Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our 2025 Half Year Results Call. I'm presenting this morning together with our CFO Olivier Durand. I'll start by sharing our H1 highlights, then Olivier will walk you through the financial results, and in the end I'll wrap up with our outlook for the rest of the year. Starting with our H1 highlights, I will present them as three distinct chapters that match the three pillars of our performance, transformation, and culture. I'm very pleased, in fact, to report that we have made solid progress on all three of these priorities that we set out earlier this year. First, our drive for best-in-class performance is reflected in increased operating margin and stronger cash flow. Second, our business transformation has gained further momentum both in terms of portfolio review and disposal execution.
Third, when it comes to invigorating our culture, we are reorganizing and simplifying our operating model. This will support a more agile and efficient organization. These three priorities are being emphasized by two key management changes. Olivier Lefebvre has been appointed to Group COO with a clear objective to drive performance. Carla Gohin has been recruited as Group Strategy Officer, also in charge of technology and innovation. She will drive the business transformation of the group. Both of them work closely with me and the executive committee to shape FORVIA's value creation. Let's move to the results. As you can see in the summary chart, in H1 we have delivered a series of solid financial metrics. All of them confirm the trajectory of our full year guidance. We managed an organic sales growth of 1.1% whereas product sales in fact grew by 2.9%.
Strict cost control, effective tariff mitigation, and the impact of our EU Forward program supported the operating margin, which grew by 20 basis points to 5.4%. Our net cash flow increased significantly and is of higher quality than before. EUR 418 million are mainly driven by stronger EBITDA as well as CapEx reduction and lower capitalized research and development costs. We were able to reduce our net debt by almost EUR 200 million. Together with the increased EBITDA, our leverage ratio came down to 1.8 times. This performance really reflects the dedication and the hard work of our team. They are all so committed and have been so essential for us to drive these results. In H1, we are ready to keep moving forward while continuing strict cost and cash management. We will improve industrial efficiency and fix our underperforming plants. Now let's turn our attention to the H1 growth story.
I'll begin with China, the largest and fastest growing market, which is FORVIA's first country for sales. We hold strong positions in China thanks to our footprint, our innovation, and an extremely strong team driving our local for local developments. We have significant manufacturing presence in China, and this is further strengthened now by two new plants that reinforce our positioning with Chinese automakers. We have launched a new plant for BYD in our Seating business, and we now have a manufacturing setup next to each BYD factory in China. With Chery, we have also commissioned a new plant. On the supply side, to increase our competitiveness and innovation, we have founded a local JV with FAW in Seating.
Our local for local technologies were also recognized with more than 10 new business awards, and customer-facing innovations such as Zen massage, zero gravity seats, and kinematic displays open new revenue pools both in China and beyond. More broadly, we achieved strong commercial success in China during the first half of the year. 30% of our global order intake comes from China, two-thirds of which was with Chinese automakers. More specifically, we have secured significant contracts with BYD, Chery, and another electric vehicle manufacturer. Industrial excellence and innovation continue to drive our success in China. This brings me to my final slide on H1 performance. This is order intake. We booked EUR 14 billion of new orders across our different products and regions. Some new programs and their tenders were delayed due to the business impact our customers experienced from tariffs. This was particularly obvious in North America.
On the other hand, we can benefit from extended life cycles of existing models without having to invest in new developments. Lastly, upfront costs are steadily decreasing on new contracts that we signed. Looking a bit deeper at the composition of our order intake shows that Asia and Electronics are the key growth drivers for the group. Asia accounts for 36% of our order intake compared to 25% of FORVIA sales in the first half of the year. Beyond the very positive acquisitions in China, we have also secured strategically important businesses in India and in Korea. We gained first time access to specific markets with two Japanese and one Chinese customer. The Electronics business also recorded strong commercial success, representing 34% of our order intake. Business of high strategic relevance for Electronics was bipped in the fields of zone controllers.
