Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the D'Ieteren 2020 full year results conference call. I now hand over to Mr. Francis Deprez, CEO, and Arnaud Laviolette, the CFO. Gentlemen, please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone. Francis Deprez here, and my colleague, Arnaud Laviolette, on this key highlights on the 2020 results and our outlook for 2021 for the D'Ieteren Group. Three messages at the beginning. One is that we have delivered more than solid results in this very unusual 2020, driven by a record year at Belron and a pretty resilient automotive business. That we will propose to our general assembly a gross ordinary dividend per share of EUR 1.35 and that we are guiding for 2021, and that despite continued uncertainty and in the absence of any renewed or more severe lockdowns than what we know today, we expect our typical KPI, which is adjusted profit before tax group share, to grow with at least 25% in 2021, driven by all three activities.
I do want to qualify a bit more what I meant with solid results and driven by a record year at Belron and resilient automotive. Solid results in the sense that we have increased our profit over 2020 with 11.2% on our PBT group share KPI, and that despite a 10.1% decline in our combined group sales. That shows that we have really done a strong and profitable recovery in the second half of the year compared to the numbers you may remember from August. Second, even more excellent or significant, I would say, is that in our free cash flow group share, we have seen a sevenfold increase, reaching about EUR 391 million over the year 2020, which is a tribute to the strong emphasis we've been given on the cash preservation and on working capital management throughout the year.
Our net cash position as a group, or at the group level, at the corporate level, if you like, is at EUR 1.455 billion. Part of that is in inter-segment loans, we'll have more details on that in a minute. Record year at Belron and resilience at Automotive. I think at Belron, we'll give more details in a minute, what we've really achieved is to make another major profit and margin step up. We were close to 10% last time, we're now at 15%. Thanks to cost containment initiatives, improved productivity, and continued, since a couple of years, contributions from recalibration on the one hand, and Value-added Products and Services on the other hand. Automotive resisted well.
It was obviously a drastically lower car market, we managed to increase a bit our market share to improve our margins, contain the costs, and generate very high free cash flows. A very strong resilience for Automotive. The activity that suffered the most is Moleskine. Given that our own shops were closed for several months and the shops of our biggest customers were closed as well for many weeks and months, those lockdowns have, of course, impacted top line. Despite cost measures, which have, by the way, been quite significant in 2020, the adjusted operating profits ended up slightly negative. These are the key highlights. Let me now go into a little bit more details on those things. In combined group sales, the -10% has been -7.8% at Belron, -11.5% at D'Ieteren Auto, and -37.6% at Moleskine.
Interesting to note is the difference between H1 and H2. H1, we were still, you may remember, - 18% year-on-year, while H2 was at minus 1.3%. A very strong recovery and very limited impact, if you see like that, from the second lockdowns or semi-lockdowns that we've seen from the middle of October onwards. In our combined adjusted operating result on page four, well, that again, the combined number, a jump of 22.7%. Very similar picture in terms of H1, H2. There we had actually an even more drastic decline of minus 20% in H1, but a plus 80.3% increase in H2. Really a very strong H2. It is all carried by Belron really because there was a 40% increase on the adjusted operating result at Belron of 40%. D'Ieteren Automotive stayed around EUR 100 million, not far at EUR 98.9 million, so very close to EUR 100 million.
Very decent and more than honorable results. Moleskine with -1.5% had a slight loss on this KPI. The normal KPI that we guide with the PBT group share on page five shows the 11.2% I talked about before. It comes in terms of increase almost entirely from Belron, the other two having declined a bit. Again, you see this H2 swing where we've done +85.3% year-on-year, which really overcompensated the decline of H1. We're happy that we can land with a higher, we had to guide it around, but it's a slightly higher PBT group share at EUR 332.7 million. In terms of free cash flow generation, whether you take the 100% Belron or the more correct one, the 53.75% Belron, that one actually did a sevenfold increase +600%, from EUR 56 million -EUR 391 million.
Not only Belron, by the way, also in particular D'Ieteren Automotive, that still had a negative cash flow last year and a positive one of EUR 172 million this year, a nice jump. The translation of that on page seven in terms of our debt and cash and so on at different levels of the group. It's minus EUR 1.455 billion is the number corporate and unallocated on the right-hand corner of the table on page seven. That's de facto our net cash position that we have here at the corporate level. It does include about EUR 456 million inter-segment loans. This is the number that we have. It's about the level that we had at the end of last year.
It's a combination of having acquired preference shares within Belron for EUR 150 million in February last year, of having some liabilities, treasury shares, some dividend payment, of course, that we did as a group ourselves for EUR 54 million, more or less, and then an inter-segment loan with a dividend that we pulled up from D'Ieteren Automotive. This is what happened on that slide. Last but not least, before we go into the details of the activities, is that on ESG, we have really made a substantial effort in 2020, both on the way we look at potential acquisitions, where we now have become a signatory of the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment, the PRI. We will start reporting against that, of course, in our UN PRI report in April.
In terms of our active ownership of our existing activities, where each of the activities have now worked out a sustainability or responsible business strategy with a materiality analysis, with priorities, with specific KPIs, with ambitions that are becoming more and more concrete. Depending on activity, it's either very much focused on CO2 emissions, on waste reductions, on social aspects like inclusion, diversity, and so on. I suggest we go a little bit more detail on Belron, Automotive, and Moleskine and wrap it up and open up for questions. For Belron, Arnaud, can I ask you to maybe give us the highlights of 2020?
