Good morning and welcome to our half-year results presentation. With Olivier Durand, our Chief Financial Officer, we will guide you through our H1 performances. Our presentations include four chapters. We will start with H1 2024 key highlights, followed by H1 2024 financial performance, then the outlook, and finally, the takeaways. On Chapter 1, key highlights for H1, I propose to look at the worldwide automotive production and the pace of electrification. Worldwide automotive production stood at 43.6 million light vehicles in H1 2024, broadly stable compared to H1 2023, with contrasted situations by geography. We have clearly more volumes in China and less in Europe. In Europe, excluding Russia, which accounts for 47% of the group's sales, production was down 5% at 8.4 million, representing around 19% of worldwide production.
In North America, which accounts for 24% of our sales, production was up 1.8% at 8.1 million, representing around 19% of worldwide production. In China, which represents 19% of our sales, production was up 5.2% at 13.2 million, representing around 30% of worldwide production. We are strong in Asia, and being in Asia is crucial due to the region's fast-growing automotive market, but also because of its competitiveness. For the full year 2024, light vehicle production should be down 2% compared to 2023, at around 88.7 million, according to the latest S&P estimate. Now, regarding the pace of electrification on the left side, the first half of the year presented a slowdown in Europe, while the EV market slightly increased in North America and continued to be driven by China, up 50 basis points between H1 2023 and H1 2024. This slowdown in electrification is most probably temporary.
It is due to market adaptations related to infrastructures, technologies, prices, and ongoing regulations. The European CAFE regulation sets a 15% CO2 emissions reductions target in 2025, compared to a change in 2021, so from 2021 to 2024. Because of that, in order to avoid penalties, additional EV volumes will be needed, and it needs to be prepared starting in H2 2024. I would like to remind you that Forvia is mostly powertrain agnostic for related supplies. We might be impacted by an ad hoc designed part dedicated to a battery electric vehicle. As an example, a seating set assembled into a battery electric vehicle, if this vehicle is not selling, but this is true for whatever the powertrain, we are impacted. In this context, Forvia recorded steady progress. Let's have a look at four key figures.
First, Forvia posted an organic sales growth of 2.7%, outperforming the market by 290 basis points. Excluding a negative impact of geographic mix, we outperformed the market by 460 basis points. Operating margin grew by 20 basis points year-on-year to 5.2% of sales. This figure reflects margin improvement in all business groups, with the exception of a one-off impact for Interiors in North America of EUR 47 million, representing 30 basis points. This operating loss results from a supplier-driven issue. The Mexican supplier, Comaplast, started early 2024 and generated major disruptions until mid-April. We had to refurbish and resource about 100 plastic injection tools while minimizing supply disruptions to six OEMs. This situation also impacted launch preparation at a time of record new SOPs. We had 18 launches in nine plants in Mexico, out of which two are greenfields.
This is to be compared to three launches in H1 last year or seven launches in the full year 2023. The combination of these circumstances resulted in two significant extra costs, including very high freight costs. To be clear, June results were back to normal. Finally, in H1, the group continued to manage effectively its debt, successfully issuing new debt instruments in H1. Let's look more in detail into it. In H1, the group successfully issued around EUR 2 billion of new debt instruments, essentially maturing in 2029 and 2031. This almost cleared our 2024 and 2025 maturities and allows Forvia to significantly extend its average debt maturity, now of 3.6 years versus 2.9 years end of 2023. Our target is to be above four years as quickly as possible.
We were also able to contain the average costs of our debt at 4.6%, only up 30% versus the end of last year. Let's move to our top priority, deleveraging the company. We announced in October 2023 a second disposal program of EUR 1 billion after the successful completion of our first EUR 1 billion disposal program. We made good progress in the execution of this second program since the start of the year, with the closing of the disposal by Forvia Hella of its stake in BHTC to AUO, and with the sale of Hug Engineering, our Clean Mobility business specialized in depollution systems, to Ogepar. With these two transactions, we already achieved 25% of the program. Looking ahead, progress underway gives us strong confidence to finalize this second program by the end of 2025 as planned.
I move to our order intake, which is driven by Asia and backed by electronics and innovation. Asia first, EUR 6 billion made in Asia, China representing EUR 4.9 billion out of it, and with more than 60% of, sorry, more than 60% of which was made with Chinese OEMs. Electronics, EUR 4.3 billion, key awards from Chery, from GM, and US EV car maker. Innovation, I think it's important to highlight that we achieved an order intake, several order intakes, but for an accumulated amount of EUR 700 million in hydrogen storage. It includes the largest award ever in this field. We also won a very significant virtual key program for General Motors, and three awards for MATERI'ACT. I think these ones are the most interesting. Premium OEM, EUR 3.5 billion, mainly driven by German and Chinese OEMs.
