Hello. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to our year-end financial highlights. Welcome to this conference call. As usual, we will cover the agenda of the day, starting with some highlights. I will go over some of the main events of the year, and I will leave the floor to Laurent for some financial results. I will come back for the trajectory and the outlook and for the conclusion. You probably have time to read our press release. I will go relatively fast in the main events. Just to give you the few takeaways of the year, starting with the order intake, the commercial momentum.
We had the opportunity in the past to tell you that the market was actually extremely well-oriented. You have here the confirmation of our successes on this market and ability to take orders, and in particular, our hit rate has been particularly high. The order intake is at EUR 19.3 billion, which is a book-to-bill at 1.25, so much above one, leading of course to a record backlog of EUR 81 billion. A very healthy commercial situation this year. We have ramped up our sales during the year. If you compare with last year and also sequentially, if you compare H2 with H1, we have a 7.9% increase in H2 as compared to H1. Again, this is in line with our guidance.
This is in line with the global turnaround of the company, the global ramp-up of the company. EBIT margin, adjusted EBIT margin has been fully in line with our guidance, fully in line with our trajectory, as announced last July. We have also sequentially a better H2 rather than H1, but as you know, each year there is a seasonal impact between H2 and H1. Overall, a good yearly adjusted EBIT. Finally, the free cash flow. Of course, the yearly number is still highly negative and cannot be seen as satisfactory.
Having said that, we are in line with our objective, and if there was one element which was probably a little bit above our guidance, which is the free cash flow, which is we said it would be positive. It's positive at EUR 469 million for the second half of the year, so leading to hopefully EUR 1 billion cash outflow for the full year. As you know, the macroeconomic environment is complex, has been complex during the year and during March 2022, and will remain complex between 2022- 2023. The main highlights, which are classical highlights, are first inflation, electronic shortages in general, supply chain disruption. We had at the end of the year the Russian impact.
Finally, at the very end of the year as well, the C-19 impact in China. None of these headwinds or macroeconomic impacts have had any consequences on our 2021-2022 results. Actually, we have managed to weather these different elements, to mitigate these different elements. We all know that they will continue, or they will accelerate in 2022 or 2023, in particular inflation and probably the Chinese situation as well. We'll have to continue to mitigate them. We expect some impact in 2022-2023, including probably on electronics shortages as well. It's fair to recognize that in 2021-2022, we have completely managed to, I would say, weather this situation.
This year has been also, as you know, the first year of the full integration of Bombardier Transportation by Alstom. I have to say that I'm particularly satisfied with the work which has been done during this year. An immense work has been done internally in order to integrate Bombardier. We all know that Bombardier faced a number of complex issues both in project execution and in global management. We have managed to go through this period with the first objective in mind, which was to keep customer satisfaction, customer confidence. We are giving here a few of the indicators. The first one being again, what we call Net Promoter Score. 8.1.
We target to be always above eight and of course, to be as close to 10 as possible. As importantly, more than 90% of the customer when we do surveys are explaining that they are satisfied with the way Alstom has integrated Bombardier projects. I can multiply the example of projects which have really been turned around during the year. Some of the iconic or unfortunately iconic projects of Bombardier have been totally turned around during the year. Very nice situation there. Internally, we have now converged our global processes. We are working as one company in terms of processes, in terms of organization, in terms of team, which is extremely important.
We have still to fully align all our tools, so to gain in efficiency, to fully align our lean management process and level in all our sites. But we can say that today we are working as one company. To take some of, I would say, ex-Bombardier colleagues' words, they believe that today they are more integrated in the global Alstom group than they were integrated within Bombardier before. Meaning that there are many more global processes and global tools in the new group than what was existing before in Bombardier standalone. As far as our plans are concerned, as you know, we have the first element was to build a sound company.
Of course, to start to converge as well our product plan, our R&D efforts. We have now a clear plan on all our products, and we have started to converge. Of course, it's the early start. We took time to decide on what should be our product plan, our marketing plan, our offering portfolio, and now we are starting to implement it. That's how we are going to work. The first year was really on stabilization of the project, and starting in the second year, we'll really now converge our physical footprint as well as our product portfolio. Synergies therefore are being fully confirmed. The fundamentals of the deal are definitely confirmed.
We are even a little bit increasing our long-term perspective on the synergies, knowing that things are moving very positively. Again, good, very good year, totally in line with our expectations in terms of integration and allowing us to go to the next phase, which is a more in-depth integration in terms of efficiency and product planning. Coming back now on the year itself, a few general comments on the year. The first one is, of course, to remind everybody, as you all know, that rail is extremely well-positioned in the mobility transition and in general in the climate change challenge faced by the world.
I just remind a few numbers here that in terms of CO₂ emission, as well as in terms of energy consumption, and with the price of energy where it is today, rail is definitely a good solution for mobility. As you know, it has been well understood by everybody and all public authorities are investing a lot in rail. I see, I mean, this could be one of your questions, but despite the change in macroeconomic environment, I see no signs of slowdown on rail investment in the world, no signs of slowdown of any of the stimuli packages which have been launched for the C-19 crisis across the world. That is being translated into a very nice pipeline of order and a nice pipeline of opportunities for the coming years.
We have here for the next three years more than EUR 180 billion of opportunities which we have, I would say, identified across the globe. What is interesting is that we are benefiting from them in Western Europe and in the U.S., of course, and in Southeast Asia from a number of stimulus packages. But we see as well a rebound on markets which were a little bit slow over the recent period. Here I'm talking about Latin America, for example, which has rebounded quite significantly, particularly on urban systems. But also in the Middle East, of course, on the back of the oil price increase, we see now some of the projects which have been developed in the past, which are coming back on the top of the agenda.