Here, we obtained several orders for two European premium manufacturers for a total amount of over EUR 1 billion. We were also successful in battery management systems for a U.S. customer. Last, not least, we secured several radar applications in Europe. Now, still staying on our first priority, performance, I would like to introduce a new initiative, Project Simplify. We constantly need to work on our cost base to remain competitive. Following the EU Forward Program, which aims to restore industrial performance in Europe, we are launching a new global plan. It is designed to generate additional savings on SG&A and indirect cost. Here, we activate a number of levers in this regard. Looking at our organizational structure, we are going to reduce the number of layers, non-value add activities are being dropped, and we are going to work on lean and automated processes.
The rollout of the program has started, and we expect EUR 110 million in annual cost savings by 2028, with cumulative restructuring costs of EUR 150 million between 2025 and 2028. Let me now turn to an update on the second pillar of our three transformation. Our business transformation efforts are in full motion. Our goal is to forge a future portfolio that comprises businesses in which FORVIA covers a true leadership position in the whole world market. This portfolio will be focused on what we do best, especially the core technologies where we are the strongest. This is where we can create the best long-term value. We have been performing a portfolio review of all our six business groups and 24 product lines to identify higher synergies, for example in the Electronics area, to simplify the scope and to dispose of certain activities.
As a result, an increasing number of assets may qualify for disposals. Furthermore, I want to confirm that we are progressing well with the process of sizable disposals. One product line requires special comments this time. These are our hydrogen solutions. You have certainly noticed that Stellantis is discontinuing its activities, and Olivier will detail in the financial section the provision made on SYMBIO due to the Stellantis decision. Nevertheless, we continue to believe in the strategic role of hydrogen in decarbonizing mobility, albeit with a clear market delay. Therefore, we are taking this reality into account. We are slowing down our own hydrogen investments also on the tank side, and we are limiting cash consumption. In conclusion, we have a multitude of actions underway to support our top priority, which is deleveraging the group. Let's now turn to our third strategic priority: invigorating FORVIA's culture.
Accountability and empowerment are the two key drivers of our future performance. A highly efficient organizational setup and operating model form the base. Therefore, we are making some major changes to our organization. Looking at the current setup and exchanging with many of our leaders globally, I concluded that we suffered from two key problems. First, there are redundant and at times conflicting P&L responsibilities on the EXCOMM level between the global business groups and the regions. Secondly, when getting to the operational units, namely the plants and the divisions, there are too many interactions within the matrix. This undermines empowerment and autonomy. Going forward, we will have one clear and linear flow of the P&L from plants to divisions to business groups and then to FORVIA. In terms of organization, we are becoming division-centric. As a reminder, the division is the regional unit of a global business group.
We are going to fully empower the divisions who are close to their respective markets and operations. This way we will increase customer proximity, adaptability to the specific regional market needs, and speed of decision making. Divisions will be fully equipped with all the functions and resources to run their businesses and therefore truly own their P&L responsibility. Before I hand over to Olivier to lead through the financial results, let me recap by saying that at the end of H1, FORVIA is now heading in the right direction on performance, transformation, and a culture of greater accountability. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the EXCOMM and all the FORVIA teams around the globe for their great efforts to deliver on our three priorities in H1. Olivier, handing over to you.
Thank you Martin and good morning everyone. I will present the financial results of FORVIA for the first semester 2025. Let me start with revenues. In the first half, sales reached EUR 13.5 billion, up 1.1% organically. This growth was driven by strong double-digit performance in Electronics and solid momentum in Seating. Actually, the product sales increased by 2.9% versus last year, basically in line with global vehicle production which grew by 3.1% in the first semester. This increase, however, was partly offset by tooling sales that came back to a more recurrent level after the exceptionally high value that we recorded in H1 2024, as many programs were launched in North America in that period. On a reported basis, sales were down slightly by 0.4%. This is coming from currency effects. They turned negative in Q2 with the euro strengthening against all major currencies: the U.S. dollar, the Chinese yuan, and importantly for us, the Turkish lira as well, for a total impact of 1.5% negative on the revenues.