I would like to highlight that this under real commercial selectivity, which allowed us to achieve a high level of operating margin and reduced upfront costs, this totaling EUR 15 billion in the first half. Strengthening partnerships with Chinese OEMs in China, but also beyond their domestic market. Here are some examples of our recent developments. First, with BYD, we announced yesterday that we are extending our successful partnership to Europe through the Hungary business award. This represents a significant step for both companies and brings our collaboration to a new level. This, while we have also announced earlier this month the opening of a new seat assembly plant in Thailand, it will serve at Forvia's export hub for the Asia-Pacific regions, and again, will deepen the global partnership we have developed with BYD.
With Chery, we signed in April a joint venture agreement, which reinforces our strategic cooperation in the field of smart and sustainable cockpit. We are speaking here about the full interior perimeter, the full cockpit perimeter. This is why our ambition to reach EUR 1 billion sales in 2029 is justified. From the starting of the year, we won six awards with Chery, which is showing that this dynamic is ongoing. We also have significant business acceleration with other Chinese OEMs, significant ones, with an order intake up to EUR 3 billion in H1. We developed our intimacy with leading players such as Geely, Li Auto, and Leapmotor. In parallel to these developments in Asia, we have also made significant strides in H1, marked by deals that bolster our commitment to sustainability and innovation. Some highlights.
In the field of connectivity and user experience, we completed in May the acquisition of the remaining 50% shares from Aptoide in the joint venture Forvia Aptoide Automotive. This represented a strategic move to position ourselves in the Automotive Apps market. We have high ambitions to achieve a 20% market share in Automotive Apps by 2025 and 35% by 2030. In the field of sustainability, MATERI'ACT continued its strategic development in two key regions. In early 2024, the company established a joint venture with PCR Recycling in North America to accelerate the development and delivery of recycled compounds. In April, MATERI'ACT signed an MOU with Gree Electric in China to finalize a joint venture in October to produce plastics with a very high recycled content. Speaking about sustainability, we recently received new ESG ratings with systematically improved scores.
In the first half of 2024, we improved our scores with Moody's and Sustainalytics and maintained our A rating with MSCI. These new ratings are an important recognition of our convictions in terms of social and environmental responsibility. We will clearly continue our efforts to lead the way. Last February, we announced the launch of EU-FORWARD, a five-year project aiming at reinforcing the competitiveness and agility of our operations in Europe, which is characterized by structural overcapacity. We have to deal with a capacity which went from 21 million vehicles produced to 17 million. Our target is to achieve an operating margin in Europe exceeding 7% in 2028, 7% operating margin. The effective start of this project showed already interesting progress, 14 operations have been announced. They represent close to 20% of the overall project. The restructuring costs are on track.
Restructuring expenses in Europe amounted to EUR 186 million out of the EUR 222 million recorded for the group in H1. Savings are on track. Impact will start in H2 2024, when the people will leave the company, and will accelerate in 2025. This is ending the first part, and now I will leave the floor to Olivier, who will deep dive in our financial performance.
Thank you, Patrick, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to share with you some detailed comments about our group financial performance in H1 that shows that we have made progress on all our key financial metrics. Let me start first with revenues. We have recorded sales of EUR 13.5 billion in H1 2024. It represents an organic growth of 2.7%, i.e., 290 basis points of our performance in a market that was slightly down.
This outperformance is actually 460 basis points if we take into account the unfavorable geographical mix of H1 and represents the same trend that we have had since the setup of Forvia after the acquisition of Hella. On a reported basis, however, the sales were down by 0.6%, as we were impacted by two elements that will neutralize or reverse in the second half. The first element is, as in the second half of last year, sales continue to be impacted by the unfavorable currency impact. It has been at 2.6% in H1. It relates to the weakening of the RMB versus euro, but also to the impact of the strong depreciation of two currencies under hyperinflation, Argentinian peso and Turkish lira, for which the evolution has been more stable, or at least eroding slowly in 2024. The second impact is the negative scope effect.
We sold the CV business to Cummins end of Q3 last year as part of the first EUR 1 billion disposal program, and therefore this is out of our numbers. And vice versa, we have the consolidation from January 1st of the HBBL joint venture in lighting in China. Those two elements will turn neutral to positive in H2 and will sustain the growth in the top line compared to H2 last year. Now, if I turn to the operating margin, it stands at EUR 700 million for the first half, i.e., 5.2% of sales, an increase of 20 basis points versus H1 last year. The increase was driven by continued synergies of the combination, the anticipated benefit of the exit of the loss-making contract that we had in Highland Park, as well as the gains from volume and mix.
In this respect, I would like to highlight the improved inflation pass-through performance through the rigorous negotiation that we have with our customers. One element, however, weighed on the performance, which has been highlighted by Patrick, which is this sizable one-off of extra cost faced by Interiors in Mexico, which had an impact of EUR 47 million or 30 basis points. This topic is now closed and will not impact the H2 figures. On an ongoing basis, our operating margin run rate in H1 is, in fact, 5.5%. Now, if I detail those results by business group, let me start, of course, with Interiors. Interiors is recording strong growth, is recording strong outperformance, but the profitability is, of course, significantly hit by the one-off that we mentioned. However, the other business groups are showing solid performance and showing margin expansion of a sizable nature for many of them. Seating.