With pleasure, Francis. Good evening, everyone. The highlights of Belron are relatively, incredibly positive, I must say, with a sales decline of just below 8%. That was substantially influenced by the second half which was much better than the first half, with a decline of top line of only 3.2%. We have had quite a lot of negative headwind from volumes because the market was really impacted by the lockdown, so decline volume of 13% for the group. We've been able to compensate partially those lower volumes thanks to positive price evolutions of our average job prices, thanks essentially to the model and product mix, and also thanks to the growth in ADAS recalibration and Value-added Products and Services. We've been able to increase substantially our adjusted operating profit by 40% to EUR 583 million.
That was really thanks to very much improved efficiency within the organization with cost containment programs, with better utilization of our capacities everywhere. That led to a strong improvement of our margin, operating margin, which landed at 15% on the full year and which was at 17% in the second half. Once again, positive tailwinds from price, ADAS, and VAPS contributed to that improvement and also the better efficiency of our activities. Adjusted profit before tax group share increased also by quite a significant margin by close to 45% on a comparable basis, despite higher financial costs due to the fact that we have supported the full refinancing of 2019 in 2020. The free cash flow has been very strong, very robust at EUR 429 million. That's an increase of EUR 264 million compared to last year.
That has been influenced by a stronger operating performance with EBITDA increasing significantly and also very tight control on working capital, very disciplined working capital and tight control on CapEx, and also much more limited impact of acquisitions in 2020. We've ended the year with a very strong cash position with EUR 618 million of cash with undrawn revolving credit facility of EUR 400 million and a senior secured net leverage ratio of 2.36 x. On top of that, we've enjoyed quite record NPS. In a year which was not that obvious for the operations, we've been able again to delight our customers with a record NPS of 85%.
If I look at slide 11 with the evolution of sales, you see there the decline indeed of 7.8%, which was mainly organic, with 7.5% decrease of organic sales, limited impact or an impact, negative impact of FX and some positive contribution from acquisitions that have been done in part in 2019 and also in 2020. In terms of geographies, North America resisted quite well during the crisis or better than the other regions, with North America registering a decline of 5.5% of the sales. This represents 55% of the group sales now. Eurozone was much more affected by the lockdown with a decline of 11.3% and rest of the world, where the U.K. suffered, but Australia and Scandinavia did perform very well, - 6.1%. Of course, the main reason for those sales declines are linked to the lockdown.
As you know, we had a very harsh lockdown in the first half of the year, especially starting in March and April. Then we recovered quite nicely in the Q3. The second wave of the lockdown in November and December did impact negatively the business again, but we've been able to resist quite well. The VGR value growth linked to a very important driver of the business, which is the ever more sophisticated windshield, provide us with strong price support due to the model mix and the product mix. That has contributed to diminish the impact of the lower volumes and also ADAS recalibration. The penetration rate is now at 17%, having increased quite significantly compared to 2019.
Even with lower volumes of windshield replacement, so it's important to reduce to that, we've been able to increase quite substantially the number of recalibration, the penetration rate, and the sales. Also, we've increased the attachment rate on Value-Added Products and Services. We are now at 20%. That's not a homogeneous number across the region, so there is still room for improvement there. We've had also negative effects with the average EUR/USD, which was in the negative direction. Strong growth in operating results, I've mentioned that, and it's really, once again, quite impressive already what we had achieved during the first half of the year. After we entered the Q3, as we mentioned in August when we presented the half-year results, full speed into the third quarter, that has been confirmed. We delivered quite a strong performance there.
We suffered a little bit at the end of the year. Notwithstanding that, we've been able to improve quite significantly the margin during the second half of the year, landing at 17% operating margin and a total margin for the full year of 15%. Tight discipline on costs, also, a much better usage of our capability of capacity within the group has been the recipe for achieving those results, also positive tailwind from price, ADAS, and VAPS. There was also a positive impact linked to the fact that the legacy management incentive plan didn't repeat itself in 2020. What I can add, is all the cost lines of the P&L have been improving in 2020 compared to 2019 in terms of absolute levels, also in percentage of sales. This explains too why the operating profit has been improving so substantially.
I want to come back on the summary of the results. There are a few adjusting items in those results. Some of them are linked to amortization of brands due to the acquisition of TruRoad that we've done last year. There have been some impairments on goodwill and other non-current assets, partially acceleration of impairments on some software in the group, and also other adjusting items which are mainly linked to some restructuring in different countries, and also the cost of deciding to discontinue some activities in the service extensions. No goodwill impairment has been booked following the impairment review in the countries. That's important to signal, I guess. Once again, a large part of the other adjusting items are there in order to really improve the performance in the future of this organization.
Adjusted free cash flow and net debt, once again, very strict discipline and what has been achieved in terms of operating profit reflects itself into the adjusted EBITDA, very strong control in working capital. Just to anticipate the questions, at the end of the first half, we had deferred some payments to suppliers. We've regularized that massively in the second half of the year, there is a remaining EUR 30 million approximately that has to be still paid in 2021 in the working capital. Net CapEx, we've been there again, very cautious, very disciplined in terms of sanctioning the right ones, which were absolutely essential for the business in 2020, we're expecting a catch-up for next year on that amount. Tax paid was increased due to the better results of the company.
Increased net interest paid, this is linked to the refinancing that we achieved, refinancing dividend recap that we did in October 2019, and which had its full impact on 2020. DSP has been paid. That was the former LT plan for the management, has been fully paid in 2020, that has negatively impacted the free cash flow, that will not happen again. I insist on the fact that our net leverage has diminished quite substantially, from 377 at the end of December 2019 to 236, 2.36 x at the end of December 2020. The latest development of Belron. The Fit for Growth acceleration program is really alive and kicking and delivered great results as you've seen. The transformation work stream, we are making big progress there by really defining the size of the prize, by sequencing the program.