A very nice market in front of us for the next years. Just a reminder of the company that we have created together with Bombardier. We are now a very sound leader on our market both in terms of in all our activities, I would say, in rolling stock, in service, with basically the size of Alstom is the equivalent of the sum of the size of our main competitors all together. In signaling, now we are the number two, actually one of the first three players. There are now three players of equal size if you take into consideration the acquisition of Thales by Hitachi. Then of course on turnkey, a very strong, we are a very strong leader.
We have actually won all our projects, all our tenders in turnkey this year. Going back to our main numbers, order intake, large increase as compared to last year. Last year was a pro forma year, so it's not necessarily very significant, but a book-to-bill of 1.25. A nice split of the order intake between H1 and H2. Here there is no real seasonal impact. It depends on some large tickets, but this year it has been relatively equal for the two half years. Healthy margin order intake, clearly.
I mean, you know that this is one of the key element of our turnaround, is to book order with a healthy margin, to execute them properly, in order to proactively increase the margin of our EBIT. In terms of either geographical split or I would say activity split, nothing particular to say, except Europe, of course, remains our main market, has been quite positive this year. Service, maybe, you know, we have a very healthy book-to-bill in service, with EUR 4.2 billion euros of order for EUR 3.4 billion euro of sales.
In the small video, you've seen a number of our orders intake for the year, so we'll not come back on all these orders. Just suffice to say that there have been orders in all continents, so the market is positive in all continents. At that point in time, there is no market which is really at a low speed. I mean, they have all a lot of opportunities. Alstom, as you know, is present on all continents. Sales, we have ramped up our sales again as compared to last year, plus 11% in pro forma, 7.9% as compared to H1. Rolling Stock, we are still ramping up. We are focused on stabilization of our projects.
The ramp up is relatively linear and controlled. Very high level of service growth on the back of some maintenance operations in Europe, also some particular operations in the US. We don't expect it to grow a lot further next year. It has been an exceptional year during the second half. Signaling growing nicely and will continue to grow on the back of book-to-bill, which is also good in signaling. Systems, we had a low point. You remember that we said in the previous years that we had completed a number of projects in the Middle East, in Dubai, in Riyadh.
Now we are starting again with new orders, Tren Maya in Mexico. We have, of course, in Egypt, the monorail, and Thailand, also some monorail. It's a nice ramp-up of our Systems business. As you know, we continue to treat a number of non-performing projects from Bombardier. As I said at the beginning, we have done immense work to stabilize these projects. Nevertheless, we need to now fully execute them. The treating of these projects continue to weigh on our global profitability. What I can tell you is that now all the technical issues have been agreed, and the solutions have been agreed with the different customers, and in a number of cases have been totally implemented.
The production have resumed for all our projects, so we are now up and running, everywhere. There is no more projects which have been halted. We are fully in line now with our plan, and we need to accelerate the production and accelerate the delivery of our project. I said that I would have liked to conclude all our negotiations by this time. I have to admit that there are still two negotiations which are ongoing. Frankly, the growth exposure now has been globally mitigated. We have limited amounts to be negotiated. That has been also an immense work being done by all the teams in the world to reestablish a good relationship with our customers.
We still have two negotiations to finalize. In terms of, I would say, exposure, it's very limited as compared to what we had at the beginning. A few highlights on innovation. You know that at the end of the day, this is to be not only, I would say, to cover the full world and to have to be a very efficient company, but it's also to innovate and to bring to the market solutions which are needed for the coming future. We have announced on hydrogen partnership with ENGIE on the Fret. Of course, we need to, after regional trains, we need to solve this challenge for diesel locomotives. We have announced that with ENGIE.
We have also, of course, some battery solutions, and we have now launched the first battery train which had been tested with Deutsche Bahn. Regionally, the hybrid is, I would say, transitory solutions which allow us to decrease the energy consumption with a hybrid. But it's, I would say, both battery and diesel. We have launched, I think in a record time, some solutions for healthier mobility, in particular some HVAC filters to allow to kill the viruses. I think this is a proof of our agility to launch to the market some new solutions. It's also market trends for healthier mobility to bring back passengers to public transportation.
Last but not least, we are also progressing on the autonomous operations for some of our trains here with SNCF, but we have launched as well a program with Deutsche Bahn in Germany. We continue to significantly invest in R&D, and we are going to progressively, as I said, converge our product plan, and therefore we'll have more means to invest into type of disruptive technology, disruptive innovations, as we are going to streamline our main product planning. ESG environmental concern. I mean, this is just to confirm something that everybody knows, that train rail is at the heart of the sustainable transition. As you know, Europe has launched a taxonomy to classify the different activities.
When you look at this taxonomy, whether we talk about our sales, our OpEx or CapEx, 99% of what we do is here for sustainable mobility, for the sustainable transition. There are still some discussions in Europe on the precise definition of everything, but I think it's a nice view of, or a nice confirmation of what our activities are aimed at. Nevertheless, despite the fact that we are intrinsically moving towards a sustainable world, we have taken some commitments at our level to continue to decrease the energy consumptions of our solutions, to improve the amount of renewable energy used in our sites.
We have decreased as compared to last year because of the integration of Bombardier, which was not as advanced as we were in Alstom. Now we are moving back to our trajectory. People, of course, at the heart of our focus with the certification as top employer everywhere in the world, CSR foundation. We have increased our attention to our activities. We are also, as you can see now, measuring Scope 1 and Scope 2 in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. We are looking at Scope 3 as well. And of course, we have a global ambition to be net zero carbon by 2050. We have now a baseline. It took us time to have a clear baseline with the full scope, the full perimeter of the new group.