Seating pursued is margin recovery towards pre-COVID level. We are recording a 130 basis points improvement year-on-year. This is not only the end of the loss-making contract in Highland Park, but is also benefiting from the better pricing and inflation pass-through, as well as an improved execution, which is the case in all the geographies. Clean Mobility, benefited from the slowdown in electrification, recorded an outperformance of 330 basis points on the total market, and also improved its profitability driven by the sound performance of our ultra-low emission activity, which returned to double-digit profitability in this semester. On Electronics. Electronics is, of course, an engine of growth beyond pure electrification. It records 470 basis points of outperformance, and it was boosted by the double-digit organic growth of Forvia Clarion Electronics.
Let me highlight also that Forvia Clarion Electronics is actually the dominant part of the 150 basis points margin improvement that we are recording in this segment. We have now this activity, which is recording a positive profitability over the last 12 months and in the direction to be no more dilutive in coming semesters. Lighting recorded a flat organic growth in the context of consolidation. This is, however, on a reported basis, plus 5% thanks to the consolidation of the joint venture I mentioned, HBBL, which reflects the expansion of our activities in this domain with Chinese OEM, which is an important topic. The profitability is a solid 5%, stable from a year before. Now, I will turn to regions, from a regional standpoint, EMEA is showing a margin expansion of 50 basis points.
This is on the back of the outperformance that we have in the region, in Interiors, in lighting, and also the first benefits of our actions in EU-FORWARD, not only restructuring, but cost consciousness and reduction of external costs. Americas is showing a strong organic growth. This is driven by Interiors, but this is also reflected in the Seating and Electronics development and key customer wins that we have been obtaining in this large and important market. But the margin improvement is notable given that we had this sizable one-off extra cost that we mentioned in Mexico. It means that the improvement in the region is larger than the impact of the exit of Highland Park contract. It means better execution, better discipline in this region in many business groups.
Finally, Asia is showing again a double-digit margin, even though we had headwinds on our customer mix in China, as we already saw in Q1. Let me highlight that in H1 2023, we recorded a very sizable outperformance in China to the tone of 14%. This outperformance is now mitigated in this first half with sales decline with BYD and also with the leading U.S., EV carmakers, which are not fully offsetting the acceleration, which is not fully offset by the acceleration of the diversification and the momentum that we have with new customers, Chery Joint Ventures, Li Auto Development, and others. But if we look on a two-year basis, we continue to have an outperformance in this market thanks to our overall growing presence with Chinese OEMs that are getting shares in this market clearly. Let me go to net income below the operating margin.
We are recording a break-even net income. This is on the back of two opposite elements. We have, of course, an increase in the European restructuring cost coming from the strong start of the EU-FORWARD project that Patrick mentioned before. This is the main component of the EUR 222 million of restructuring cost that we are posting. There is also a non-recurring expense of EUR 43 million, which is related to the supplier that Patrick mentioned at the very beginning of this meeting in Interiors in North America.
However, we have been able to offset largely those impacts with capital gains in our disposal activity, the main one, of course, being the EUR 134 million that we are recording for the sale of the 50% stake in BHTC held by Forvia Hella that has been sold to AUO back in April, which is kicking off the start, which was kicking off the start of our second disposal program. So, break-even in net income. The cash flow is posting an increase again this semester. We are up 16% versus a year before, and this is despite the one-off that we mentioned before. And in fact, the one-offs are twofold. You have the EUR 47 million of cost mentioned in terms of extra costs on the launches, but there was also the cost related to Comaplast, the supplier mentioned. So, a total actually of EUR 80 million of negatives.
Even with this, we are posting an increase. We are at EUR 201 net cash flow in H1. This is showing in particular the growing effectiveness of our Managed by Cash program. CapEx were down EUR 36 million in the period. Capitalized R&D are stable. Inventories have decreased finally by EUR 119 million. The financial expense in this context were high, I have to recognize. This is related to the high-level activity that we had in the refinancing, and in particular the buyback of some bonds. But vice versa, we have been able to normalize the tax cash out with the reimbursement of the EUR 68 million withholding tax related to the extraordinary dividend that was received last year from Forvia Hella, which is solidifying that this is a lag just of one year in our financials.
Let me highlight as a complement the improvement and the enhanced quality of our net cash flow. You see on the graph at the bottom right of your slide, the net cash flow, excluding working capital, excluding factoring. It has been at EUR 104 million in H1. It represents 50% of what we did in this period compared to only EUR 7 million in a year before. This is clearly showing that not only we are growing our net cash flow generation, but we are improving its quality, its sustainability, and you will see that continuing in the coming semesters. Let me move to the evolution in our debt and in the leverage ratio, the central element of our financial performance.