Looking ahead at current exchange rates, we expect currency effect to reduce our second half revenues by at least EUR 500 million. Let me look at our performance versus the market. Our organic growth of 1.1% represents an underperformance of 2 points compared to the global automotive production. However, if we adjust for the unfavorable geographical mix, which weighted close to 4 points in H1 given the difference in market growth between Europe and other regions, FORVIA actually outperformed the market by around 2 points. If I go in more detail by regions, in Europe, sales grew despite a significant market decline, which translates into a strong outperformance in the region driven by Seating, Electronics, and Lighting.
In North America, sales declined in line with the market volume and, adjusted for the reduction of the tooling sales returning to a more recurrent level, our product sales outperformed the market in North America supported by Electronics and Clean Mobility. In China, sales grew 1.5% organically. Even though we have been underperforming in this market in H1, let me highlight that we continue to grow our activity and presence with Chinese OEMs, with whom we grew 13% organically in the period. In Asia outside China, we delivered double-digit growth and stronger performance supported by the development of our activities with different Japanese OEMs. Now let me turn to the operating margin. It improved by 20 basis points year on year, reaching 5.4% of sales or EUR 722 million.
First, let me highlight that tariffs had a marginal impact on those results thanks to adjustments on our footprint and work by the North American team with our suppliers and our customers. The main driver of the margin improvement was the execution in our cost reduction programs, which allowed us to reduce our fixed cost in the period by EUR 9.90 million. We see the first tangible benefits of EU Forward activities with a 100 basis points margin improvement in EMEA from 3.1% to 4.1%, as well as the continuation of the synergies with FORVIA. On the downside, we face negative currency effect, the translation of our activities in U.S. dollar and Chinese Yuan, and a high level of amortization which peaked in the first half. The key takeaway of the operating margin is that we have been able to accelerate the structural reduction of our cost base.
We delivered a performance richer in cash compared to last year as shown by the strong increase in our EBITDA margin, which is actually up 100 basis points year on year. How does this translate by business groups? Seating and Electronics were the main drivers of the margin progression thanks to operating leverage on the additional activities. Interiors also contributed even though from a low base. We saw noticeable improvements in Europe, but operational challenges impacted North America. As we said in our Q1 call, a dedicated task force is on those topics. We achieved noticeable progress in the back half of the period and H2 will show further positive developments there. Lighting margin decreased from 5.0% to 4.4%, penalized by lower volumes as well as some specific issues in North America. We do expect some improvements in H2, especially in North America.
Clean Mobility maintained a very solid margin despite lower sales and a less favorable customer mix. When I exclude hydrogen storage activities, our exhaust system business stayed around double digit margin and finally Life Cycle Solutions showed a drop in operating margin year on year. However, you may remember that profitability significantly deteriorates in H2 2024 on the b ack of low volume. The situation is improving with actually a sequential improvement of 260 basis points versus H2 2024, driven by restructuring and pricing actions. Margin is therefore returning progressively towards the normal level of a double digit profitability. Let's now look at the full income statement of FORVIA. FORVIA is posting a net loss of EUR 269 million in H1. This is mainly due to one specific one-off and the current high level of restructuring charges.
The one-off cost is linked to SYMBIO, our joint venture with Michelin and Stellantis, which is focused on hydrogen fuel cell technologies. As already mentioned by Martin, Stellantis, which represented 80% of SYMBIO's expected volumes, decided to end its hydrogen activities. This created significant operational and financial risk for SYMBIO. Consequently, we have booked a non-cash charge of a depreciation of our financial assets in the joint venture for a total of EUR 136 million. On restructuring, the charges are fully in line with the ramp-up of the EU Forward program. In the first half, we announced an additional 2,100 headcount reductions, bringing the total to 5,000 since the start of the program, and we are ahead of our initial schedule. These charges also include restructuring costs in North America aimed at streamlining the organization in the context of the tariffs and as a consequence, lower activity in the U.S. market.
