value of our assets right now valued externally and upon which Banco Santander has invested in this proposal is EUR 379 million. The book value of it is certainly much lower, about one third of that amount. On your last question around free cash flow guidance, and we're being conservative, I think that we need to acknowledge that we're living in a volatile environment. Within this volatile environment, we're taking a prudent approach towards free cash flow generation. We should expect in Q3 that working capital will have a negative movement as a consequence of normal seasonality and that we will recover it in the course of Q4. We want to take a prudent approach. We believe that we will be in the range of 2024 amount and that's the best guess that we have at this moment.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Christoph Laskawi from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one would be coming back to the topic of growth a bit. Obviously your constant currency growth includes negatives from steel. Could you give us a rough indication of your outperformance or underperformance? If you exclude potential negative steel price effect or if you can eliminate the steel price, would you be closer to your original guidance of an outperformance or any indication really would be appreciated because it seems like it makes relatively sizable difference. Also in Q2 and then on Europe, did you see more recently towards the end of June, early July, any more significant changes in the call off patterns or in the schedules of major customers? Considering that we had two profit warnings or two warnings related to Europe, is there anything that you would see which would be more significant in that regard?
Thank you.
Okay, thank you. In terms of your first question, I think clearly still has an impact in 2025. Probably I would say that the main impact we can find it in Europe rather than in rest of the world. It has some limited impact whether a part of this underperformance is coming from that. That is true, but it's also true that we really check where we have the underperformance. Main underperformance towards the market is in Asia. It's clear that the Asian market has performed well, especially in China. That has been driven by the growth in terms of manufacturing by some Chinese local players. We have not been able to grow with them in line with the kind of goal we have in other areas. That is the main impact.
I would say that of course the steel prices decline mainly in Europe has some impact in order to consider this. The second question. In terms of what is our view, what is going on in July and June? I think that the kind of information we have from all our plants is that the programs from our customers remain quite stable. There are no bad news, there are no good news. There's been some kind of improvement in some programs related to EV vehicles. We still see some geographies like U.K. quite depressed. Germany has done a little bit better and especially in EVs, but to be honest, we have not seen any big change in the mood of our customers, which should be at the end of the day reflected in their programs. Basically the same trend.
Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from the line of Robert Jackson from Banco Santander. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Just two or three questions. First of all, regarding the North American market, can you give us any view on how you're progressing with increasing your exposure to the U.S. OEMs and possibly the reassuring impact that we could be seeing in the future or the near future? Secondly, regarding your Indian growth, can you give us some updates of how that is progressing and when do you think that you will be seeing some impact from the investments taking place there, considering it's a relatively high growth market? Thirdly, regarding the Chinese growth, can you give us any messages regarding the negotiations or potential growth there, whether it's still long term or whether we could see anything in the shorter term? Thank you. Those would be my questions. Thank you.
Yeah, I think, Robert, I did not hear very well. I understood the last question and maybe I can answer this question and maybe I will try to understand a little bit more about your first one. Regarding the Chinese growth in terms of, for us, for Gestamp, I think last year we did a very important increase in terms of our turnover in the market. We did quite well and we outperformed the market. This year we are doing a little bit worse. That is related in some extent that some of our customers which last year performed quite well, this year in the first half, they have performed a little bit worse.
Just to provide a little bit more detail of what is going on in China, probably in the last month, I think it's much more public, the kind of discussion in the Chinese market about this kind of competition between different OEMs in order to gain market share. There has been some kind of position from the government in order to reframe to do this kind of reduction in terms of prices. It's true that we have seen already some kind of changes in the manufacturing volumes of some of these Chinese domestic players. I cannot provide more details, but it's true that some of the customers which were doing quite well in the beginning of the year, now they have slowed down a little bit due to this.
Probably in terms of manufacturing, it could be that we see some kind of reduction compared with the performance in the first half of the year in China.
Okay.
The first question was related to North America, I understand.
Yes, correct. Yes. The volume reshoring in the U.S. and your exposure to the U.S. OEMs, how is that progressing?
Yeah, I think, as you know, we have the exposure in the U.S. not just for the, let's say, U.S. manufacturers, but also for the Europeans and also for the Asian customers. I think in our case, what we have seen is that there is some decline in terms of sales coming out from the different programs, especially from some European programs. Also, there's been some delay and decline of some of the existing programs with some U.S. manufacturers. Usually I don't like to provide more details on that, but it's true that they are suffering and not only, let's say, the foreign companies, but also the local players. Volumes, I think that the kind of program that we see for the second part of the year are not bad and the trend we see is not bad.
Still, I think many of these companies were very much waiting and see what was going to happen with the tariffs. Some of them are also related and impacted by the problems in Mexico and Canada because some of them in the manufacturing, they are importing a lot of components coming out from Mexico and Canada. I think right now so far, I cannot provide you with more light on that.
The third question is related to India, your investments in India and how that is progressing. By when do you expect to see some impact in that, in the Asian growth? Could that help to compensate some of your weakness or slowdown in China?