The net cash flow, as well as the proceeds related to the two transactions being concluded, BHTC and Hug Engineering, have been contributing to the reduction of our net debt, even with the dividend of EUR 0.50 per share that we paid in June to the Forvia shareholder, and the abnormal level of new lease cost under the IFRS 16 EUR 9,125 compared to EUR 76 a year before. As a consequence, the leverage continued to decrease. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio now stands at 2.0 x at the end of June 2024, compared to 2.5 x a year ago and 2.1 x at the end of 2023, which is reflecting the clear commitment of the company towards the reduction of our financial leverage towards normalcy. Let me turn to the quality of our debt in complement.
Patrick alluded to the topic. We have been very active on the market.
We have been raising close to EUR 2 billion of new financing coming from not only the Eurobond market, but the return in big fashion to the Schuldschein market for a total of EUR 740 million in two transactions, EUR 200 million at the beginning of the semester under Forvia HELLA and EUR 540 million under the Forvia name. We have been able also to extend for EUR 650 million of bank loans to 2027, and this is used to reduce our gross debt by EUR 300 million at the end of July on a pro forma basis to have a clear benefit in our financial cost on a future basis. We have also repaid in advance our maturities. 2024, 2025 are mostly cleared, and we did quite a lot on 2026. As a consequence, we have improved our overall maturity to 3.6 years by 0.7 years in six months.
Finally, let me highlight that our, of course, liquidity is solid, EUR 6.2 billion, comprised of EUR 4.3 billion in cash, plus close to EUR 2 billion that we have in revolving credit facilities combining Forvia and Forvia HELLA. And they are, of course, not drawn. And you can expect that we will continue to be active in the market to continue to diversify our sourcing financing, to increase our flexibility, and to continue to work on our maturity profile as well as the reduction of the gross debt itself. This concludes our H1 performance financial review. I will now detail elements on our outlook for the remaining of the year, our full-year guidance, and also our financial vision for 2025. Let me start with what can we expect in the second half of the year.
The top line is expected to be boosted by more volume, the continued outperformance that we have enjoyed since the setup of Forvia, as well as a leveling off of the currency and consolidation impact that I mentioned earlier. As we stated earlier this year and consistently also to the previous year, we expect a strong sequential improvement of our group operating margin in H2 versus H1. On top of the volume, the elements are in fact related to three. You have inflation recovery, in which we have additional elements in the second half. We have two self-help drivers, the end of the extra cost of Interior in North America now that the case has been closed and operations returned to normalcy, and second, the actions on cost.
First, on the synergies with Hella in order to reach the EUR 80 million target that we have for the full year, and the first benefits of EU-FORWARD as well as other action on cost in terms of external cost and the strict utilization of our resources. That should lead to at least 6% operating margin in the second half. This is therefore translating in our confirmation about our full-year 2024 guidance. This is, however, with specific precision on sales and operating margin. We expect our sales and operating margin to be in the lower end of the initial ranges of between EUR 25.5 billion and EUR 28.5 billion and between 5.6% and 6.4% of sales, respectively. We confirm our net cash flow and net debt adjusted EBITDA targets. Let me remind those ones.
Net cash flow at least at the level of last year, i.e., at least EUR 649 million for the year, and leverage ratio equal or less than 1.9 x. Those elements are taking into account our H1 performance, the expected acceleration we mentioned for H2, in particular on the cost, and we are taking into account the latest estimate related to production for 2024 presented by Standard & Poor's and the latest update, of course, in terms of currency rates. I will turn now for a short information on 2025. We would like to remind you that our 2025 sales ambition, as it was presented in the Capital Market Day back in November 2022, was based, of course, on certain exchange rates which were prevailing at the time.
In the last 18 months, currencies have evolved negatively versus euro and impact the top line that we can project by close to EUR 1.5 billion. This impact is primarily linked to the depreciation of U.S. dollar and RMB versus euro compared to this period, but also to the impact of hyperinflation in specific countries, which are Argentina and Turkey, where we operate. Lastly, the evolution of market condition could lead to another adjustment to the previous objective that should not exceed EUR 500 million. As a consequence, taking those two factors into account, we are therefore reevaluating our 2025 sales target to between EUR 28 billion and EUR 28.5 billion versus the initial ambition of circa EUR 30 billion in revenues. Arguably, those evolution in sales will have some impact on the progress of the operating margin and cash flow that we can generate.
To give elements in this direction, the drop-through that we can expect on the translation impact is around 10%, which is concerning the EUR 1.5 billion revenue, so the vast majority of what we are talking about, and on the more volume and mixed uncertainties, the fall-through will be more in the 15%-20% range in operating margin. Let me stress, however, that we expect strong increase in 2025 versus 2024 in both operating margin and net cash flow generation. We expect operating margin to be boosted by the continuous improvement of the profitability of the different business groups. You have seen the progress in Seating. You have seen the progress in Clean Mobility. You see the evolution in Lighting. We have only one topic that is lagging, which is Interiors, and we are tackling this. The continued synergies of the combination.