We've reached an agreement there, and we should progressively see the results. Partially, but modestly in 2021, but much more in 2022 and 2023. There will be due, in large part to the transformation program, massive IT spend in order to rejuvenate and modernize our IT. That will be seen already in 2021. As I've mentioned, we did some strategic review on some expansion initiatives, and we are currently revisiting our activities there. We've announced already the fact that we have sold Italy, and we are continuing on that avenue. We've also developed a new, what we call responsible business. This is the other word of ESG, I must say, and where we've made also progress, where we've defined our objective much more precisely. It's in terms of carbon emission, it's in terms of waste reduction, massive waste reduction and some social aspects.
Health and safety is a crucial dimension of it and diversity and inclusion. The outlook. Well, assuming no more severe or no new lockdown, the outlook is quite upbeat. I must say, we are expecting low double-digit organic growth, and this is driven by progressive volume recovery as we enter into favorable period comparisons starting in March. Once again, the model mix is always a positive for us. We expect a continuation of increased ADAS penetration across the group and continued improvement in the VAPS contribution. We are expecting, unfortunately, some headwind in terms of FX because the US dollar is today depreciated compared to the average of last year. We are expecting an adjusted operating profit growth above 20%, and the adjusted free cash flow is expected to stabilize at a high level. Once again, some elements of the performance of 2020 can, with difficulty, be repeated.
I think about the working capital, but also about the CapEx program.
All right. Thank you, Arnaud. On D'Ieteren Automotive, what have been the highlights of 2020? It has, of course, been a drastically reduced new car registrations market, with -19.7%. We managed to slightly increase our market share with 80 basis points to 23.6 in that one. Delivered about 19.2% less vehicles. All of that translated into 11.5% less sales and 17% less adjusted operating results. There was clear support of a positive mix, clear support of stringent cost management. As I've mentioned already at the beginning, the cash generation has been particularly strong at D'Ieteren Automotive, reaching EUR 171.6 million, where it was still negative the year before, thanks to great working capital management. We did finish or implement fully the acceleration of the transformation project, where you may remember we had about 211 positions in discussions with the social partners.
Those negotiations were finished, the implementation has been done at the end of December. As of January 1, those positions are not there anymore, and the first savings are starting to happen as we speak. Last but not least, we have now also created the subsidiary called D'Ieteren Automotive SA, a subsidiary of D'Ieteren Group. You may have seen it, that our logo has changed a little bit. The one you see at the bottom of the pages here is the D'Ieteren Group logo, and D'Ieteren Automotive is using a more modern look, leveraging the commercial name of D'Ieteren, by the way, which of course, in Belgium makes a lot of sense. On the Belgian car market, page 19. We had full lockdown for at least a couple of weeks there in March, April and May.
A drop, -19.7% in -21.6% even if you include the registration of less than 30 days. We increased our share and the commercial vehicles did also decline a bit less than 12.2%. Our share remains stable at 10.7%. On the chart itself of new registrations, really see that the 431, we had kind of always said we're going to land around 435. I think we're pretty close. We haven't seen a number like that since quite a while, that's for sure. On the market shares on the right-hand side, you see that we've used that occasion to keep growing our share to a number that actually we also haven't seen in the last 10 years. We're pretty happy with this market share number, both in the net and in the gross market share. In terms of type of vehicles on page 20.
Well, what's really clear is that the new energy part of the market has fully taken off. It used to be 7% last year. It's now 15%. Of that, still hybrids is the biggest chunk, 71% of that, 15%. Electric is already about a quarter of that. There have been 14,968 fully electric vehicles sold in Belgium. There's still a bit of CNG and LPG, but really quite limited. Diesel had a very small uptick from 31%-33%, and the rest have been petrol. B2C is remaining a little bit smaller than B2B. No big changes there compared to the year before. The SUV mix keeps going in a direction where SUVs keep growing. They have achieved about 41% of the market in total. Now he talked about D'Ieteren on the next page.
We have increased our share, as you can see, from 22.8% - 23.6%. All brands have grown except the Volkswagen brand. The Volkswagen brand has actually suffered in its market share, given that there was a slowdown and a delay in the launch of the Golf 8, and actually also the ID.3 was launched a couple of months later than planned. The big volume models like Tiguan, for instance, are becoming a little bit closer to end of life, and so have contributed a bit less. The Volkswagen brand has really reduced share. Very pleased with the uptick at Audi from 6% - 7.7%. Very pleased with Škoda, which has really done a massive jump from 4%- 4.8%, thanks to the Kamiq, the new Octavia, the Superb running really well.
SEAT stable at 2% and Porsche, despite what you might think, has actually also increased its share from 0.5% - 0.7%. The Taycan, of course, has been a nice contributor to that. Within the mix in front of SUVs, we were always a bit underrepresented, but we're slowly but surely catching up. We did see a decline, but only of a good 11%. In our mix, we are now above, actually at 34.9% of our mix that SUVs are representing. In terms of new energy vehicles and SUV, by the way, we have a market share of about 19.4% now. In new energy, well, in full electric, we're actually really the market leader. We are even higher than the overall market share that we have.