We have this baseline. We are going, by the way, to publish soon a brochure purely dedicated on our ESG matters. We are now going to build a complete program plan and improvement plan on these elements. Thank you for your attention. Now I'm going to move to Laurent, which will give you some highlights on the financial results.
Thank you, Henri. Good morning, everyone. Let's get started with our P&L with a top-line growth in H2, which has been driven by our positive execution momentum, up 8% from H1 to H2. In terms of gross margin, we have been progressing close to 15%, as you see in H2, thanks to our sound project execution, our positive mix as well, and this despite non-performing legacy backlog trading. R&D at 3.4%, reflecting our continuous investment in innovation, with our usual phasing between H2 and H1. SG&A at 6.4%, this year versus 7.2% last year with a good momentum in terms of cost synergies execution. I will come back on this.
Finally, sound contribution of our Chinese JVs at another EUR 45 million, leading to 5% of adjusted EBIT with a pro-positive progression during our second half. Moving to the net income with restructuring reflecting mainly our transformation investment in Germany and Switzerland, notably with, as you know, a planned reduction of around 900-1,300 people manufacturing position over the next years in Germany. In terms of integration and other costs, we have invested EUR 94 million of our integration implementation cost out of the EUR 400 million targeted, accelerating in H2. In addition, we booked some, as well, one-off costs related mainly to Aptis, IBUS closure, and remedies impact. Cash-wise, that's important, only the restructuring cost in Germany is ahead of us and will be spread over the next three years.
Below adjusted EBIT, net financial expense stands at minus EUR 25 million. ETR is stable at 27%. All this leading to adjusted net income before TMH impairment of EUR 268 million. As Henri indicated, we adjusted TMH book value with an impairment of EUR 441 million reflecting current situation. We are left basically with EUR 202 million of currency translation adjustment, which remains in equity. Overall, as you see, our net profit stands at minus EUR 576 million after our accounting non-cash item of PPA of EUR 400 million.
Up to the free cash flow, definitively a positive momentum in H2 with around EUR half a billion of the free cash flow generation, with two key drivers, a positive execution across region and product line, notably with an acceleration of the progress on our legacy backlog contracts and a healthy down payment generated by our positive order intake of above EUR 9 billion. Some acceleration as well in our CapEx in H2 as always, consistent with our global 2% over sales target. All in, as you see, a very positive performance of free cash flow in H2, and leading to a global free cash flow outflow of EUR 990 million, driven by stabilization and ramp-up for the full year.
Briefly on our net debt movement, very much consistent with our free cash flow evolution and standing at around EUR 2.1 billion in March 2022, as you see, down EUR 450 million versus our H1. In terms of liquidity, we do enjoy a very strong position, above EUR 5 billion, built specifically on our renewed credit line of EUR 4.25 billion with long maturity, as you see, and no covenants. In terms of bonds, you see as well that we have long maturity ahead of us and a very cost-competitive profile as well. Overall, very comfortable liquidity position as of end of March 2022. Just to wrap up on our H2 result.
In a few words, a very solid performance, driven by sound execution, excellent market traction, mitigation as well of our, I would say, macro challenges of supply chain and inflation, with EUR 9.5 billion order intake, EUR 8 billion of sales, 5.4% adjusted EBIT, and close to half a billion EUR free cash flow. This definitely represents a very solid foundation entering into our new fiscal year 2022-2023. On this basis, our board will propose to our next shareholders meeting in July, a dividend of 0.25 EUR per share, consistent with 2021. Let's now move to our trajectories and outlook. Starting with our top line, our sales trajectories on which we do confirm our target above 5% CAGR over the period.
Based, number one, on our positive market momentum, and second, on our strong EUR 81 billion backlog. A few drivers for this fiscal year. Rolling stock continue to ramp up at market growth, despite, for the record, the remedy sales deconsolidation impact, which will be in the range of EUR 300 million. Services growing at market growth, with a huge potential ahead of us. Signaling continuing to step up high single digits, with, I would say, positive market catalysts, both on urban and mainline signaling. Systems ramping up at solid double digits%, driven by our market success. Based on these dynamics, two challenges to be mitigated this year, which will be top priorities, supply chain shortage and potential impact of COVID, specifically in China, something that we will come back on.
Overall, we definitively confirm our top line growth pattern for this year and up to 2024, 2025. Looking at our sales dynamics now, interesting slide. You see on this chart, rapid regeneration of our backlog from legacy to the new orders. I want to confirm that the new orders since acquisition are fully consistent with our midterm profit and cash target. This is driven by our stringent Alstom tender process. We basically apply Alstom playbook now across the board when it comes to tenders. In parallel, as you see, we continue to focus on our legacy 0% gross margin backlog, which will be reducing sharply in the next three years based on positive project stabilization execution.
Overall, if I take a step back on this dynamic combined with our growth profile will be the basis for our margin step up, flawless execution on backlog as number one, and second, quality orders generated by our positive market momentum. A few words on inflation, which is of course a top priority for the group. We are actively mitigating these headwinds with a comprehensive action plan that we set on all the dimensions, customers, suppliers, and internal performance. Just to start with two data points. 65% of our backlog is covered by inflation formula, and this is turning into 60% of our revenues for this fiscal year, which is globally immune from inflation.
