Good evening to all, and thank you for joining the presentation of our 2024 annual results, which I will do together with Édouard de Pirey, Valeo CFO. In a very challenging context for our sector, these results represent a new significant step of financial improvement for Valeo, the third year in a row. May I start here by thanking all Valeo team members for their hard work and efforts, and I can confirm that we are all committed to continuing the journey of improving Valeo further. I will naturally start with 2024 highlights, then Édouard will walk you through our 2024 performance, and I will end with our financial roadmap for 2025. This less than 25-minute presentation will be followed by a 35-minute Q&A session that we will handle together with Édouard. So let's start. Let's start with 2024 highlights. First and foremost, we achieved our margin and cash guidance.
That's no mean feat in the context you know. We managed to overcome a very challenging environment throughout the year, marked by low activity in all regions and all businesses, including multiple delayed SOPs from our customers. The cost reduction measures we took across the entire organization have enabled us to offset the bad news and have led to the reduction of our break-even point. They will make us even stronger when the growth comes back. And we're also directly benefiting from our strong positioning in our main market segments. I mean electrification, ADAS, SDV, software, and lighting. We achieved our margin and cash guidance, and we reduced our debt. On Slide Five now, the first good news is a further improvement of our gross margin. At 19%, our gross margin improved by 1.1 points.
The cost reduction measures and the good control of our operations have supported the improvement of our gross margin. The second piece of good news is that for the first time, our gross R&D stopped increasing. Indeed, after reaching a peak in H1 2024, our gross R&D fell by EUR 177 million year-on-year in H2. This is evidence of a greater efficiency made possible by multiple cost reduction initiatives, among which the enforcement of standards, multiple synergies, the increasing use of competitive countries, and of course, the deployment of AI. The so-called IFRS impact of R&D capitalization has also been reduced by 0.5 points to 1.6 points of sales. Finally, and this is the third positive message of this slide, our administrative expenses fell by EUR 49 million year-on-year. The decline is structural and made possible by the reorganization and the simplification of all the functions within the group.
On Slide Six, you can see our full-year results compared with the 2024 guidance. Our sales reached EUR 21.5 billion. Our EBITDA margin reached 13.3% of sales, above the upper range of our guidance. Our operating margin reached 4.3% of sales in line with our guidance of between 4%- 5%, which, as I remind you, was unchanged since we have set it up one year ago. By the way, H2 operating margin stands at 4.6%, up 0.6 points versus H1. On Slide Seven now, as I just said, we have overachieved our free cash flow guidance and reduced the group's net debt by EUR 215 million. Our free cash flow before the one-off self-help measures stands at EUR 551 million, above our guidance. And after EUR 70 million spent in restructuring cost, our free cash flow reached EUR 481 million.
Net debt came out at EUR 3.8 billion, down EUR 215 million year-on-year, lading to a leverage ratio of 1.3x EBITDA compared to 1.5x a year earlier. On Slide Eight, you can see that we have recorded EUR 17.8 billion of new orders. This is a rather solid booking in a context where our customers rethought and reshaped their product planning, leading to the postponement in 2025 of multiple sourcing decisions that were initially planned in 2024. In 2024, our competitive positioning has remained solid. The success rate in quotations was unchanged as compared to previous years. On top of this, the change of the OEM's product strategy, mainly in electrification and in North America, has led certain customers to cancel orders representing around 10% of order intake taken in 2022 and 2023 for a total of €7.3 billion.
Of course, we are maintaining a selective approach with a great focus on the profitability of our new orders. In 2025, we're expecting our orders to pick up again, reflecting the opportunities that are coming from the sourcings postponed from 2024, but as well the trust of our customers in Valeo, our competitiveness, and the strengths of our technologies. We have been very happy with the flow of new orders since the beginning of the year. Moving on to Slide Nine, of course, we continue to carry out our mission as responsibly and ethically as possible. It's in our DNA. We have achieved our 2024 guidance in terms of CO2 emissions, down to 38.8 million tons, including Scope 1, 2, and 3. We'll publish our first CSRD reporting at the end of March, thanks to the hard work of our team.
We are delighted to announce that we were invited to join the top 50 sustainability leaders, the world's 50 most exemplary companies in this field. As proof of our commitment and responsibility in this area, we've just been awarded an A rating by the Carbon Disclosure Project, CDP, on all the environmental, social, and societal issues covered by this agency. In view of these results, we will propose a dividend of EUR 0.42 per share at the next shareholders' meeting in May. You can notice the progressive increase for the fifth year in a row. I now hand over to Édouard for a more detailed focus on the 2024 performance.