We have 24.4% in full electric, and that's of course, a combination of the e-tron, the Taycan, and the ID.3, and so on. Really happy with that. In hybrids, our market share is a little bit lower because some of the other brands have almost all their models in hybrids. In our brands, you only have some models in hybrids. There we have a bit of a lagging effect. It's not mentioned here, but I think EDI, our electric charging activity, has actually, of course, capitalized on this beginning penetration of electric vehicles. We installed about 1,855 charging stations, either at people's homes or in their premises of work. If you put that in combination to the 24.4% share that we have, that means that about 49% of all our electric vehicles, we also sold the installation of an electric charging station.
This is of course, just the beginning of a promising market that we're seeing there. In terms of profitability at D'Ieteren Automotive, declines I mentioned. This is about 104,710 vehicles delivered. A big difference between H1 and H2 in sales decline. Where it was -24% in H1, it's been a +3% in H2, a very nice recovery, mainly in Q3, slowing down a bit again in Q4. The gross margin, actually even nicely up. Our adjusted operating profit margin landed at 3.1% return on sales versus 3.3% the year before. Almost stable, more than honorable, I would say. We did of course also have a substantial adjusting item given that we have done the restructuring around the 211 positions.
As part of a couple of other adjusting items, a big chunk of that is a EUR 41 million for the project to accelerate the transformation. The table on page 23, I skipped because this is more or less what I have been talking about before. In free cash flow, the big swing you see from -EUR 39 million to + EUR 172 million comes from a couple of factors, mainly a nice cash inflow on the working capital management, lower inventories, trade receivables. Of course, some less CapEx, in a year where there's less activity, some less CapEx. A bit of less taxes, given the results a bit lower. Partially offset by a lower adjusted EBITDA, so some counter effect there.
The net debt increased from EUR 133 million-E UR 167 million because we've now organized an inter-segment loan from D'Ieteren Group, then partially offset by the strong cash generation to some degree. What are our latest developments? Well, the 211 positions have been reorganized. We have the carve-outs of Cecuri, I mentioned it before. Strategic objectives are still around transform, expand, and innovate. We have now also clear responsible business objectives around emission reductions, 50% by 2025 and even more before 2030. Diversity in a relatively male-driven organization at D'Ieteren Automotive still is an important point of attention. The outlook, we anticipate a 450,000 vehicle market, so a little bit bigger than 2020, but not much. Definitely not going back to the pre-COVID days. I think we had mentioned that already last year.
A different seasonality, given that we didn't have the classical auto fair, but a virtual auto fair, which given the circumstances, it's a bit too early to fully draw conclusions, but it has worked quite satisfactorily from our point of view. Nevertheless, we will have a bit of a different sales seasonality than we would have had typically. We do want to grow our operating results with more than 15%. Free cash flow will probably be a bit negative compared to the very nice numbers of 2020, that we're not necessarily going to repeat the same working capital evolution every year. We do anticipate VDFin, so our joint venture with the Volkswagen Financial Services group that offers leasing products to increase its PBT.
We have, and this is more a commercial item, quite exciting products in the pipeline, whether it's the Volkswagen ID.4, whether it's the new e-tron GT from Audi, by the way, is really worth looking at, but also the CUPRA Formentor. Lots of interesting stuff to look at, for sure. I won't even want to talk about the Enyaq of Škoda, which is going to blow everybody away in terms of a fully electric vehicle. Let's talk about Moleskine for 2020.
Thank you, Francis. What a tough year for Moleskine. We had announced a high pressure during the first half of the year. That pressure has diminished a little bit during the second half, it has been really very, very tough. The lockdown in so many countries have affected us quite massively. This translating to a sales decline of 37.6%, which means - 61 of sales for Moleskine. Management did great efforts in order to try to compensate for that diminution by making very important savings and improving also the performance the second half of the year, which has landed with a positive contribution. The adjusted operating result for the year has not been able to end into positive territory.
We had a EUR -9.5 million operating profit in the first half, and we end the year at EUR -1.5 million, which means that the contribution of the second half has been of EUR 8 million. The adjusted PBT group share decreased quite substantially, and this is a consequence, of course, of the above. When we lose so much in terms of profitability due to the lost sales, it's really difficult to compensate. The adjusted free cash flow has remained positive with close to EUR 1 million. Once again, that's thanks to cost containment and CapEx control. The net debt at the level of Moleskine, that segment is of EUR 300 million, and we've supported our activity, showing confidence in the business by increasing our shareholder loan by EUR 55 million. Very important, Daniela Riccardi has been able to join the company since the 1st of April.
When I say join, she was in charge but not yet in the middle of the troops because of the lockdown, which has been quite long in Italy. If I look at the top-line contribution by channels and by countries, with the exception of e-commerce, which has been performing relatively well with 16% increase compared to last year, all the other channels suffered quite dramatically from the lockdown. The most affected one was retail because we closed stores definitely and temporarily because traffic was not there in quite significant locations like rail stations, like airports. Traffic was really diminished by 80% in those locations. Also high street retail has been suffering, so we closed there temporarily a lot of stores. That's for retail. For wholesale and B2B.
Wholesale, of course, it's a decline of 32% in wholesale, but with some positive elements with our customers, which had already a kind of strong offering online. Online for our customers represent probably 30% of the wholesale sales that we have. Of course, B2B has been affected by the fact that corporates didn't spend anything in gifting, in organizing events, and that has affected us, as you can imagine. In terms of geographies, I would say that EMEA, so Europe and U.S., were globally affected in the same proportion, while APAC resisted better to COVID, entered earlier in the crisis, but got out earlier, too. We've been able to have still a negative performance, but much less impacted than the other two regions.