Looking at our cost base, 70% of our suppliers contracts have escalation with cap or firm fix, and 56% are already in BCC countries, with, indeed, I would say already high inflation pattern that we are used to. On this basis, we have defined four key mitigation actions. Number 1, we push the remaining exposure to suppliers with back-to-back clause. Second, we have adapted already as we speak our tender process. We reflect our cost evolution into the price for sure, and we prioritize contracts with escalation. Third, we have globally finalized the supplier negotiation for this fiscal year. Finally, and not least, we are implementing, of course, specific cost out measures on a project-by-project basis.
Just as a quick takeaway in terms of inflation, this is a subject that we need to deal with t hat on which we have some impact, like in industries. We have, as you see, a very strong list of mitigants. Globally, our financial trajectories is consistent with our inflation forecast published, and we will continue to manage actively the situation. Looking now at our profitability, we do confirm our adjusted EBIT reach from 8%-10% from 2024-2025 onwards. Zooming on the drivers for this year, we have on the positive side a number of positive tailwind from volume and synergy ramp-up. On the other hand, we have roughly comparable level of sales at zero margin and, of course, the inflation impact, which is built in our forecast. Overall, we see a progressive recovery of our adjusted EBIT for this fiscal year.
Looking ahead, the drivers of our profitability remains very solid with top line efficiency and obviously synergies. Shifting to our synergies, as you see, we have had a very good performance in 2021-2022 with above EUR 100 million of synergy delivered, driven by the good job of our procurement team and our treasury team as well on the bonding. Looking ahead, we have uplifted our synergy target to EUR 475 million- EUR 500 million based on all the progress we have achieved in 2021-2022, with extra potential on footprint, production efficiency, best cost countries with ambitious target and roadmap. Positive momentum as well on the procurement, based not only on our purchasing power, but as well again, on the shifting to BCC and design to cost. Finally, continued synergies from product convergence, R&D, and financing.
All in, based on this plan, I'm very confident that we'll reach EUR 400 million in March 2025 and close to EUR 500 million in 2025, 2026. Our team are definitively geared for this target with a clear plan ahead to execute. Moving to the cash, we do confirm our cash conversion of above 80% as of March 2025. With two key drivers in terms of working capital, as you see on this graph. Number one, the provision usage related to the non-performing backlog, which, as you see, will be consumed until our fiscal year 2025. And second, limited normalization of our working cap without provision, driven by both short-term safety stock and continuous ramp-up.
In parallel, we deploy our cash focus program in our operational inventories management and continue, obviously, to target LC down payments driven by the positive market traction. In the main, as you see, we see a global stabilization on the working capital after the backlog execution normalization. To conclude on my side on the financial trajectories with a few words on the deleveraging, you see a clear deleveraging levels, both in terms of net debt with free cash flow, working cap, control CapEx, and M&A, and balanced dividend policies, and as well, obviously, on the profit with uplift of the top line, backlog execution, and synergies. Overall, we target significant net debt leverage by 2025 for fiscal year 2025, and we do remain confident to remain solid investment grade moving forward.
With this, I leave the floor back to Henri for the conclusion.
Thank you. Thank you, Laurent. Just a few priorities for the year to come. We are facing a very nice market and therefore we can continue our success in terms of commercial momentum, but also in terms of selectivity and the quality of order intake by having very rigorous tender process, good selectivity. We need to make sure that we are again mitigating all inflationary impacts through this particular attention on the tenders. Delivering is one of the key priority, will continue to be one of the key priority. We have recorded a high backlog, of course, but we have also some headwinds in terms of supply chain, electronic components and so forth.
We still have to continue to stabilize and finalize the legacy project as well. A lot of work still have to be done in terms of execution, but at the same time, we are going to move progressively from, I would say, a pure focus on stabilization to a focus which will combine stabilization and transformation of our footprint and our product portfolio. Innovate, as I said, it's a key and the ultimate priority, ultimate goal of our integration. We'll accelerate the innovation. More than ever, the world is needing a lot of innovation in order to tackle the climate challenge. Last but least, people. As you know, we are growing, we are recruiting, we have a large recruitment plan.
We have been able to recruit 9,000 people last year. We continue to go on the same path next year. I think we have a good attractiveness potential by the type of job that we do, the fact that we are here to again solve some of the fundamental problems faced by the world. We have also a lot of digital activities. Today, we are able to recruit what we need in terms of project delivery, and we continue to do so next year. Finally, the financial trajectory has been detailed by Laurent, fully confirmed.
We can just confirm what we said last year, at the beginning of last year, both in terms of mid-term targets, but as well as in terms of trajectory for next year. If anything, we have been slightly above what we were anticipating in cash. Nevertheless, we confirm that we guide at a positive free cash flow generation in 2022, 2023. The sales will continue to grow both on the back of the backlog, but also on the back of the book-to-bill, which we expect it to be above 1 again. The adjusted EBIT margin will continue to increase going forward to go to the level of 8%-10% in 2024, 2025. A few invitations for the future.
Thanks a lot for your attention. I'll welcome all of you this afternoon. We have Alstom Investor Day this afternoon. It will focus mainly, mostly on rolling stock activities. We wanted to detail to you what has been done this year in terms of projects stabilization, as well as giving you some highlights on the transformation of our activities going forward. That will be done mostly by Danny Di Perna, the Chief Operating Officer, and Benjamin Fitoussi, who is in particular in charge of the operations of rolling stock, this afternoon. Please join us. We have the general shareholder assembly mid-July, as well as our first quarter publication on July nineteenth. Thank you for your attention.