We expect cumulative synergies of at least EUR 350 million by 2025, and sizable additional synergies will materialize in our numbers in 2025. On top of this, our further actions on fixed cost reductions, not only in R&D, but also SG&A, on the back of EU -FORWARD, artificial intelligence, and digitalization have a clear impact. In complement, you have additional elements that will further improve the conversion in cash flow. The progress of the managed by cash program is now more and more visible. You have seen that we are getting traction on CapEx and inventories. This will continue and will enlarge on the inventory topic, and this will be also the case in the R&D since if gross costs are improving, the capitalization will be lower.
The reduction of our gross debt will also benefit our financial costs and will allow a gradual decrease of this value. Last but not least, our tax charge will normalize thanks to a better geographical mix of our profitability and in particular with the better performance in Europe, as well as what you have seen on the withholding tax recovery on dividends from Forvia HELLA to Forvia. This enhanced net cash flow generation, combined with the expected proceeds from the finalization of the second disposal program, will both contribute to accelerate the reduction of the debt, to accelerate the deleveraging of the group, and hit our central Power 25 objective, which is to get below 1.5 x by the end of 2025.
In this context, we are confirming the central objective of Power 25, and we are adjusting the sales evolution, taking into account this evolution mostly of foreign currencies from EUR 30 billion to EUR 28.5 billion in revenues. We expect strong improvements and development of operating margin and net cash flow generation. We will further update the sales target when we will announce the results 2024 in February. Of course, at the time, we will also detail the targets on operating margin and net cash flow of 2025. But those upcoming evolutions will not have any impact on our Power 25 ambition. We will be below 1.5 x in net debt to EBITDA.
As stated by Patrick, our confidence to execute and close the second disposal program by the end of 2025, combined with the growth of our cash flow generation and our cash flow performance, leads us to confirm this target, which is about rebalancing the financial structure of the company. To highlight this, I would like to show you what we are talking about. We are talking about returning by the end of 2025 to the leverage that we had pre-acquisition, which was at 1.6. We are talking about a reduction of EUR 2 billion of the debt by the end of this year and to more than EUR 3 billion in debt by the end of next year. This is not only the disposal. This is about our cost actions and, of course, our conversion in cash thanks to the managed by cash program.
So we expect, in fact, to have a reduction of the debt, which is higher than what we committed during the investor day. The number that was mentioned was EUR 6 billion. You see here that we are talking about a reduction that is going further in order to have not only the reduction of the leverage, but also the reduction of the financial cost so that we have a full absorption of the acquisition of Hella. On this note, I hand back to Patrick for the conclusion.
Thank you, Olivier. This will be our last slide before the Q&A. And I would like to summarize the presentation of our performance for the first half, starting with thanks. Thanks to the commitment and hard work of our teams, we progressed on all our key financial metrics.
We recorded a positive organic growth of 2.7% with a market outperformance of 290 basis points, 460 basis points excluding the geographical mix. We gained new businesses aligned with industry mega trends. Our strong order intake includes significant steps with Chinese OEMs in Asia and in the rest of the world. We generated a solid net cash flow in amount and quality. We moved forward in the refinancing of the group with new important steps for our debt maturities. We made good progress with EU-FORWARD, on track with our initial assumptions, and developed new synergies with Forvia HELLA. Collectively, we stayed steady, focused, and determined to achieve our deleveraging targets, which is the top priority of Forvia. All these elements make us confident that our H2 performance will allow us to reach all our 2024 objectives, as indicated during the presentation.
Now, I'm happy to answer your questions with Olivier, and we might start with the questions in the forum.
A message to our callers. We will now take your questions. You can press star nine and raise your hands. We have a first question from Pierre-Yves Quemener of Stifel. Mr. Quemener, you can press star six and ask your question. Thank you. Mr. Quemener, you can press star six now and ask your question. We move on to our next questions from Sanjay Bhagwani of Citibank.
I think my note works.
Thank you.
Sorry. Good morning to everyone. Just a quick follow-up on the adjustment for 2025 for the sales. And thanks for providing the variance between the previous and the new sales target for 2025 or sales ambition, as you like to put it.
Is it fair to assume that given the drop-through that you also provided for the operating margin, that the new margin ambitions for 2025 could be no longer 7% plus, but more likely 6.5%-6.6% plus? That would be my first question. I've got a second one.
So you understand that what we did, we adjusted the forex to the reality we have today. And this is a mechanical calculation, which might change until next year. We did the same thing about the market assumptions. We have no clear picture today, and we made here again an assumption. Olivier told you that on the forex, the fall-through might be calculated around 10%, and that on the market part, between 15%-20%. With these assumptions, it will be difficult to achieve 7% next year.
But what we also tried to explain is that we will be above what might be expected in normal conditions in terms of pass-through. And so we should be close to it.
Okay. That's very clear. Turning back to H2 2024, I struggle to see the improvement. I understand that sequentially, we might have more volumes in H2 than we have in H1 according to the latest IHS and S&P assumptions. But year on year now, S&P and IHS assumes a decline of 4%, and I would suspect that we are not done yet in terms of revisions for the LVP. So how could you have a better operating leverage if we exclude, of course, the one-offs that you suffered from in H1? Thank you.