Finally, I would like to make the comparison with H1 2024. The difference between the two years is solely related to one-offs. We had last year a positive one-off coming from a capital gain of EUR 134 million related to the sale of the stake in BHTC to AU. Now let me go to the net cash flow on page 17. In the first half, net cash flow more than doubled compared to H1 2024, reaching EUR 418 million. This improvement was not only in quantity but also in quality. It came from two sustainable drivers. The first one, the increase in EBITDA of EUR 127 million. The second one, the reduction in investments, CAPEX, and capitalized R&D. The reduction has been EUR 232 million in the period. More specifically, tangible CAPEX were down 35%, reflecting strict cash discipline.
The footprint reduction in Europe as well as shift in some programs' capitalized R&D followed the same trend, mirroring the optimization in our R&D investments. Both reductions reflect our efforts to reduce upfront costs and benefits coming from EU Forward restructuring. Importantly, this net cash flow was achieved with no net contribution from working capital and factory. However, for the year, we expect still around EUR 200 million of positive working capital contribution, which will be mainly from inventory reductions. For the rest of the cash flow, let me highlight that the increase in tax cash out is only due to the refund last year of the withholding tax of EUR 68 million, which was related to an extraordinary dividend received from FORVIA Hella the year before. Net of this effect, tax cash out would have been reduced by EUR 22 million year on year.
Finally, below the net cash flow, when we deduct dividends to minorities and the impact of IFRS 16 on new lease, the net debt decreased actually by EUR 193 million to EUR 6.3 billion. Combined with the higher EBITDA, the net cash flow generation allows us to reduce our leverage ratio by 0.2 times to 1.8 times at the end of the semester. To conclude this financial review of H1 results, let me look at the debt maturity and profile. In the first half, we have been active on the debt market, issuing close to EUR 1.7 billion in new debts to extend our maturities. This allows us a further improvement of our financial debt profile. We have cleared most of the 2025 and 2026 maturities and start addressing the 2027 ones. We have been able to spread our debt more evenly over the following years.
We also continue to diversify our funding sources, notably by issuing our first ever bond on the U.S. bond market, which is, as you know, the largest in the world. On top of the EUR 193 million reduction in net debt, we also reduced the gross cash by EUR 128 million, which means that our gross debt was reduced by EUR 321 million. In this context, we confirm our ambition to lower our gross cash position by EUR 500 million for the full year from EUR 4.5 billion to EUR 4 billion through enhanced cash pooling and cash upstreaming. This will extend the reduction of our gross debt beyond the net cash flow generation. On this note, I hand over back to you, Martin. Thank you.
Olivier, thank you. Let's go into the outlook for the remainder of the year 2025 and looking forward, it is clear the automotive production is forecasted by S&P Global to be flat compared to H1, but facing a 2.2% decline compared to H2 of prior year. The geomix, however, which was a clear headwind in H1, should stabilize for us in H2. Uncertainty and volatility in general remain high, which is why we will maintain the same focus as in the first half, prioritizing the following four actions. We continue our strict cost and cash discipline. We seize opportunities in all regions. That means we continue the implementation of EU Forward in Europe, we will further stabilize underperforming operations in North America, and we are going to leverage our new program launches in China. Number three, we are going to further pursue our disposal process with full attention.
Number four, we are going to implement the new organizational setup and push the simplified project as introduced today. Let me tell you, five months into the role, I can say that we have nicely aligned on the goals and priorities within FORVIA's Executive Committee and the H1 results show that we also deliver as a team. Therefore, I'm happy to confirm all elements of our 2025 guidance and the leverage target for 2026 as communicated in the beginning of the year. In summary, our three priorities of performance, transformation, and a culture of accountability and empowerment offer a solid foundation for a new strategic plan. I personally look forward to presenting this new plan to you during our Capital Markets Day on February 24, 2026. With this, we are arriving at the end of the prepared remarks and we are opening up for Q&A.
Press star and one on the telephone you will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. Our first question comes from Thomas Besson from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you very much. It's Thomas at Kepler Cheuvreux. I have a couple of questions, please. I'd like to start with the impressive decline in CapEx. If I calculated correctly, 25% decline, we managed to beat the 3% decline at Valeo and 13% at Clean Mobility. Can you talk about the sustainability of that? I mean, what are you targeting for the second half of the year? What do you need to spend in 2026?