Thank you very much, Christophe, and good evening, everyone. Let's now take a closer look at the financial performance for the full year 2024. You can refer to the back of slides for H2 and Q4 figures. On Slide 12, total sales amounted to EUR 21.5 billion, down 0.5% on the like-for-like basis after one point exchange rate impact and one point of changes in scope. This is due to the fact that we sold our Thermal Commercial Systems business on June 30 and the PIAA Corporation business in August. Original equipment sales at EUR 18 billion were down 2% on the like-for-like basis, notably affected by our high-voltage electric powertrain business. Aftermarket sales at EUR 2.3 billion with a robust 4% growth like-for-like.
Miscellaneous sales, which include tooling sales as well as R&D customers' contribution at EUR 1.3 billion, + 19% like-for-like, confirming the large number of production launches, particularly in the light division. On Slide 13, performance by region. Our 2024 original equipment sales underperformed the automotive production by one point. Europe outperformed by one point despite the market slowdown of certain electric vehicle platforms. All the other activities performed well in the region. China posted an underperformance of 10 points with a customer mix more challenging than expected. We continue to reposition our product portfolio with 50% of our sales with Chinese OEMs and 60% of our order intake with them. Globally, Asia performance is better thanks to a seven-point outperformance in the other countries, meaning Korea, Japan, and India. North America with an underperformance of one point, mainly due to multiple postponements of production launches.
On Slide 14, all businesses outperform the market except the high-voltage powertrain business, with a global negative impact of three points for the overall group performance. On Slide 15, aftermarket on its side recorded a third year of robust growth at +4% like-for-like after +4% in 2023 and +9% in 2022. The growth was supported by the increased number and age of vehicles on the road and a more attractive offering of value-added products, notably for the electrification and the remanufacturing ranges. Moving to Slide 16, operating margin at 4.3% of sales up 0.5 points versus 2023, despite a difficult environment with production volumes still below their pre-crisis levels, especially in Europe, as well as sharp decline in production of certain electric vehicle platforms in Europe.
Gross margin at 19% of sales up 1.1 points versus 2023 as a result of cost reduction measures, efficiency of our operations, and efforts to defend our prices. SG&A were down 49 million as a result of the streamlining and structural reorganization of all the functions. For R&D, gross cost remained stable on a full-year basis at EUR 2.6 billion after having peaked in Q1 2024 thanks to the action plan presented earlier by Christophe. Net R&D at 9.9% of sales up 0.7 points versus 2023. All in all, we were able to increase our operating margin by 0.5 points despite EUR 53 million less provision reversal than in 2023 at finally EUR 181 million and 0.5 points less R&D capitalization impact at finally 1.6 points for the full year, much lower than the 2.4 points we guided for.
On Slide 17, with the bottom of the P&L, operating margin at EUR 919 million, operating income at EUR 618 million, including notably EUR 313 million of all the income and expenses, with EUR 305 million for restructuring costs and EUR 91 million capital gain on the sale of the thermal commercial vehicle business. Cost of debt at EUR 251 million as planned.
Finally, with an effective tax rate at 31%, a non-controlling interest of EUR 72 million, the net attributable income lands at EUR 162 million, 0.8% of sales. Let me now focus on the progress on our cost savings program on Slide 18. Considering the global environment, we have decided to take further actions beyond our original plan, aiming at increasing the yearly cost savings by EUR 100 million to EUR 300 million as of 2026. The allocation for this program has been revised accordingly upwards by EUR 100 million to EUR 400 million in total.
You have on these slides all details of P&L and cash impacts over the period 2024 to 2026. Now let's have a look at the performance by division on Slide 19, beginning with power. Power's performance was affected by the high-voltage electric powertrain business with a six-point negative impact, leading to underperformance by five points against the automotive production. On the other side, the profitability was boosted with a 1.5 points increased EBITDA margin, mainly driven by our restructuring programs as well as repricing efforts in line with new volumes estimates. The Brain division on Slide 20 outperformed automotive production by four points thanks to the outperformance of both our ADAS business with front cameras and computer vision cameras and our Interior Experience business with displays, Phone as a Key, and Telematics.