You know that traditionally, we do a better second half than a first half. Why this?
If I start with the part below the top line, I will be back to the top line. We have the carry forward of our commercial actions plus the commercial actions in the second half. The same thing for purchasing productivities. We have the carry forward of H1 plus the new actions achieved, which will be achieved in the second half. We have the one-off, which will not exist in the second half. We have cost reductions, and we have accelerated our cost reductions. We have taken very drastic measures. We have EU -FORWARD, which will start to from which we will start to benefit in the second half. And we have the synergies with Hella. On the top line, we have some additional businesses versus H1, which are also related to our growth, which we expect to be at least with an outperformance of 300 basis points.
So we feel confident about our capability to deliver what we announced.
Okay, correct. So if I understand you correctly, Patrick, just my last comment, you still expect to get further price recovery or compensation from OEMs in H2, correct?
Correct.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from.
And just to say that, of course, it contributes to top line, but it contributes to bottom line.
Obviously. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Mr. Bhagwani of Citibank. Mr. Bhagwani, you can press star six and ask your question.
Hello. Thank you very much for taking my question also. I've got two questions as well. The first one is on the free cash flow, ex working capital and factoring. First of all, thank you for providing that as your focus point in the presentation.
So when we think of the full year free cash flow, ex working capital and factoring, are you able to provide some color on this? That, let's say, out of this net cash flow of EUR 650 million, what you are targeting, is it roughly half is going to be ex working capital or ex factoring? And related to that, if I understand it correctly, last year, in total, you had maybe EUR 120 million of one-off taxes. What I see is EUR 68 million is now already recovered. So the rest of them come in H2? That is my first question.
So good morning. So you can expect indeed the continuation of having positive net cash flow outside working capital and factoring will not be contributing because we will return strictly to the EUR 1.3 billion that we have as a target.
There was EUR 20 million last minute, but we will return to EUR 1.3 billion for the year. I think it's close to half. I think we will be between 40%-50%. In terms of tax normalization, so last year, inside the EUR 120, we had mainly this aspect of withholding tax, but there were also some smaller amounts that indeed are not fully there yet and will appear normally in H2. And this is one of the reasons why I'm saying that the tax cash out will be a more normal one in 2024. Going forward, what you can expect is, in fact, that this level will not increase that much, even if profitability will, because one of the key drivers of the improvement in profitability relates to Europe.
In Europe, our actual tax charge is low, given the low profitability we have on top of tax losses that we have in France and Germany. So the average marginal tax increase will be much smaller than what we have faced on the base.
Thank you. That's very helpful. So if I understood it correctly, going forward, the cash taxes, the difference between the cash and the P&L tax narrows down. Is that a correct interpretation?
Correct.
And my second question yeah, sorry. Thank you. And my second question is on the Automotive Apps. I think just the bigger picture theme you just highlighted here with your targeting 20% market share. Are you able to provide some color on where you stand right now in terms of the market share and how big is this opportunity? If you can provide some color on what this opportunity pertains to. Thank you.
What I can tell you is that the 25% for 2025 are almost booked. So we are very confident about achieving these 25% market share. We are speaking about equipped vehicles, just to be clear. And the tendency is also very favorable. Why? Because we are much less demanding in terms of information or data ownership, data privacy, which is kept to the end user and to the OEM when it comes to them. The other thing which is a significant opportunity for them is that we are ready, able to display their apps' possibilities as they want. So you might not recognize that this is coming from one of the key apps providers.
Thank you very much. That's very helpful.
Our next question comes from Christoph Laskawi of Deutsche Bank. Mr. Laskawi, you can press star six and ask your question.
Hey, good morning.
Thank you for taking my questions. Basically, follow-ups. The first one would be sorry if I missed it, but on the interior business, are you already target for the H2 movement, basically starting?
Sorry to interrupt you, but we can't understand you. The line is very bad. Is it now better?
Yes.
Sorry for that. The first question would be just on the interior business. Is the run rate that you target for the H2 margin already achieved, or do you still need to improve in Q3 to get there? Then the second question would just be if you're willing to share any assumption on 2025 with regards to inflation. Should that basically be a net zero, or have you affected anything in the update that you provided today? Thank you.
We were very conservative on Interiors North America for the second half.
In fact, the objective in operating margin is below, significantly below their budget, while we believe that we will do better again because at the end of June, they were back to normal conditions. So we were prudent, but I think that in the current context, this was requested. So in other words, we feel confident that our teams in North America will at least deliver what they have currently in their forecast.
And thank you. That is very helpful. And then just on inflation.
So on inflation, we will see what happens is part of the elements that we will solidify at the time of giving our guidance in details for 2025. But today, we are assuming a marginal inflation. So we are not counting yet on a resolution impact on this topic, which can be a positive, but this is to be confirmed.
Thanks a lot.
Our next question comes from Mr. Thomas Besson of Kepler. Mr. Besson, you can press star six and ask your question. Mr. Besson, you can press star six and ask your question.