You've slightly reduced the orders, but the magnitude of the decline in CapEx is quite impressive. Second question, Olivier, I think you insisted on the reduced gross cash, gross debt. Could you talk about the impact we should expect this to have on your net financial expenses? What should we project for 2025 and what do you think it should impact 2026? Thank you.
Alright, good morning, Thomas. Good having you on the line. Let's start with your CAPEX question. Indeed, we work CAPEX and R&D very carefully in the first half. The good news is that there are true reductions in gross R&D, so that when we capitalize, when we activate, the rate comes down. We have also run a very strict regime on our CAPEX. We discussed that in the last call and said there are many measures we can take, from really designing lines in a more efficient way, from reusing equipment, in particular here in Europe where we still have sufficient capacity, and also purchasing equipment in the right regions of the world. That all helped bring the values down. There is one timing effect I want to mention as well. Some of the programs got delayed and that obviously helped to hold CAPEX back in H1.
When we go into H2, I still expect us to keep the same good discipline and I also expect us to make progress H2 2025 over H2 2024. It might not be to the same effect, to the same level that you have seen in H1 over H1 2024. Olivier, I would like to ask you to comment a bit better on the growth and net debt questions from Thomas.
Sure. On the gross cash and the gross debt management, we highlighted at the beginning of the year that we want to work on better utilization of the gross cash. We have started and we have the plans to have this reduction of $0.5 billion for the year. Now, from a financial cost point of view, we expect in fact a slight reduction in H2 versus H1. I think it's fairly marginal, and we expect 2025 and 2026 probably to the same level because of the mix of financing costs between what we have today and the renewal. The reduction will happen with sizable disposal on top of the rest. It's encouraging to see that we are able to reduce the gross debt in a significant fashion and we will continue. I would anticipate in fact a bit more in H2 on the reduction of gross debt.
To take it back also on the CAPEX and capitalized R&D question, you were asking for an outlook on top and we come out of ratios of about 8% to 9% in the past four years. You now see approximately 5% in the first half. What we think is a good ratio going forward, and that's a midterm goal, is that we end up in the 7% range on that one.
Very clear. Thank you, Martin. Thank you.
The next question comes from Stephen Benhamou from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning all. I have two questions please. The first one is regarding the new restructuring cost. With the new restructuring plan Simplify, can you please give us more color on the phasing regarding the expected savings and restructuring cost? Is it a front end loaded plan or should we expect a more linear impact over the next four years? My second question is regarding the disposal. With the new midterm plan presented at the next CMD, should we expect any significant disposal by this time so that financial targets will be based on the new scope? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks Stephen. Good morning. Let's start with the new restructuring cost that comes with Project Simplify. Project Simplify in its nature, and you have probably captured that from the presentation, is a longer term effort. You heard me talk about the different levers that we have in significant improvement of organizational complexity. You heard me talk about process automation. We plan for the project to span across three years and therefore the savings target of EUR 110 million will be fully in effect after the end of the full implementation by 2028. We have also given the outlook on EUR 150 million of restructuring cost. That's cost that we expect to incur majorly in the years 2026 through 2028 and expect it to be about equally spread.
What is important to me is that we really get into the implementation of Project Simplify and we are onboarding the whole organization and really pushing for rapid execution on that. The target we have given ourselves is that we manage to approach 40% of the savings already in 2026. I hope that shows how decisive we are putting this new program into action. Your question on the disposals. First of all, let me tell you, we are still working full speed on these disposals. The news that I can share at this point in time is that we have positive market feedback on these sizable disposals. We push so there is interest both from financial and strategic investors. You heard me out this morning from these portfolio reviews, we see additional opportunity for disposals of businesses.