EBITDA margin was up 2.3 points, notably supported by Interior Experience cost reduction measures as well as strong growth in the launch of new high-margin contracts. On Slide 21, the Light division outperformed the automotive production by one point, benefiting from a large number of production launches, even if some of them were postponed, leading to an underperformance in Q4. The Light division's EBITDA margin came at 13.2%, contributing to cash generation.
On Slide 22, we generated a free cash flow of EUR 481 million above the guidance with an EBITDA of EUR 2.9 billion, up EUR 216 million compared to 2023, the strict control of our investment in PP&E at 5.3% of sales, the EUR 1.1 billion invested in intangible assets, including EUR 1 billion in capitalized development expenditure in the context of high and profitable order intake in 2022 and 2023, the positive and sustainable change in working capital of EUR 492 million, thanks notably to a EUR 251 million reduction in inventories as supply chains returned to normal following the electronic component crisis, as well as additional customer contributions to our product development compared to 2023, and finally, the tax payments for EUR 227 million.
Net cash flow on its side landed at EUR 202 million, including EUR 234 million in net interest paid, EUR 139 million in dividends, and the cash proceeds from the sale of the Thermal Commercial Systems and PIAA Corporation businesses.
To conclude with the financial structure on Slide 23, we have reduced our net financial debt by EUR 215 million at EUR 3.8 billion. The leverage ratio is down to 1.3x the EBITDA versus 1.5x a year ago. Valeo has a sound financial structure based on a balanced debt profile and a solid liquidity position. Cash in hand amounted to EUR 3.2 billion and undrawn credit lines totaled EUR 1.6 billion. At the end of December 2024, the average maturity of our debt was stable at nearly 3 years. Globally, these results show that we are on the right track and that the value mindset has changed, becoming clearly cash-focused.
Cash generation and deleveraging are our top priorities. Thank you for your attention. I now hand over back to Christophe for the conclusion.
Thank you very much, Édouard. Allow me now to conclude and share with you our outlook for 2025. On Slide 25, I wanted to highlight our participation in the last CES. It confirmed our customers' interest in our technologies in the field of electrification, of ADAS, of SDV, smart lighting, and so on. Why do I put this slide? Because our technologies are a key element of our equity story. As you know, we have decided to better price our technologies, and we do. The only question left is, are we able to deliver growth while reducing our R&D expenses? I believe that we are at a cornerstone here, now able to reduce our R&D expenses and thus being structurally more cash-generative. On Slide 26, the 2025 will be a new step in improving Valeo's financial performance.
We are targeting sales between EUR 21.5 billion-EUR 22.5 billion, an operating margin between 4.5% and 5.5%, and a free cash flow between EUR 700 million and EUR 800 million before exceptional restructuring costs and between EUR 400 million and EUR 500 million after. While paying EUR 300 million of restructuring costs in 2024 and 2025, we expect to generate over these two years EUR 1 billion of free cash flow under our definition, of course, meaning before financial items. As in previous years, we expect H2 margins and cash duration to be higher than H1. Our 2025 guidance is based upon the latest S&P estimates and under tax and tariff conditions currently in effect. Knowing that any change will have to be compensated as suppliers cannot absorb or even share the burden of tariffs.
We have a very clear roadmap supporting the structural increase of our free cash flow duration based upon higher EBITDA, reduced PP&E, reduced R&D, and better working capital. To conclude and in summary, I am satisfied with our progress and resilience in this difficult context, and I'm also well aware that our 2024 performance is still very far from our potential. I also know very well that the 2025 guidance, even if again better, is still quite far from our potential. Think about it. Our order book is strong and better priced. Our break-even point is lowered. We are finally able to reduce our R&D expenses. So you see, we are preparing Valeo to become structurally stronger. We will organize a Capital Markets Day on November 20th to share the next step of our ambition. Well, thank you very much for listening.
Édouard and I are now available to answer your questions.
The conference operator will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. We will only take two questions per person. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Thomas Besson of Kepler. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, Mélanie. I have a few topics, please. I'd like to start with the balance sheet. If I understand correctly, the net debt reduction was about EUR 215 million, while the proceeds from disposal were a bit higher. So can I ask to start, what is the net debt target for the end of 2025 and why you are proposing to raise the dividend with a relatively limited debt reduction, mostly driven by working capital? The first question. The second question, I would like you to confirm, I may have misunderstood, but did you say that EUR 7.3 billion of orders have been canceled or postponed? Is that the right number? Could you please mention whether there is any write-down associated with order cancellation or if there's any compensation from automakers linked with these cancellations? And I have a last question, if I may.