In terms of adjusted operating results, when you lose EUR 61 million of sales with the gross margin we have, which is around 75%, you lose close to EUR 45 million of gross margin. It's very difficult to recuperate that. The good method, I think, is that we've improved gross margin, which bodes well for the future because we need some pruning in terms of products. The adjusted EBITDA remained quite positive at EUR 12.5 million, and we've been able to radically work on the cost. OpEx down 33%, people cost down 26%. Those are massive improvements, which once again creates a better environment in terms of cost for the future when volume will be returning. The decline in adjusted profit is, of course, a consequence of that negative operating leverage due to lower sales. We've not been able to compensate with lower costs.
In terms of adjusting items, it is mainly the impairment that we booked in the first half of the year, EUR 21 million. Due to the performance and the plans for the coming years, no additional impairment was needed at the end of the year. In terms, slide 31, adjusted free cash flow and net debt. When you lose so much in terms of operating profit, you cannot compensate really with the EBITDA.
The adjusted EBITDA has been declining more or less with the same proportion as the adjusted EBIT or operating results. We have been able to improve in terms of working capital marginally. We have been able to diminish the net CapEx in that year. We have been able to still generate a free cash flow of close to EUR 1 million during this period. The net debt of EUR 300 million includes EUR 254 million from the corporate.
The latest developments, as I mentioned, Daniela joined us on the 1st of April. More than that, she has been hiring a few talents from outside. We reinforced the management team quite significantly. We have continued on what we announced you about the new strategy motto, about fewer, bigger, better, where we work on the portfolio of product. We streamline that. We reduce the number of SKUs in order to reduce complexity within the organization, which leads to better cost control, cost containment. We hope to be at the end much better and bigger in terms of sales and financial results. The trend in the Q4 has been improving. I think that the quality of sales was improved too. We enter 2021, you know it's very early days, but with a good momentum compared to last year.
Last year, once again, it was not affected by lockdown for the first two months of the year. We are awaiting some big progress on the side of the e-commerce platform. We'll be launching a totally new e-commerce platform before summer. Also we worked quite extensively on sustainability by progressively defining, developing eco-friendly products for our customers, working on the value chain, on the supply chain, reducing waste where we can, and initiating a carbon emission reduction program. The outlook for the full year 2021, we are expecting to recover sales quite significantly. For the full year, we are expecting a sales growth of at least 20%, and our adjusted operating result is expected to land well above EUR 10 million. For corporate and unallocated, very quickly, there is no big change there. The real estate activity has been performing well in 2020.
There have been a few rent holidays which have been given to some of our tenants. In terms of corporate costs, they were relatively stable, but with one impact, which is a solidarity program of EUR 8.2 million that we have provided for in the accounts in 2020.
All right. As a wrap-up before we open up to questions, closing remarks. One, we're extremely grateful to all the people, our personnel, our customers, our suppliers, our stakeholders, shareholders who have been really supportive during this demanding period. Two, we are very happy also that both the group and our activities were able to support respective communities in the way they can during both first and second lockdown. A second big thank you, I would say. Thirdly, we have used the year not just to show flexibility, agility, and leadership to try and drive the results that we've just shared with you over the year, but at the same time use the crisis as an opportunity to accelerate the transformation.
I think all three activities are now in a very strong position to start 2021, and hopefully get out of this uncertainty progressively with a strong strategy and a strong set of execution. We have added sustainability even more prominently to all our work and our reflections as a signatory of PRI, and on concrete KPIs. Last but not least, coming out of this crisis stronger than ever, it is our anticipation to continue to grow our PBT group share KPI, and the guidance we give for 2021 is at least 25%. With that, I suggest we open the floor for questions.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. If you have a question, please press O one on your telephone keypad, it's zero and one on your telephone keypad. We have a first question from David Vagman from ING. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good evening, everyone. First question on the 2021 guidance, and in particular for Belron. If I read the 2021 guidance, in term of sales, more than 10%, and then on the EBIT side, more than 20%, I end up, I think to something like a 16% EBIT margin. You achieved 17% in H2. Can you actually come back and explain us your conservatism or your cautiousness on the 2021 EBIT margin guidance for Belron? What are the risks, the headwinds that we should have in mind? Is it FX related? Is it related to the IT transformation? As a follow-up, let's say on the 2021 guidance, could you explain the CapEx? The increase in CapEx, is it a new normal? Is it a particular, just a specific one-off on this IT transformation? Thank you. That's my first question.
Second, on 2022.
Can we maybe-
Yes.
Can we maybe present that one?
Yeah, sure.
Otherwise, your first remark on the EBIT margin, when you triangulate for 2021, you get to 16%. Okay, that's your computation. It's lower than the 17% of H2. H2, I'm not saying that we cannot repeat that performance, but has been partially influenced by the fact that when we exited the lockdown in the Q3, we did it with a lot of positive benefits of what we had done during Q2, where we used furlough, we used temporary employment, we did some restructuring. We entered the Q3 with a kind of optimized cost structure, because we really massively brought that down and with the best performing technicians, the most productive ones. Productivity was at its best during the Q3. In Q4, you start to rehire for when the COVID will be ending.
You have more trainees, it weighs a little bit on the performance at the end of the Q4. We are entering into 2021 with still a very controlled cost basis. We try to remain realistic on what we can achieve, 16% is already going into the right direction. For the CapEx increase, is that the new normal? No, there is a catch-up element. We really were very disciplined in 2020. We just did the absolute necessary CapEx spend, and there is a little bit of catch-up in 2021. As we mentioned, for the kind of transformation leg of the Fit for Growth, we are fully conscious that we need to do some CapEx, especially in IT. We are sanctioning now new IT spend. What is the new normal?