Hello. Can you hear me? Now we can. Great. Sorry, I have major technical difficulties to access any documents on this call today. I have a few questions that I also sent in writing because of these difficulties. The first question is, can you explain why you did not exclude the EUR 47 million extraordinary cost in U.S. interior in H1? Why is it included in your figure? It's extraordinary.
To be exact, the interior EBIT margin of 1.4% includes the one-off cost in terms of the launches that we mentioned, the EUR 47 million. The Comaplast litigation and resolution is under the operating margin for EUR 34 million, and this is in the line other expense.
So the interior number includes the launch cost. If you exclude this one-off totally, you will get to a margin of interior in H1 above 3%.
Okay, but the operational costs related to Comaplast are in the P&L also.
Yes, they are in the net income absolutely below the line. And they are in the cash flow, obviously.
Thank you. Can you explain, Olivier, why you have EUR 12 million associate losses in H1 and what we should expect for the year? What is it related to that wasn't there last year?
So further to the evolution of consolidation, the main remaining associate company equity investment is actually Symbio. So it's mainly related to Symbio. You should expect a lower negative in the second half.
Okay. Thank you. Then another question as well, basic. Can you explain why your tooling revenues jumped 45% in H1? Remind us why.
The tooling revenues is to be associated with the number of launches that we had in H1. The number has been particularly high in Interiors in North America, which is the business that has the most tooling revenues. This is one driver, but there was quite a lot of activity in Interiors and growth in Interiors also in the other regions. This is the reason. This is related to the number of new programs and new launches that we had in the period, the organic growth of Interiors.
Thank you very much. Last question, please. Can you guide us for full year 2024 net interest and net restructuring expense, please?
On the financial cost, if I start by the cash, you should expect net net a number close to last year.
Even though the gross debt has decreased, the actions that we have taken, as you have seen, to work on the maturities and to buy back, in some cases, some bonds have one-off impact. So this is an element. Related to the P&L, you have capital gains in H1 related to the disposal. I'm not expecting anything major in the second half in terms of gain and loss on disposal. And the net financial cost in the P&L should be below EUR 500 million, including this capital gain.
Okay. Thank you. And for restructuring expenses?
Alors, for the restructuring, so the first half, as we mentioned, has been quite high. This is related to the number of operations that have been announced. The second half should be lower. I think the restructuring cost for the year should be around EUR 300 million plus.
And cash-wise, the translation of those actions in actual departure depends on the jurisdiction. So there is obviously a lag. There is also in the restructuring cost some non-cash items, i.e., write-off of assets primarily. And so the impact in terms of cash out in restructuring for the year should be around EUR 200 million, slightly up year-on-year. For the full year.
That's all, Cory. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Michael Jacks from Bank of America. Mr. Jacks, the line is open. You can press star six and ask your question.
Hi. Good morning, Patrick, Olivier. Thanks for taking my questions as well. My first question, customer mix was strongly negative for you and most other suppliers in the first half of the year.
How robust do you believe your assumptions are here in the second half, particularly in relation to your D3 customers in the US, given their current high inventory levels? I'll stop there if it's okay and ask my subsequent questions after that.
Especially in the U.S., given the level of inventories of the Detroit Three.
Okay.
So they do not have, by the way, they do not have the same level of inventories all of them. I'm particularly having in mind GM, which has a very reasonable level of inventories. And we are not significantly dealing with the one which has the highest inventory level. But what we believe is that the market in North America is robust. We've seen it in the first half, and we are not really concerned about the volumes we consider for the second half.
The risks are more related to the European market and to the Chinese market. But in both cases, we also believe that there are elements which could boost the growth of these two markets.
Understood. Thank you, Patrick. Do you expect your European customers to increase their production already in the fourth quarter of this year in anticipation of meeting their 2025 CO2 emission targets, or do you think this will likely just be delayed to 2025? And what is the content factor that you have on BEV programs as compared to ICE programs?
I tried to explain that when you consider the suppliers which are directly related to a powertrain, we have about the same sales and profitability independently if it's on hybrid ICE or on BEV. So we are agnostic from this point of view.
Where we might have an impact is when we have an ad hoc development for a given car, and this car might be on BEV, and this car might sell less well as forecasted. But this is the risks we always had independently from the powertrain. So our exposure to it is limited with the exception of some electronics subsystems.
I understand. Thank you. And then maybe just one final accounting-related question for Olivier. How much of the P&L and cash financial expense related to premiums paid for these bond buybacks? Just want to get a sense for the underlying expense and cash outflow. Thank you.
I think we can say between EUR 20 million and EUR 30 million in H1.
Very clear. Okay. Thank you.
Our last question comes from José Asumendi of JPMorgan. Mr. Asumendi, the line is open. You can press star six and ask your question.