In terms of timing, we are fully engaged and we stick to our commitment. I reiterated that to bring the leverage ratio down to 1.5 times for next year. Obviously I understand how eager you are to understand what is the more precise and more concrete timing. Here I would really like to stay with a bit of openness. You remember our negotiations will depend on being free negotiations, not being time pushed but clear confirmation of 1.8 times leverage ratio for this year and 1.5 times for next year.
Alright, thank you so much.
The next question comes from Michael Foundoukidis from Oddo . Please go ahead.
Yes, hi, Michael from Oddo. First, congrats on the results. Two questions. The first one still on the disposals. You mentioned some possible sizable disposals in the future following the portfolio review. Could you tell us if it could be up to one of the six businesses or should we look more at product lines? Second question is on the new cost saving plan. You mentioned some new SG&A initiatives. Do you have a quantitative ambition in % of sales for SG&A? Maybe a last one that I can sneak in. On SYMBIO, you flagged the non-cash provision in H1, but any restructuring actions, cost, or cash out that we should expect in H2 or 2026 related to that? Thank you.
Good. Let's start with the disposals. Michael, good having you on the line as well. We are talking about sizable disposals and you can think of that at least by business groups, but we can also think of geographies. I don't want to fuel any speculations anymore. We want to really treat that in a very serious and responsible manner. That's why I'm not giving too much and too many hints yet on the type of it. Remember we said we want to make $1 billion worth of disposal in that next step. You can conclude from that it's really sizable units that we are approaching. With regard to simplify, I gave you numbers on SG&A and indirect cost savings.
We would like to refer the question on what are all the financial metrics for SG&A, for CapEx intensity, and so on to our Capital Markets Day in February because with the kind of portfolio shape up that you will see coming from the disposals on the one hand side and then from structuring the Future Core of FORVIA, this will impact those ratios obviously. Bear with us to have that information. In the meanwhile, we're really happy to update on the concrete numbers as we go here semester over semester. Last, not least, on the SYMBIO situation. Right now our focus is really taking our responsibility as one of the three shareholders of SYMBIO.
It is to Stellantis, Michelin, and ourselves now to judge the situation where 80% of our sales of our customer is gone, and we live up to the responsibilities that we have under the joint venture contract. We'll now see what the future of SYMBIO is. To your question, what does that mean specifically in potential cash impact or financial implications? We will inform you on the way when we get closer to understand where we take SYMBIO II.
Okay, thanks. Very clear.
The next question comes from Christoph Laskawi from Deutsche Bank . Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions as well. The first one would be also on the disposals and the process you are taking with that. Assuming you are showing the market more than one sizable business, if you were to get a reasonable deal for everything that you show to the market, would you be willing to sell on everything or would you then reevaluate where you get the best value for money and stick with the other businesses? The second question just on China and the potential outperformance in the future, could you point to a point in time when the underperformance will turn again? Obviously you have good order intake with the locals and you have been growing with the local OEMs.
Should we expect H2 already to be better? The last one, just a housekeeping question. I know you commented on that before but I missed it. The working capital assumed for the full year, is it still confirmed to be $300 million? Thank you.
All right. Morning Christoph. Highly relevant questions, I'm happy to go into them. As far as the disposals are concerned, you're right. We have launched multiple routes here, and I'm quite clear that we can achieve good deals on that. We will be moving on those disposals, so there is not going to be choices on those. We are out assuming, as you also said, that there are decent financial terms. Why is that? First of all, we have chosen those assets consciously at the get-go, and in the meanwhile we have more proceeded, as you heard me say, on our portfolio assessments, business group by business group. Through that exercise, we once more confirmed that we are on the right track with those disposals on the way. Question number two talked about China outperformance. When is it going to finally happen?
You saw us lagging behind in half one, which had to do basically with a stronger mix change from the global to the Chinese OEMs. Even though we were growing 13% with the Chinese, that was not strong enough to offset the decline of the global OEMs. When we now look forward into half two in the year-to-year transition, we are slowing down in general with the market growth in China. On the FORVIA side, now our launches go into effect. Those were the announced ones, predominantly with Chery. I would say we have all the instruments in hand to get to our performance in H2. Nevertheless, it's a highly volatile and dynamic market. We are dealing with a bit of overcapacity as we speak. We have certainly a price war going on in the market, and we will have to see how consumers react.