Yeah, India is already improving. I mean, in terms of our sales in India are already improving. We used to have, at least last year, three plants, two of them located in Pune and another one in Chennai. Now we are investing in two additional plants, one located in the area of Sanaa and another one also in the area of Pune. We have good nominations in different programs, not only with, let's say, Indian OEMs like Tata or Mahindra, but also we have some businesses from some other companies, not only from Europe, but also from Asia. We see that the growth that we are intending to have in the next years from now is going to be quite solid in terms of organic growth. We see a lot of opportunities in India moving forward. For instance, the demand of hot stamping in India is clearly growing.
We are right now talking about five hot stamping lines in India.
Okay, thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, please be reminded that it is star five if you wish to ask a question. Our next question comes from the line of José Asumendi from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. A few questions, please.
Paco, can you talk a little bit?
About the actions you're taking in the U.S. to improve margins? Maybe from my headcount, from utilization of the plants, or any other actions you're taking to improve the profitability. I am aware that the environment has not been easy, and probably the customer call offs have been very, very volatile in the first half of the year. Second, change in geography. Are you finding the customer call offs in China from your key customers in China are becoming a bit more reliable? I mean, we've seen a very sharp decline from premium German OEMs, I think in the last year, in the first six months of 2025 as well. I think there are some signals of stabilization. Do you think you can benefit from this stabilization into the second half? The third question, I would love to understand a bit better the logic of the deal with Banco Santander.
I mean, when I look at your.
Leverage, I think you don't have a very low leverage net debt/EBITDA. It's not very high. Definitely, it is not stretched. You have a strong balance sheet. I was just wondering if you could speak a bit more about the logic of the deal and how does it reinforce strategically your balance sheet, and does it open up any other strategic opportunities going forward?
Thank you.
Okay, thank you, Jose. Basically around the U.S. and what we are doing in the Phoenix Plan, I think it's a bunch of different things. In the beginning we stated a plan where we were trying to focus not just in the plants themselves, which were the main problem, but also in trying to get synergies in the area of purchasing. In fact, we have improved a lot in our purchasing areas. Also purchasing from different areas in the world that we were not doing. We were buying very locally. We had also conducted very constructive negotiations with customers. I think we were not moving fast enough in order to be able to recover the high levels of inflation which happened in 2021 and 2022.
Also, we have done a very good job in trying to reinforce our culture and trying to be able to retain people talent, which is a big problem in our U.S. plants. Probably the most clear advantage that we have done is that we have focused our efforts in three plants. We moved to four plants and these plants were doing very bad in terms of EBITDA margins. Now I can tell you that for each of these plants we did a partner company from Europe. The teams of this company have been working together with the teams in the plants in U.S. Now, I would say that two of these plants are already out of this program because they have already been able to generate more than 10% EBITDA margin. We still have two companies which are in a position to really improve.
Of course, we have done a very important analysis of people and also a very important revamping of some of the lines. Everything is basic work that we are doing in U.S. and with the support of our teams, especially from Europe. Regarding your second question around the volumes in China, it's true that the non-domestic Chinese OEMs are losing ground versus the domestic companies and that has happened already in the last five, six years. I remember that back five, six years the market share of these domestic Chinese was around 40% and now they are close to 65%. This has been a very important trend.
It's true that since already two, three, four years there are some Western companies which are trying to defend their positions and I think some of them are doing a good job and some of them are also trying to get and reach agreements with Chinese players in order to improve their efficiency and their profitability. That's the case, for instance, of what is López Soriano doing, trying to find some kind of agreements, working with the JAC, working with Chery. These kind of things seem to be moving in the right position. They are starting to stabilize. We see that even though Mercedes and BMW are suffering, it's true that they have a little bit more of time because the combustion engines in this segment, in this premium segment, are performing much better than the ones in other kind of segments.
It's true that we see some opportunity even though the trend still is negative for the foreign companies in China. I think concerning Banco Santander, not to me.
Yes, sure. I mean, Jose, thank you for your question. I think that what you mentioned with regards that we're not very leveraged, I think it's factually correct and we've had higher leverage in the past and we've been able to deal with it. We also had a very firm commitment in 2023 when we did our capital markets day to be below 1.5 x and to generate positive free cash flow and to be between 1 x- 1.5x to be actually correct. What has happened between 2023 and now is that essentially our top line and our EBITDA have been penalized by volumes and by FX under free cash flow generation. Obviously, it's not at the levels where we expect it to be at that moment in time, but we are still firmly committed to that leverage ratio.
We thought this was a very good opportunity to ensure and to help achieve that leverage that we commit to. Further to that, it's also because we're really crystallizing value. We've been doing a substantial amount of investment in the past years, and that value is not shown in our balance sheet. Right now, with a transaction like this type, we demonstrate that there is a lot of value in our balance sheet that should be taken into account.
Probably to add a little bit more on that, right now with a market which is not intended to grow too much, and after the kind of footprint and facilities that we have in place, I think to be able to reduce the debt is also providing us some kind of optionality in order to be able to be looking for potential future opportunities.
Very interesting.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
There are no further questions from the phones at this time, so I'll hand the conference back to you.
Thank you for taking the time to attend today's presentation. As usual, the IR team remains at your disposal for any further question you may have. We wish you all a very good vacation.
Okay, thank you. Bye bye.
Thank you.