I think that going forward, if I think before IFRS 16, I think that our CapEx level should be around 2%, could go to max 3% if we've got some growth plans and can temporarily go into that direction. The transformation program will take some time. We'll be already investing in 2021, but that will be continued in 2022 at least.
Yes. Sorry, I was trying to unmute myself. It was taking a bit. Thank you. My second question on this transformation plan. You've been saying that most of the fruits, let's say, of this transformation, you would reap them beyond 2021. What is the kind of long-term guidance you can give us on the EBIT margin side? If we understand that there is, if I understand you correctly, quite some upside to come beyond 2021. How should we see the outlook beyond this year, which will be quite a particular year still?
This year you won't see a lot of benefit, because we'll be, as I mentioned, investing in CapEx and OpEx in order to achieve the transformation in 2022 and 2023. We have not communicated on the size of the potential improvement. We are expecting indeed, an enhancement of the margin going forward.
Can you explain a bit the transformation that is left to be done, given that you did already, if I understand correctly, quite a bit on the cost side in 2020, last year, basically?
There are various work streams in the transformation. One of them is in the support activities in HR. We will be moving to new HR information system by 2021, by the way. In finance, they are also having a kind of one model for the whole group. In the supply chain and looking at the footprint in Europe and in the U.S. in terms of operations, customer-facing operations, where can we improve in terms of footprint, logistics, mainly.
Digitalization, of course, is another one. For several of these initiatives, you also need to do some kind of basic IT foundational work. D'leteren is still a bit of a multi-local company when it goes to IT systems. If you want to really get the full benefits, you need to create more common data architecture across several countries to reap that benefit. It has advantages because you're going to streamline the licensing procurement, those type of things. You have to homogenize a number of things that are not necessarily homogeneous today. There is a bit of upfront investment therefore, before you will then see the digital customer interface benefits or the logistic chain optimizations that are driven by the IT intelligence parts, if you like.
Thank you. Last question from my part, on the new car sales, let's say, in Belgium. We've seen in January and February some negative development, which seems to result from the global car chip shortage. Can you comment on that? I have the impression you don't see it as a major risk.
For D'Ieteren Auto, you mean the factory?
Yes, for D'Ieteren Auto. Sorry. Yeah, for D'Ieteren Auto.
All the OEMs basically have some delivery issues for the moment. It started a couple of weeks ago with the semiconductors. There is a couple of other pieces as well that prevent cars from being fully finalized, if you like, the way they should be. Yeah, the factories of the Volkswagen Group tell us that for several models, there are some delivery delays. We have the advantage as Belgium to always have the early in the year with our order book. Even with the virtual Salon de l'Auto, we have a well-filled order book. We typically are in a position to negotiate that when the deliveries start coming, that we can be relatively high on the delivery list. It may affect our impact for a month or so, or two months, or I don't know what.
It's basically then a bit of a shift between a Q1 or a Q2 that we anticipate, except for some specific models that it may take a bit longer. Otherwise, this is not that would, let's say, change our plan for the full year. This is more of a seasonality shift within the year.
Okay, very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question from Emmanuel Carlier from Kempen. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good evening all, and congratulations with the very strong set of results. A few questions on Belron. First of all, on the volume part, did I hear well that the 13% lower volumes, that is for the market, if I understood well?
No, that's for us. It's a mix of both replacements and repair. There's a number of jobs that we have done for customers.
Oh, right. Yeah.
Several countries like France, Spain, Belgium, et cetera, we were fully closed from mid-March till mid May. In others like Germany and the U.S., we were not closed, but there was a lot less mobility, and so customers maybe stayed a bit more at home than normal, and so you have seen some drops in the number of jobs, of people showing up in our service centers.
Emmanuel, we believe that we've gained market shares in nearly all major markets. In the U.S. for sure, in Germany, in France.
Bigger
Bigger than that. Yep.
Yeah. Understood. For 2021, based on your sales guidance, what is the kind of volume guidance, volume assumption? Is that something like 5%, meaning that you're still a big tailwind as well, probably in 2022?
Yes, approximately. That's the kind of range. A little bit more potential.
Yeah. There have been a bit more frost days. The number of frost days was clearly higher in both Europe and the U.S. this year versus last year. It's a bit early days to see the full impact of that because people typically wait until the frost is over before they go and replace, unless it's urgent. Yeah, difficult to put a precise number on it.
Yeah
We are now going into the "difficult volume months." Yeah, with March, April, May, we don't clearly anticipate them to be better than last year.
Okay, that's clear. Leverage is very low at Belron. Typically, if I remember well, the leverage target is if you are around four times, you reconsider to pay a dividend. Is this something that we can still expect in the coming weeks? What can you say on that topic?
There are close to three times that we can reconsider dividends. It's not four times. On average, we are probably just above three times. We are indeed now at a low level, at 236. We'll see what we will be doing with the capital structure, knowing that we want to make sure that the year will be satisfactory.
Yes.
It's still early days.
Yes.
We are only beginning of March.
You may remember that last October, November, that question also came from time to time, then we really saw there was the beginning of the second lockdown, too much uncertainty at that point in time to consider anything. So it's a bit the outlook, the uncertainty levels, what's really going on, are the lockdowns slowly but surely disappearing or still lasting a bit longer? These are all elements. On top of that is the element, of course, of the debt markets. What money does Belron want and need for its own transformation programs, et cetera, PP, and so on. All of these elements together is something we talk as shareholders from time to time around the table to see what makes sense. There's nothing more we can say for 2021.