Now we are going to open the floor for the Q&A session. Do not hesitate. As opposed to last time, we have open for as many questions as you wish to ask for each individual interaction. Thanks. Now I will give back the floor to the operator for the Q&A session. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you. If you want to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please clearly announce your name and your company name. Our first question today comes from Akash Gupta of J.P. Morgan.
Yes. Hi, good morning, everybody. It's Akash Gupta here from J.P. Morgan. My first question is on supply chain, and particularly financial health of suppliers in current environment where some of your suppliers might be seeing troubles. Maybe if you can shed some light on where do you see the parts of supply chain that may make you worry about execution this year. Second question is on China, if you can also highlight the risk there from Chinese supply chain, if you have any. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Akash. Yes, we are monitoring extremely closely our supply chain. We had this year some suppliers which faced some difficulties, like financial difficulties. I would not say that they were more than usual in terms of financial difficulties. We had one or two classically. We are increasing, and we need to increase our monitoring of the suppliers. We also represent now, with the size of the group, for a number of suppliers, a very large portion of their sales. What we do is that we are more and more present at the supplier sites in order to double-check, triple-check their ability to deliver and notably to ramp up.
We have a number of programs which are ramping up, and we need to make sure that the suppliers are capable of ramping up. Your second point, there are some particular situations. I mean, we can mention, of course, electronic components, which is one of the key challenge today, and China is the second one. We have not been impacted today, neither by electronic components nor by China, but we see some difficulties mounting week after week on electronic components. Even though, I mean, things can change day by day, because as you know, the macroeconomic environment is extremely volatile, and I've seen that electronic consumption is going down.
The general mass market is going down, so we'll see what will happen on the supply chains in that perspective. China, some of our joint ventures in China have been shut down for a limited period, and they will recover in the year. We have not yet faced any particular issue, neither nor I would say, neither from the Chinese suppliers themselves nor from the blockage of the Shanghai port. We are monitoring that very closely at that stage. We hope that it will in the months of May the Chinese authority will release some of the constraints, which will allow the supply chain to start normally again.
Yes, we are concerned, but no, as we speak, there is no immediate consequences.
Thank you.
Our next question today comes from Andre Kukhnin, Credit Suisse, London. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. It's Andre from Credit Suisse. Could I ask on cash flow first within your guidance for the year, how do you expect the kind of H1, H2 cadence to develop? Whether the second half run rate that you achieved for 2022, could we view that as underlying, or is there anything of sort of one-off nature that we should be aware of within that?
Thank you. Thank you for the question. I will leave it to Laurent to give more highlights, but don't forget that there's a huge element of volatility in our cash flow. We need to look at the long-term trends, so I will not take H2 as a baseline. Even though we cannot pinpoint on any exceptional factor, the cash flow of H2 in that respect is extremely sound. There is no one-off on one project or anything which could, I mean, color the picture in one direction or another. It's not because there is nothing exceptional this half that it should be taken as a baseline. Maybe.
There is no particular strong seasonal impact, but usually there is nevertheless a small seasonal impact. Maybe, Laurent, you could...
Yeah. Thanks, Andre, for your question. Just looking at 2022, 2023, indeed, some limited seasonality between H1 and H2, but limited, as Henri said. In terms of the overall business drivers for this fiscal year, basically, as I explained, ramp up globally on the sound project execution, healthy down payment that we target. In terms of working capital, we see basically an evolution which is driven by provision consumption usage, which will be comparable with 2021, 2022, and we see as well some normalization on the project working capital moving forward as well. Overall, as well in terms of CapEx, to give you some more colors, we see around the same 2% global industrial CapEx over sales as per our target.
All in, we do confirm a free cash flow generation for this fiscal year. No question about that.
Thank you. Next question.
Thank you very much. Sorry. Oh, I thought you're taking as many
Yeah, yeah.
Are you taking one at a time?
Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, go ahead.
Sorry, I had a couple more. Yeah, sorry to labor on cash. I know there's so many things to discuss, and to eliminate, in these results. Can we expect positive cash flow in H1, just to really kind of draw the line in the sand for this issue?
Well, as I say, we may have some seasonality effect between H1 and H2, but nothing to compare with what we had in 2021, 2022 on it.
Great, thank you. I appreciate your time on that. Can I just ask quickly on the extra synergies from Bombardier deal for 2025, 2026. What is the source for that compared to the original expectations?
Overall, we have extra potential definitively on the footprint and efficiencies. More BCC content, both in terms of engineering and manufacturing. Look at our footprint is of course a major asset that we are basically pooling. The second axis is procurement. Our team are doing a very good job in terms of achieving higher procurement synergies than initially expected. That will be, I would say, the two main element of this uplift of target from EUR 400 to close to EUR 500.
Great. Thank you. Just last one. On the market opportunity where you flag EUR 180 billion, now, I think before we discussed, 400 projects with average size, I think of about 300. It was a EUR 120 billion opportunity. When we compare kind of what's changed, is 180 still over the same 3-3.5 year timeline that you flagged before? Therefore, is it an increase in opportunity per year, or is there a longer timeline now assigned to that EUR 180 billion that you flagged?
No, thank you. Thank you for the question. There's no fundamental change. There's a slight change because, as I said, some of the markets have rebounded. But it's also not the same scope because here on the EUR 180 billion, we include smaller opportunities as well. We were focusing on large opportunities, and here we wanted to show the global pipeline, including smaller opportunities.
Great. Thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Bye.