I want to be cautiously optimistic, but also temper the expectations depending on the dynamics that we see in the market. Olivier, I've passed the third question on to you.
Yeah, you mentioned the objective for operating working capital. I think we are focused not only on generation of cash flow, but the sustainability aspect, as you have seen in our H1 results. Even with this, we still have this opportunity on inventory management. We still have 40 days of inventories, and clearly the opportunity is there and we have identified what we call the just needed inventory and we are executing on this. For the year, I would say we expect a contribution from operating working capital of around EUR 200 million, which is solely therefore in H2, given what we did in H1.
The next question comes from José Asumendi from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Very good morning. A couple of questions, please. Can you comment please on the plan you have to improve the profitability of the Interiors Division? What are the key drivers specifically looking into the second half of the year and 2026? Can you help us a bit please? Olivier, on the second half of the first half sequence, what are the pluses or the negatives? As we think about that, maybe potential margin improvement. Second half, the first half and three. Martin, thank you for the comments and the introduction. Also, can you talk a bit more about how you are positioning yourself to improve the outperformance of the business in China? Thank you.
Good. Let me take the first one. José, good morning. First of all, Interior division. We have seen an improvement. Olivier described that in profitability. We have also seen that the operations performance in North America is not to our expectations yet. You remember that in the half one of 2024, the operation suffered from a significant number of launches and also supply problems. We stabilized that in H2 last year, but had a couple of new launches and additional setbacks also in H1. I have, together with the BG leader, been in the U.S. already twice this year to look at the situation. We are reinforcing the teams and our approach to fixing the situation. Let me give you a general comment and observation. When I look at our operations in North America, we have a real opportunity in the first place to become more American in America.
We are still too much of a French company. From all my years of experience, it's really important that we better adjust locally to the culture and to effective leadership. That's what we're doing right now. We have installed a couple of new leaders in those plants that have caused issues in the past. Now we match that better leadership, better focus with the FORVIA excellence system, which is a very powerful instrument when lived with discipline to bring operations up. People are in place, have a clear plan with regards for the excellence system. We track very carefully on high frequency the improvements we make in North America. That's going to push us ahead already in H2 of this year. Olivier, the second question going to you in H1 to H2 sequencing.
Yes. The question is the evolution of the operating margin between H1 and H2. There are different moving parts. Let me say first of all I mentioned the impact of Forex, which will be in fact applicable for the whole semester instead of only one quarter in H1. This impact means a reduction of the absolute value of margin, but not so much about the % in terms of overall revenue. We expect a bit of decline at constant currency given the evolution of the market and the uncertainties in the U.S. market with the evolution of the tariffs. On the positive side, we have the evolution of the operations in North America that Martin mentioned. We have the continuation of the cost savings as the first item, which is cost continuing the benefits of EU Forward and other elements.
We expect this to allow to offset in fact the negatives in terms of volumes, and after, the magnitude will depend on the volume on one side and also the speed of recovery in North America operations.
Yeah, thanks Olivier. José, your third question concerning China outperformance, I assume you mean also in the longer term because I commented already what is in the store for H2 2025. I would like to really comment on how do we keep it going right. That good trend that FORVIA has been on. There are a couple of key ingredients in my eyes. First of all, it's that utmost strong local team in China that is empowered in the good sense that I already described for the new organization. We are stronger in China than anywhere else in the world in terms of empowerment. The team can cater to the needs of the customers and the market at a relevant speed and with a good focus on China cost all over.
There is another point that really keeps us in the game and makes us grow and that's these innovations that I also briefly touched on. We want to be first to our Chinese customers with new product in particular. Customer facing product is so well wanted because that's how our customers, the OEM, can differentiate and that's a good trend for FORVIA. We have started inventing product and technology in China because first of all there's the competencies and then there's the speed to market where from an initial idea to an SOP in a vehicle, we have seen examples of 12 to 18 months and that is particularly strong. We are going to seize these opportunities also globally.