Could you please give us an indication on the cost of electronic components? Did it drive any savings in 2024 that you could keep, any net savings in 2024, and could we consider that you should get further net savings in 2025 from the cost of electronic components? Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Thomas. Édouard, can you handle the first question? I will take the next two.
With pleasure, Christophe. Hello, Thomas, and thank you very much for your question. You are fully right. You picked the right numbers with what you presented. We target with the EUR 0.42 per share dividend to continue to decrease our net debt in 2025. And with the free cash flow generation that we presented to you as a guidance, we do confirm that we are able to continue to deleverage Valeo even with the EUR 0.42 per share dividend. We do consider that this is what we committed for during the Move Up plan to increase slightly, step by step, every year the dividend.
Let me take the next question, which is about the EUR 7.3 billion of orders that have been canceled. Well, I think it doesn't really come as a surprise when you think about it. In the last year, our customers have rethought, they have reshaped their product offer. Things have changed relative to the electrification, and especially in North America. So some of the orders that we previously booked regarding electrification in North America have been canceled given the new orientation of the politics in North America. I don't think it comes as a surprise. It doesn't mean anything relative to the attractiveness of our products or relative to the competitiveness of Valeo. It means something about the market in specific regions of the world. Now you're asking the question, are we being compensated by such cancellation? The answer is yes. We're seeking compensation and we're getting compensation.
I think it's important to mention that, to be extremely transparent on the order book. The order book granted from 2022 and 2023 remains extremely strong. It was around EUR 70 billion, EUR -7.3 billion. So we remain on a growth path given the order intake that was booked and secured in 2022 and 2023. Your following question is on the electronic components. Well, electronic components have been a nightmare for us for many years. So we're quite happy that it turns from a headwind to a tailwind. Yes, there is some tailwind coming from the electronic commodity going down and the fact that we are continuing to defend our pricing. So electronic components are definitely a tailwind when it comes to Valeo in 2025.
Thank you very much. Just to make sure I didn't miss anything, there's no write-down associated with the order cancellations on your R&D?
Yes, there are impairments that you will see in the financial documents attached to our publication. There are, if I remember well, EUR 66 million impairments in our 2024 accounts for R&D, especially for these programs that were canceled.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Michael Foundoukidis of ODDO BHF Group. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi, Michael from ODDO. Two questions on my side. First one, maybe as a follow-up to Thomas's questions on the working cap, which had a huge impact in 2024. I mean, could you tell us what's embedded in the guidance for 2025, in the free cash flow guidance for 2025? Is it still a significant contributor or not? And then maybe could you come back on all the provisions change in 2024? Seems like a positive to your P&L. Could you explain that in more detail versus what you already said in the presentation? Thank you.
Sure, Michael, and good evening, and thank you for your questions. In fact, the headwind for working capital of the working capital on our free cash flow in 2024 was important, and we guided actually for this one because we were able to decrease quite much our inventories. We decreased by EUR 251 million our inventories in 2024, and this was a good headwind. As far as 2025 is concerned, building our guidance, we do think that these headwinds will be much lower. Nevertheless, we will have some support from the working capital, in particular because we plan to decrease further our inventories, EUR 150 million something during the year on the one hand, because we see more opportunities here. And second, we see also opportunities to continue to improve our working capital by increasing the payment terms of our suppliers, for example.
You said headwind, it's tailwind.
Tailwind in place. Sorry. As far as provisions are concerned, so I'm really focusing here on the provisions for onerous or unfavorable contracts that we had a very specific focus in the last years, as you remember. In 2023, the impact was EUR 234 million. And in 2024, it was EUR 53 million less, EUR 181 million. As far as 2025 is concerned, the impact naturally will be lower because the stock of provisions we have at the 31st December of 2024 in the balance sheet is only EUR 97 million. Naturally, it will even decrease further, increasing even more the structural improvement of our results in 2025.
Maybe I can add to what Édouard said, that improving the working capital is not granted. It takes a lot of work with our suppliers, with our supply chain to reduce further the inventory. And this is the job that our supply chain people are doing on a daily basis, and they're doing it well. The same way with the loss-making contracts. Turning a loss-making contract into a profitable contract takes a lot of energy, takes a lot of talent from our team, and I thank them for having achieved that in the last two years.