Thank you very much. I have a couple of questions, please. Patrick, can you please address a little bit the profitability that the company is delivering in Europe and how the restructuring measures you're taking will accelerate the EBIT margin? It looks to me like at this stage where we stand in terms of volumes post-semiconductor and COVID crisis, you should be 1-2 percentage points higher at this stage. So can you please address a little bit the capacity, the size of your plants, and how the restructuring measures will lift the margins in Europe in the next 12 months? And then second, can you talk a little bit about the proportion of all the backlog or revenues in Asia from your Chinese OEMs and how the recent joint venture with Chery will accelerate this order backlog, sustaining the profitability in China at a double-digit rate? Thank you.
The first one is if I. I'm sorry. Let me repeat the question, and José will correct me if I'm mistaken.
Profitability in Europe and restructuring measures to improve margins in Europe?
So the impact of the restructuring and the EBIT margin evolution in Europe and level of utilization of capacity.
Okay.
T o give you an indication, in terms of payback of our restructuring costs, we are between two and three years. And for the first ones we have done, we are closer to two years. Of course, the benefit will happen when the people will have left the company. What we also haven't taken into account when we presented the plan are the savings which are related to transfers from high-cost countries to low-cost countries related to the massification and the better absorption of fixed costs.
So these savings will start in the second half, and they will be significant in 2025. About the backlog, you spoke on China. So yes, we expected SOPs earlier this year, especially with Chery and with Li Auto. These ones are now in the pipe. They will happen in the second half. They will be significant for us, especially for Chery. We have a scope which is significantly higher than the average. What I also would like to say is that with BYD, we have signed in the last days a very important and significant contract which is dealing with the volumes, with the market share, with BYD on a global scale.
May I follow up on BYD? When you say on a global scale, can we think which region will benefit the most? Is it South Asia? Is it Latin America? Or is it a bit of everything?
Does it include Europe? If I may ask.
It is. So we spoke about Thailand, which is done. We have now the award for Hungary. We will not have all of them. BYD, as you know, has also an in-house production, Fuda, which will also get some of these programs. But they count on us to support them on their international deployment, which is not easy. And I think that the market share we will have in the deployment of BYD internationally will be superior to the one we have in China.
Thank you, Patrick.
Thank you.
That was our last question. Thank you very much. We have one on the screen. The question is from Peter Rothenaicher.
Please explain the free cash flow ambition for 2025, 4% of sales of roughly EUR 1.1 billion versus the guidance for 2024 of better than 2.3% because it's free cash flow above EUR 649 million. What will drive that improvement?
So first off, if we give a guidance on cash flow of at least EUR 649 million, it means at least EUR 649 million. The second point is that the strong improvement in operating margin will drive improvement of the EBITDA, which is a key element of the growth of the net cash flow. And then below the EBITDA is to ensure that the EBITDA growth is fully translated in cash. How to do that?
To continue to have a contribution from the working capital, not at all the type of value that you have seen in the past, but there will be continuing benefits on the inventories also in 2025 as we streamline our operation and normalize it. And this is also an indirect benefit of the EU-FORWARD project. Besides the working capital, the most recurrent improvement is about CapEx and is about R&D capitalization, which are expected to go down in absolute terms next year and allow that the other lines which are related to restructuring are able to be fully offset. So increase in operating margin, translating in increase in EBITDA, and this EBITDA improvement translating in net cash flow. The magnitude of which is, of course, will depend on a few factors, and we will give the detailed guidance about this.
But you will have a strong increase of net cash flow next year. That will be a key factor of reducing our debt on top of the disposals.
Thank you, Olivier. We have another question from Ross MacDonald. Regarding the BYD strategic cooperation in Hungary, was this project included in the initial EU-FORWARD margin estimate of 7% for Europe by 2028? Do you expect the profitability of the BYD business in Europe to be significantly accretive to this 7% target? Patrick, you suggested the BEV slowdown is probably temporary in our opening remarks. Can you comment on how the group is positioned should we see a push back to the 2035 BEV mandate in Europe? Would this be a net positive or negative for Forvia, overall based on your customer profile in the region? So the first question.
No, the Hungary project of BYD was not included in EU-FORWARD and in the EU-FORWARD margin estimate. Do we expect the profitability of the BYD business in Europe to be significantly accretive ? It will be at the level of our target. You suggested the BEV slowdown is probably temporary. Yes, I do. I think that regulations will support an increase in battery electric vehicles. And I do believe that these vehicles are better than ICE vehicles on many aspects and that they will continue to develop. We were clear from day one. This cannot be a linear growth. We will have stop-and-goes. We will have slowdowns. We will have accelerations. But I think the trend is not put in question. I just said before that we are on both.
We have a content per vehicle and a profitability which is perfectly comparable for ICEs/hybrid ICEs and battery electric vehicles. So for us, this is neutral. And what we have to do is to be clear on what are the vehicles we believe in and where we want to invest and cooperate.
I think this is the last one. I don't see any new question.
Okay. So I would like to thank you very much for your attention. I also would like to conclude in telling you that you have in front of you a Forvia team federated, fully committed to achieve the presented targets. Thank you very much.
Thank you.