Okay. Maybe a last question before I give to my colleagues. I didn't see anything on share buyback at D'Ieteren. Would you explain the rationale for that? With these strong numbers, stock is still trading extremely cheap. A share buyback seems to make sense.
Yeah. It's still on hold, as it was in the end of August when we had the previous results numbers. Yeah, the on hold is driven by the uncertainty still around outlooks and things like that. That's where we are. Of course, this is also something we discuss and revisit from time to time.
What could make you change your mind on that? On the one hand, there is indeed uncertainty. On the other hand, you are guiding for at least 25% PBT growth. Is this mainly driven by the fact that it's maybe a bit sensitive with respect to the use of temporarily unemployment, the restructuring that you did at D'Ieteren Auto, is that maybe the main reason?
That played a bit last year, that is true. This is looking forward a bit less immediate in attention. As you've seen, we've also adapted a bit our dividend per share this year.
That's a very positive signal for the market.
These are also some aspects that play a role into that.
We are happy to keep the high [quarter as we speak.
Yeah. Indeed, you could also say that means that you might be close to an acquisition, but yeah. You cannot comment on that. I leave the floor to my colleagues. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question from Kris Kippers from Degroof Petercam.
Yes, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. Still a couple of remaining on Belron. Firstly, on ADAS. Last year, the penetration was about 11% of our jobs. This year, we already see a step up towards 17%. Does it imply that the 1% growth per quarter is speeding up? Could you give some guidance on that one? Secondly, on Belron, recently we saw some news that potentially your co-shareholder, CD&R might move a little bit. Could you give some comments on that as well, please? Thank you.
Yes. On ADAS, it's true that it was a little bit more than 1% per quarter. There is no particular reason to deviate from our 1% per quarter, let's say, momentum. It's more, I would say, some factors at some markets that were less in lockdown than others and were maybe still a bit lower in ADAS penetration than others, that you suddenly see this overall effect on the overall portfolio in different countries. I think the underlying trend on average between the countries remains to add more or less a percentage per quarter. No real reasons for a different momentum there.
Also we've improved a bit our equipment, and we are able to now do recalibration of more models of cars.
That's true.
We've enjoyed that in 2020. We are not expecting to see that back again because we are already at quite significant numbers of what we can do in terms of recalibration.
Yeah.
Keep the 1% per quarter, 4% per annum.
On the CD&R question, as you know, we have a lockup period until February, March 2023. This is what we are. All the rest that you may have heard of, pick up or whatever are rumors. There's no comments to be said on that. Not only us, not only we love Belron and Belron loves us, but I think also CD&R likes Belron quite a lot. They are actually quite committed to stay around for quite a while. We'll see what that means.
Okay. Thank you. Just a small follow-up. To be sure, on Moleskine, we saw, of course, difficult performance, but now things are getting better also on the market. If you look at the leverage that you put on this entity, I know it's small, but what's the rationale for putting that EUR 300 million in that entity?
Yes, you know that path of history, and then you decide how you allocate equity, under which instrument. Shareholder loan was the formula which answers really our needs, because we can enjoy interest on that one.
Yeah.
The net financial leverage, if you take the bank debt, we are a little bit more than EUR 30 million of bank debt, which is quite limited in terms of leverage compared to EBITDA.
Okay. Thank you for these answers.
Thank you. Next question from Matthijs van Leijenhorst from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening, gentlemen. It's still regarding CD&R. Obviously, these guys have a certain investment horizon, and given that the lockup is in 2023, how do you look at this exit scenario of CD&R? Would you be interested or what is the strategy in case they would like to exit? The second question is, obviously you can't comment on M&A, but is there anything you can disclose? Is there any progress on that front?
I can maybe take the M&A question first. I think when we spoken last August, there was a bit of a kind of a lot of distressed situations and potential things like that that you could look at. I think in the meantime, we've seen a very active M&A market, but not at all distressed. There's been quite a lot of relatively high-priced deals more and more. What we see is lots of activity, we are lots of activity underway, but not necessarily a situation where good assets are becoming any cheaper, on the contrary. That means that we continue with our discipline and systematic in looking in the fishing ponds that we're looking at and meeting many shareholders, investors, and management teams to continue our work there. That's about all I can say into that.
It's not a situation where suddenly everything has become cheap, on the contrary. On CD&R, anything?
As mentioned by Francis, they are delighted, we are delighted. We would like to see that partnership. We know that it will be for a period of time, but it's impossible to opine now on how they will progressively get access to liquidity. You can imagine various scenarios. Listing is, of course, at some point one of them, but it's much too early to discuss and decide on that.
As you know, we as D'Ieteren have also all the options to either stay at the stake that we are or to increase it or to decrease it. We are not necessarily today having to have, let's say, a fully defined strategy that needs to be known today. We still have some time to prepare ourselves for what we really want to do.
Thank you.
Thank you. We don't have any more question for the moment. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press O one on your telephone keypad. We have a new question from Emmanuel Carlier from Kempen. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, a few questions left from my end. On Belron, could you prevent a potential IPO of Belron? If CD&R wants to exit in February 2023, and you don't want to buy this stake, could you prevent an IPO?
Well, first of all, prevent sounds like a very defensive and negative word, but there are, of course, alternatives to IPOs, of course. In that sense, it's one of the options amongst other options.