Okay. Thanks. And then maybe just one last follow-up on R&D capitalized. Maybe I missed it, but could you tell us what is the impact that we should expect in 2025 in operating margin?
Yeah, thank you, Michael. Actually, it was written on the slide, but I went quite quick on this one. So the impact of capitalization was 2.1 point in 2023, 1.6 point in 2024, and we plan to see it around 1.5 point in 2025 as we guided for one year ago. So still 1.5 point for 2025.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question, sorry. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from Christoph Laskawi of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good evening, and thank you for taking my questions. The first one will be on the guide and bridging the margin of 2024 to 2025. You already said, obviously, that semis will be a tailwind. We see the midpoint being up on revenue, so there's a tailwind from growth and operating leverage. Could you comment on what's potentially a headwind out of the R&D capitalized just to give us a bit more color on the bridge? And then the second question would be just on your Mexican footprint. Could you remind us of the revenues that you generate in the Mexican footprint, how much of that is crossing the border into the U.S.? Just a bit more color on the footprint area would be appreciated. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Christoph. When it comes to the bridge between 2024 and 2025, there's definitely three points that are helping us and supporting the improvement of our profitability. The first one and the main one is restructuring. You saw it on one of the slides that Édouard showed. We're going to have a significant cost saving coming in 2025 from the restructuring efforts that have been led in 2023 and in 2024. This is in total EUR 100 million saved from 2024 to 2025 going forward. There are some tailwinds coming from electronic components and some other components that we're buying and are seeing their price going down. There's a third one, and you mentioned it on the operating leverage because we'll have overperformance of ourselves in 2025 versus 2024. That's three tailwinds.
We have as well to admit that there's still quite a lot of uncertainty on the market when it comes to volumes. You touched one point relative to uncertainty when we talked about the tariff and the potential impact of the Mexican tariffs that might be decided. Maybe I should try to comment here a few things about the tariff. First, there are things that we know. What we know very well are the tariffs that have been decided, and they've been decided for aluminum and for steel. We have dug, of course, into that because the question was which aluminum, which steel, which derivatives. I mean, the devil is in the detail. When we look at all the derivatives that are forecasted or planned in the tariff that have been decided, we are talking about a marginal impact from Valeo.
Now, there are other possible tariffs and there was some news today, and I'm sure there will be more tomorrow and the day after, and maybe other news. There's potential tariff from the U.S. to the import from Mexico, but potentially from Canada, potentially from Europe, potentially as well from China and this is obviously something that it's still extremely difficult to figure out. Why is it difficult? Because which products will it be? Which exemptions will exist for which kind of industry? What about the products that are crossing the borders several times? Are they going to go 25% each time? What are going to be the retaliations decided by the other countries, which will create by themselves additional costs and additional risks so we have to be extremely clear to the point that we need to make it as simple as it was during the inflation wave.
If there are any costs, any tariff applied that impact our cost, we'd have to seek 100% compensation from our customers because we are not in a position to change our footprint for the next night or for the next week. We are not in a position to change our supply base. We are not in a position to change our flows overnight. It's not even going to take weeks. It's not even going to take months. It's going to take years. So whatever additional cost will come on Valeo linked to tariff, Valeo will seek 100% compensation from its customer wherever in the world. This is extremely clear. And by the way, this is no different from what our colleagues, our competitors, the other tier ones have been saying all over the place in the last months.
Thank you. If I can sneak in one follow-up just on the order cancellation, what was the impact on the backlog margin of that? You highlighted the impact driven by electrification. So is it fair to assume that the backlog margin is actually up after the cancellation because that business was not yet seen at the group levels of the backlog margin? Or was there simply no effect? Thank you.
There's no effect for a simple reason. There's no bad business that we accept to take at Valeo since 2022. All the businesses, as you know, we've said it a few times, have to meet minimum thresholds of profitability, and we are extremely strict on that. There's no strategic business at Valeo. It doesn't exist. The only strategy is to increase our margin, and to increase our margin, we need to book better orders in line with the attractiveness of our technologies. This is what we believe we are able to do. This is what we've been doing in 2022, in 2023, in 2024 again. The margins of our businesses booked are good, and we will make no difference in our policy in 2025. This is the condition to restore at much higher level the profitability of Valeo.
The businesses that have been canceled are not any different from the businesses that are still part of our order book, and we kept 90%+ of our order book from 2022 and 2023.