Our next question today comes from Daniela Costa of Goldman Sachs. Ms. Costa, your line is now open. You may now ask your question. If you muted your line, please make sure that your line is unmuted. It appears that this caller has either stepped away or muted their line. We will now move on to the next question, which comes from Guillermo Peigneux Lojo of UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning. It's Guillermo Peigneux Lojo from UBS. I wanted to ask maybe a couple of questions, if I may. One is on provisioning levels. We understand the picture when it comes to provision uses as we go forward. Have you seen or have you experienced any change in the provision applications or the provision incoming provisions from risk on contracts? That's the first question. Maybe I stay back and then I ask the second question. Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning, Guillermo. Number one, the provision from the EBC loss-making contract is fully stable since March 2021. You remember the numbers of EUR 1,083 million that we communicated a year ago. It is fully stable. Now, looking at the global portfolio, you will see some evolution in H2, ±, so very limited of around EUR 50 million. Something which is marginal in our global portfolio. In the main, stability in terms of our provision.
Yeah. Is there any upside risk, i.e., basically, provision releases for this fiscal year?
No, I think that we are, I would say, basically having a clear roadmap in terms of execution of our contracts. We do not see, I would say, any exceptional release or new provision on the back of our risk management as we speak.
One more from me. How much of the cash flow, positive cash flow we did have in the second half was actually coming from healthy customer down payments? If you may disclose, that will be helpful. Thank you.
Well, we have, in our second half, I would say the usual pattern of down payment. Nothing exceptional, Guillermo. Very much in line with what we had in H1 . You see our order intake was balanced, roughly between H1 and H2. It was globally the same on the down payment side.
Okay. One last from me. When it comes to the synergies for this fiscal year, do you have any assumption built for your margin progression for this fiscal year in terms of synergies? Do you have any positive contribution from synergies? How meaningful is that? If you can share a number, that would be great.
Yeah, we do have some, indeed, for sure, some synergies uplift this year versus 2021, 2022. We see incremental upside coming from the procurement, again, on the global efficiencies, manufacturing, the engineering perspective. This is something that we show on page 31 in terms of the global trend of our synergies step-up on a year-on-year basis. Okay. Thank you, Guillermo.
We will now take our next question from James Moore of Redburn.
Yeah. Morning, everybody. I have a few questions if I could. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can. Thanks, James. Hello, James.
Hello. Maybe I could start with the margin, the adjusted margin for FY 2023 this year, which you say can expand. I wonder if you could help us a little bit more on the bridge as to how you can achieve that, because we've got a similar degree of 0% gross margin contract, and we have a higher degree of inflation impact on exposure where you don't have price escalation. On the other side, I can see maybe EUR 200 million of synergies this year versus EUR 102 million last year from your chart. I guess there are some savings. I guess there's some volume. I'm wondering if you can just help us size the moving pieces this year, and I specifically am trying to understand the size of the net inflation impact as a number, if that's at all possible.
That's my first question. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, James. I mean, I can just confirm what you've just said in terms of the moving parts and the blocks. Yes, there are some positive and negative impact. The negative impact is mostly coming from the inflation and to some extent as well from the continuation of the delivery of our zero gross margin project. The positive ones, as you know, the volume expansion on one hand, the synergy on the other hand, and the general efficiency of the company. On inflation, it's complex at that stage to give, of course, a precise number as we don't know exactly what would be the inflation scenario going forward.
We believe that according to the global consensus of inflation, if you take that into account, so if you look at the curve, which basically plans stabilization of this inflation going forward or come back to a more normal situation. Again, depending on the analysts, it can vary in terms of timing. We believe that it's like 50 basis points. The impact would be more or less 50 basis points in the P&L of next year, but it can go from 50 to 100-120, so it depends. That's why we don't also give a precise guidance. It depends as well on the inflationary scenario, which, as you know, is developing day after day. That's that in the order of magnitude.
That was really helpful, actually. Just turning to the very good free cash flow in the second half, and there's always pluses and minuses, I understand that. One of my questions is, are there any changes with terms with suppliers? I see that trade payables have increased, I think EUR 367 million, and inside your other current operating liabilities, we have other payables, which have gone up nearly EUR 500 million from EUR 1 billion to EUR 1.5 billion. Could you help me with what are these other payables? There seems to be a big move up in payables, which could explain a lot of the free cash flow. Is that all just ramp up, or are there any change in terms with suppliers?
Well, I can tell you there have been no change in the terms of suppliers. That's clear. That's not an underlying factor of the free cash flow generation. Clearly not. I will leave it to Laurent to give more color.
Yep. In terms of, indeed, no change in terms of the suppliers or customers' payment terms or conditions. Looking at the payables, we had an increase of 69 million EUR from March 2021 to March 2022, so roughly stable, I would say, despite the growth of around 10% in terms of activity, so something which has been well managed. In terms of the receivables, we have an increase of receivables of 440 as well versus March 2021, which is in line as well with the acceleration of our project ramp up, which we, of course, has turned into more activities, more deliveries to the customers and which will be the basis of the cash generation for this fiscal year.
Very helpful. Lastly, if I could, on your statement, Alstom's financial trajectory is consistent with a solid investment grade rating. Is that basically code for we don't need a rights issue? Can investors basically translate it as that when you have absolutely no need for any kind of equity issuance on the current financial trajectory just to take that topic off the table?
I think we always said that as long as we keep our financial trajectory as being guided last July, basically, that we have a sound balance sheet. We'll continue to keep this line, so there is no indication whatsoever of any need of equity increase at that stage.
Thank you very much.
Our next question today comes from Vladimir Sergievsky of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Maybe if I can ask.
Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks.
Yeah. Hello, Vlad. Just to ask if you can limit to two question per. So that we can have, everyone, capacity to ask their questions. Thank you so much, Vlad.