How would you look at a potential IPO? Would you be pro a potential IPO, or would you prefer other options?
I think anyway, it's impossible to see what the mood will be around IPOs in the market and so on at that point in time, whenever that becomes relevant. We've always said that it's one of the options, and we've also always said that we would, at that point in time after lock-up, help and see how CD&R could somehow organize an exit or be part of an exit. That's how it's said. That means that there are multiple options to look at and to think about. Voila. That's about it. Prevent an IPO sounds like a strong statement.
Yeah.
As an initial position, we are not against an IPO. This is why we are surprised by the question, I guess.
Yeah. No, good to hear. The final question is on free cash flow. You had very strong cash generation in 2020. In 2021, you kind of say that at Belron it might be quite similar. D'Ieteren Auto, there you will have, of course, the non-recurring of the working capital inflow. The question is if you could give a little bit more guidance on where you expect free cash flow to land and on the big moving parts.
As we mentioned, yes, indeed, we are expected Belron to be relatively stable compared to last year in terms of free cash flow. Auto, because of the payments of the restructuring plan, because also of negative working capital swing, we're expecting to stay positive in terms of inflow, but marginally positive. Moleskine, quite a substantial free cash flow improvement. All in all, the impact will be less pronounced than in 2021, but still with a very comfortable free cash flow for the group. I haven't got the number here available, but we'll be still very comfortably cash generative in 2021 as a group.
The working capital level at D'Ieteren Auto, is that now the right level in your opinion, or do you see more improvement potential in the long term?
In terms of inventory, I think we've made quite significant progress. We've made also some progress in the credit receivables from the factory. There, I think we can still improve. We can still improve the performance there. In the speed of recovery of collecting those trade receivables, there is some room still for improvement.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question from Michiel Declercq from KBC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Maybe first a quick question on Belron on the outlook again. How do you derive the sales outlook? Do you make a distinction between first and second half, or do you take the current, say, semi lockdown situation still into account? The double-digit increase, how is it determined approximately?
It's mainly thanks to recovery starting when the comparison period will be more favorable for us. As we mentioned, it started last year in mid-March. It continued at least till May and recovered progressively from June onwards, but never into positive territory in terms of market volume. Market has been down from March till December onwards. What we saw, as we mentioned during the first half call with the analysts, was the recovery of the volumes, but still markets being mid-single digits declining even into Q3. We saw a deterioration of the performance into Q4. We started the year 2021, of course, with some differences across geographies, but in negative territory in terms of volume growth. We are between -6% and -8% since the beginning of the year. It depends, of course, across the regions.
We are expecting a return to positive territory starting in April and May. Starting probably even in March, April, and May. Of course, the timing of I may be going too fast here, but the end of the lockdown, it will come at some point, will have a positive impact on our volumes. On top of that, the winter has been relatively harsh, which is beneficial for us, we could have a positive tailwind there.
Okay, clear. Maybe just a last minor question about the ADRR and HDRR division. It was put on hold a bit last year. What would be the strategy here going forward? I believe it's not a priority, but do you plan to fully divest this segment, or some flavor on that?
Yes. Exactly, it's not a priority given that there's so much to do on recalibration on VAPS and all the other things. As you know, we were in five, six markets, and some of those markets, we were not at all satisfied with the performance, nor with the outlook of that performance. We ended up divesting already. In Italy, for instance, we were in a franchise for Carrosserie, and we have stopped that and sold that activity. In other activities, we also have closed the deal to get out and so on. In countries where it's okay-ish, we aren't necessarily rushed to get out or something like that. You can just keep running at it. What we will not do for sure is broaden the investment right now in the service extension activities.
This is not at all on the agenda. It's a bit more to get out when it doesn't make any sense anymore or to control when it's okay and keep it like that. You should not anticipate a big investment in service extension on ADRR and HDRR for the moment.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question from David Vagman from ING. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Just a quick follow-up. On the share buyback and the potential releveraging of Belron. To understand actually the timing, the potential timing, what is the type of situation, what kind of insurance do you need from the market? Is it really COVID related that you expect, let's say, to come back to a normalization or semi-normalization of the sanitary situation and the economy? Is there a specific point, and then we should expect in all logic, you to restart share buyback and you to relever Belron, or it's more complicated?
No, it's not more complicated. These are capital allocation questions. It's in a bit of a function of sources and users of funds that we look, do we need somewhere cash for a certain allocation or a certain use at a certain level, either be it within Belron or at the group level. This is how we think about this. Of course, share buyback is more from the group level to the outside shareholders, and Belron refinances between Belron and the shareholders of Belron. It's really more a demand and supply of funds in function of the needs.
Thank you. I would have expected CD&R to also have a say in the releveraging of Belron, and obviously pushing for such a releveraging, let's say, rather early than late.
No, we're quite aligned in saying all the parameters around the table have to fit in the demand and supply of funds that are being generated at Belron. This is typically There we do not differ from CD&R in the way we look at that.
It's about the funding needs of Belron.
No. It's the users and funds at whatever level, yeah? No, at all levels. It's an interplay.
Okay.
Everybody brings their point of view at the table, and then we come to a conclusion.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We don't have any more question for the moment. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have another question, please press O one on your telephone keypad. It's zero and one on your telephone keypad. Last reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press O one on your telephone keypad. Looks like we don't have any more questions. Back to you for the conclusion.
All right. Well, thank you all very much for taking the time to dial into this call. I'm really looking forward to meeting you either in person in the coming months or on one of our next calls going forward. Have a great evening, and talk to you soon. Bye-bye.