And if I may build on what Christophe just said, I would like to add that, as you know, we are reviewing every single month the profitability of every single project at Valeo. And we are reviewing with Christophe every single month the overall profitability of all the business portfolio that we have, and it is increasing month by month. And so it's not only about the profitability of the business that we are taking, it's also about, in the development phase, ensuring that the teams actually deliver what they committed for when they took the business.
Thank you.
Once again, to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is a follow-up from Thomas Besson of Kepler. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. I'd like to come back to the guidance you give, please. So I'd like you to explain what are the main drivers for the data we see versus the same guidance you gave 12 months ago. So I think we are losing at midpoint EUR 3 billion revenues. We are losing EUR 400 million EBIT, so the leverage actually is not that bad. Can you explain why revenues for 2025 are seen now 12% below? I can think of the disposals, and global vehicle production is a bit lower, but not that much. So could you elaborate on that? Second question, I understood that you were going to redefine your KPIs. So is that something you're planning now for November, or is it something we should no longer expect?
Finally, can you maybe detail a bit what are your refinancing plans and whether you plan to eventually sell more assets than the remaining EUR 100 million you had disclosed? Thank you.
Thank you, Thomas. We'll take the first question, and the second one, Édouard, we'll take the third one, right? Okay. On the first question, well, I don't have the bridge totally in my mind, but there's no surprise to say that the electrification business has not developed at all as it was planned. We are planning to have more than EUR 2 billion-EUR 2.5 billion of electrification sales, high voltage. And at the end of the day, what we plan for 2025 is less than EUR 1 billion. And I think there's two ways of saying it. One way is to say there's going to be less growth, but we know there's going to be less growth. On the other side, I think it's good to notice that Valeo is doing the work to adjust to sales that have not developed the way it was planned before.
So the market is lower than we planned, but as well, our electrification sales are lower than we planned. And you can notice as well that there is a significant unfavorable mix of customers that we have to face. The sales are what they are. What is important is how do we react as a company to a level of sales that is not the one that we are planning? And here again, I'm sure you have noticed that there has been a very significant restructuring plan implemented by Valeo so that even with lower sales, we can continue step by step to increase the profitability of Valeo and build, at the end of the day, a stronger Valeo because there will be a time, there will be a time where the sales coming from our order intake 2022 and 2023 will materialize.
And when this happens, and when this happens on foundations of Valeo that are much more solid because the profitability has increased, then we'll have a much stronger Valeo. But it's too early to talk about it. We'll talk about it on November 20th. Your second question was on the KPI. We said we will not change the KPI during the Move Up plan, and we have not changed the KPIs during the Move Up plan.
Now, we are absolutely aware that some of the KPIs are not totally state-of-the-art. I think we listened. I think we heard the financial community giving us this kind of feedback. And it's our plan that in the next plan that will be released, our next ambition that we released, will have KPIs that are more in line with what is called, or what we can call state-of-the-art KPIs. Édouard, you take the third question.
Yes. As far as refinancing is concerned, so you have in mind that we have EUR 3.2 billion of cash or cash equivalent in the balance sheet at the end of 2024. We have EUR 1.2 billion to redeem during this year, and we have to think about the refinancing of next year already, and as soon as the market is open, we will naturally finance what we need for next year. As far as the divestment program is concerned, we are today totally focused on delivering the plan. You may see actually in our financial report that one business has been put in assets for sale because we are not far from concluding. This is what we aim at and to be able to finish the EUR 500 million divestment plan by the end of this year.
If I well understood, I think we are at the end of the questions. Yes, I'm looking at the people here that confirm that there's no more questions. So let me just say a word of conclusion before we close this meeting. So first of all, thank you very much for all your good questions. I mean, there's no doubt that the auto industry is facing a lot of challenges, a stagnant market, a technological transformation, and a very competitive environment in China. But there's no doubt as well that Valeo is fully prepared to overcome these challenges. We are adjusting the cost base of Valeo and lowering its break-even point. We have a strong positioning when it comes to our technological transformation and the access to a much higher content per car.
And I think we're doing the right work, sorry, in China to rebalance our customer footprint and become even more competitive. We have as well our own specific challenges, and you see that we are addressing them, improving the profitability of Valeo, and structurally delivering more cash out of the business. So in my view, at the end of the day, all these challenges are an opportunity for Valeo and are making us more attractive and stronger. This is what we are working for. Thank you very much for your question. Thank you for your attention. And let's talk again in April. Goodbye.