Absolutely. No problem. Good morning, gentlemen. Just to follow up on the free cash flow composition for the second half, specifically, if I may, and the contribution from working capital to it. I mean, if I look at the key working capital components, looks like working capital assets were largely flat, and those tend to reflect project execution. Contract liabilities, which reflect down payments, were even down a little bit in the second half. The biggest working capital inflow came from trade payables, which affect repayment to suppliers. Anything I'm missing here in terms of what were the key drivers for actually working capital contribution to the cash flow? That's the first one.
No, Vlad, thanks for your question. This is very much a fair summary, and we have uplifted our contract assets during the year and during the second half. This is all based on the production ramp-up, and this is the foundation and the basis of our growth pattern for this fiscal year, 2022, 2023. Absolutely correct.
Absolutely. That's great. If I can also ask on the project ramp-up. If I remember correctly, at the last Capital Market Day last year, you mentioned you were expecting about 35% increase in railcar production in this half, second half of this past fiscal year compared to first. When I look at rolling stock revenue, they were up about 2% second half versus first half. The question here, has this 35% ramp-up actually happened? If it has happened, then, why we have not seen a big increase in sales?
Thank you. We're not giving some detailed numbers on the number of cars being delivered and so forth. There have been a certain ramp-up, cannot confirm the number itself. You know, sales are more related to the production than the car deliveries with the new accounting norms of IFRS 15. It's the ramp-up in sales that is not totally related to the car deliveries. The cash in itself is more related because usually, not always, but usually in projects you have a cash payment at delivery of cars. The sales itself is not totally related to the car deliveries.
That's great. Sorry to squeeze the very last final one. I think it's really important one in terms of the improvements you guys have made. I'm looking at gross cash position. It's EUR 800 million. It's a lot smaller compared to what you guys used to carry before Bombardier. Obviously the business has got twice bigger. Any structural improvements you've made around the business that allows you to run it at such a much lower gross cash position compared to history?
Yes. No, Vlad. To be fair, our gross cash we had in H1 or end of last year was more in the range of EUR 1.1 billion. We are at EUR 850 million, so it's very consistent. This is the kind of, I would say, a number of gross cash we are anticipating to run. It's more than enough to run the company.
Super. Thank you very much.
Our next question today comes from Martin Wilkie of Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Good morning. It's Martin from Citi. A couple of questions. The first one, you've given the phasing of the conversion of the sort of backlogs and the onerous contracts in the backlog, from a revenue perspective. Just to understand the provision outflow, and in terms of when that is cash effective, just so we can have some sense as to how the sort of impact on free cash flow should be looked at over the next two or three years would be helpful. The second question was just on other items that could be positive or negative on your net debt position over fiscal 2022. You've obviously guided for positive free cash.
There are things, I think you've announced the disposal of certain assets that were sort of mandated by the EU as part of the BT deal. I think that was finalized in April. Just to understand, should you get cash inflow from that in the first half? Or just any other items we should think about in terms of the sort of net debt progression in fiscal 2023. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Martin, for your question. In terms of the working capital movement on the provision side, we see, I would say, a comparable amount of provision cash out in this fiscal year in 2022-2023. Something which will be continuing and normalizing until fiscal year 2025. This is in the bulk the step up and the usage of the provision on the loss-making contract we have mainly on the legacy backlog. On your second point, Martin, on the net debt, no, there will be no specific elements in terms of the net debt evolution in 2022-2023. In addition to the dividend, obviously, the financial lease, that's basically it.
We don't expect, to your point in terms of the remedies, any significant cash outflows outside of the free cash flow.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
We will now move to a question from Jonathan Mounsey of BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks. Yes, it's Jonathan from Exane BNP Paribas. Thanks for letting me ask a question. Maybe some of them have been answered, but just returning to the one that Jim raised, the other payables. I mean, it is a big movement, and I really just wanna understand what is in that other payables. There isn't any detail in the accounts to describe what's really sitting in there. It's gone up, you know, EUR 300+ million. What is actually in that line? And also on TMH. Obviously, you've written it down, but where are we in terms of thinking about dealing with that long term? Is there any process going on whatsoever around trying to exit it? Or is that not really possible at the moment?
Indeed, have the people who you'd be likely to sell it to, i.e., the other owners, are they actually sanctioned by the West at the moment, making a sale to them impossible? Just if you could give us some detail, please.
Yeah. Thank you for your question. I will take the TMH one. As said, we have this participation in TMH, 20% participation in TMH, which is a financial one. So we have written off the value of it, of course, because of the current situation. We are looking at all potential scenarios going forward. The ultimate beneficial owner, so we call the UBO, of TMH is not sanctioned. There is one owner, which is who is sanctioned, but this should not prevent us from doing any deal, because again, most of the owners and the ultimate one, so the controlling shareholder, is not sanctioned.
Having said that, as you can imagine, there are a lot of technical difficulties arising from the different control mechanisms. Every option is on the table at that stage. We are not in a particular hurry, but we are looking at all options. On your point?
Yep. John, thanks for your question. On the other payables, just to put the key numbers. We were at EUR 1.65 end of March 2021. We are at EUR 1.5 end of March 2022, we are roughly stable, we can give you more colors. Overall, after the restatement we had post the opening balance sheet, it's roughly a stable other payables position. We can give you offline more colors on this subject.
Okay. No, we'll take that offline then.
We now take a question from Alasdair Leslie of Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Good morning. Thank you. A couple of questions. One is just on the outstanding customer settlements. Maybe what are the reasons for that taking a little bit longer? Is there still a kinda big gap in expectations that could pose a risk in terms of potential increase in provisions? And when do you think you can conclude those outstanding negotiations? And then on the zero-margin contracts, thanks for the slide there detailing the expectations for the next few years. I mean, given the number of customer settlements and the finalization of technical issues which you've discussed, how confident are you now that the kinda phasing of those zero-margin deliveries, you know, doesn't slip any further, and we can kinda sort of draw a line here in terms of the timing?
Is it now kinda more external, market forces that pose a risk around those deliveries in that sense? Thank you.
No, thank you. No, in terms of negotiations, commercial negotiations, we cannot say that the ones which have been the most delayed are because we have different or very large gap between the bid and ask, so to say. It's mostly because of technical issues which were first to be solved, technical decisions which were first to be taken. I don't expect. I mean, they are not riskier than the other ones, to be clear. I don't expect any change in our view on the provisioning for this last negotiation. We hope that they will be concluded before, still before the summer.
We are in good momentum and to conclude all these negotiations. As far as the backlog of the EBC and zero gross margin project, today they have been executing correctly. As you said, now we are coming into a more normal situation whereby we need to phase out all these projects. There are still some particular risks attached to this project, but mostly the risks are, I would say, more normal risks related to the current supply chain issues, the macroeconomic environment, or some technical issues which could arise, but which are now in the normal type of framework and the normal volatility for project execution. It does not mean that everything will go seamlessly smoothly.
I mean, there will be, as for any project execution, some errors and some difficulties. These difficulties will be of the size of the classical project execution, and therefore, there will be ups and downs, positive and negatives, which will compensate each other at the end of the day.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from William Mackie of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for the time. A couple of questions. Firstly, coming back to the provisions, you know, thank you for the commentary, but perhaps you could frame it in total. When you look at the backlog of zero margin business associated with these contracts in a rectification phase or resolution phase, you've set an approximate level of similar provision burn next year. The use of provisions continuing at similar levels out to 2024, 2025, can you just sum what you would say is the cash effective provision release related to the bad backlog at this stage, i.e. what should we consider to be the total cash out as the backlog is traded to its finality? The second question relates to China.
Can you give a bit more detail about how you're seeing the performance of the JVs? They made a good contribution in the second half, but I think you're still using retrospective accounting. Can you at least highlight how you see that business developing as you go into the current year?
Your call will be disconnected.
Thank you.
Can you hear us? Hello. Hello.
Pardon the interruption. We can hear you on the backup line.
Okay. Hello. Sorry, can you hear us?
Yes, we can hear you.
Okay. Sorry for this technical problem. I will leave it to Laurent. On the Chinese joint ventures and Chinese market in general. We had a good performance of our Chinese joint venture this year. They're continuing to be healthy, in particular CASCO and the monorail one and so forth. It's fair to recognize that the high speed market is going down in China. For those of you who looked at the CRRC account, you will see that the order intake is slowing down in China for the HSR high speed, mostly because the network is now fully stabilized in China. There is a slowdown in the investment.
Overall, we don't expect any major change. If anything, yes, we have a slight slowdown on one of our joint ventures specialized on high speed high-speed trains. Laurent.
Yes. Thanks, Will, for your question. In terms of the provision usage over the next three years or so, as I say, we had EUR 300 million of provision application in March 2022. We see a comparable numbers in March 2023, maybe slightly lower. Then this will be reducing step-by-step to come to a normalized perspective in March 2025. That would be a declining trend from this EUR 300 million moving forward.
Thank you. I think, unfortunately, we are running a little bit late, so we'll take maybe one question. As you know, we have another session this afternoon with another Q&A session, so you have time as well to ask further questions this afternoon if you want. Maybe the last question.
The last question today comes from Gael de Bray of Deutsche Bank.
Thanks very much for squeezing me in. Good morning, everybody. Given the rising inflationary pressures you've had for quite some time now, I guess you've been trying to raise prices actively and to implement more and more protective mitigation clauses. Actually in some other industries like wind, for example, this process has led to lengthier commercial negotiations and to some delays in the booking of orders. Clearly, I mean, if I look at the major commercial successes you've had so far, I mean, this phenomenon appears not to really have played out against you, right? I'm actually trying to understand the reasons behind this, you know, the dynamics and really trying to see if I can be reassured on the quality of your recent orders.
Again, it's a fair comment. As you can imagine, there are some discussions and negotiations on the different tenders related to this issue of inflation. As being said, some of them are already quite protected, others less protected, and therefore that are being discussed. To your point, it has not led to any delays in the tender booking so far. We are following the process. Tender booking, I don't know for wind. I'm not an expert of this market, but it's already quite long for us between, you know, when we submit a tender, when we are preferred bidder, then when we sign the contract.
I mean, in some projects where we are preferred bidder, it takes one year from preferred bidder to actual booking of the contract. It's a long time, timeline anyhow. The fact that we are taking advantage of this timeline to discuss is, you're right, is clear, but it has not delayed the timeline. To your point on the consequences it could have, I mean, it's. We are booking, as we said, up to till March of this year, very good order intake. We continue to do so, we have not yet we have not deteriorated the quality of our order intake, and we are continuing to do so going forward. I think that's.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you, Gael. I think we will conclude here the call. Again, I will invite you for this afternoon for a complete session on Rolling Stock, which will again be followed by a Q&A session, even though you are more than welcome and invited to ask questions on Rolling Stock itself, but we'll be open to any kind of questions you may have. We'll also have the pleasure to meet some of you very soon. Thanks a lot, and talk to you soon.