Later this year we have decided that our EXCOMM is going to have a session in China directly and the core of that session is going to be a technology demonstration by the Chinese team. We want to spur innovation not only locally but also utilize that globally. Differentiation through technology is our way to keep the good growth in China. Okay, we cannot hear the questions. I saw Stephanie was getting in line.
Hi, thank you very much for taking my question. I just had a few. Thank you very much for talking about your goals for gross debt reduction. You outlined those on the previous CMD, but just from a credit investors perspective, could we get an update on your overall goals in the intermediate term for your gross debt balance as well as your ideal cash balance either on an absolute level or in terms of trailing 12 month sales. My next question is just on the order book which you did point out you have seen the decline, but it would be helpful to get updates on profitability levels on that versus your current LTM operating margins.
Good, Stephanie, thanks for the two questions. Olivier, why don't you go ahead on the cash balance.
Yeah, so I think there were three questions. One on the leverage, leverage mid term, the second on the cash on the gross cash level mid term, and also the third one was on the quality of the order book, I think in particular the profitability. On the leverage, you know that our objective is to be below 1.5 times by the end of 2026 from organic performance complemented by sizable disposals. We consider that this will be already putting back the balance sheet in a better shape. We are considering to go further on the mid term. We know that investment grade eligibility is something like 1.2 times. This is one of the elements that we are looking at in the context of our strategic plan and in preparation of the capital market day. Compared to considering cash, we started the year with EUR 4.5 billion.
We aim to finish at EUR 4 billion at the end of this year. My objective is to get to EUR 3.5 billion mid term, preferably end of 2026. On the order book profitability, I think the order book profitability was of a good quality. The margins are above the current margins we are getting and in line with the type of profitability we have seen on the order book recently. Let me also highlight that the upfront continue to go down not only in absolute but also in percentage, which is very important because this is the driver in fact of the recurrent cash flow performance. It defines the level of investment we need to do on a going forward basis. As important as the profitability.
All right, I think that covers both questions. Stephanie.
Thank you very much.
L adies and gentlemen. That was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Martin Fischer for any closing remarks.
I think before we do that, if you don't mind, we have received a written question, so I will read it. Hi, this is Michael Niedzielski, and I hope I pronounce your name properly, from ROCE Capital. Given the better than expected free cash flow in H1 and the fact that you still expect $200 million positive cash flow contribution from working capital in H2, why not increasing the free cash flow full year guidance beyond its current, its previous guidance level?
Olivier, maybe before you answer, let me tell you. First of all, we keep pushing and you have seen from the H1 results that both on the operating income side and the cash side, we hold the organization really tight and accountable for the results. That is definitely going to continue into H2. Olivier, maybe you can comment a little bit about the ins and outs that we expect.
Two things. Number one, the guidance is to be above the level of last year, EUR 655 million. We confirm this one and indeed with the results of H1 it's a fairly encouraging start, but we have to continue in this direction. The moving parts are clearly the volume level, which is expected to be lower in H2 as a combination of forex evolution as well as the actual production volume. The second is CAPEX will be down year on year in H2 as well, but probably not at the same magnitude as what you have seen in H1. The last is that we will have sequentially more restructuring in H2, but the goal is to continue to have increased performance in net cash flow, in value, and in quality.
We have received a second question on the second return question from Vanessa Jeffries on the topic of customer hesitation around orders. Would you expect orders to ramp up in the second half now that there is more clarity on the tariff situation.
Vanessa, let me say it is good that we get that clarity into the system. However, there are still tariffs throughout the world. We had the announcement last night on Europe, and this will continue to be a burden on our customers and on the industry. Yes, it might get a bit more clarity and certainty which investment decisions can be based on. Overall, I would still expect a certain hesitance, a certain delay in investments because all OEMs, all suppliers will have to keep financial results in the focus.
We receive. In the meantime, another written question from Samuel Joab from Prince Partners. Hello. Can you please update on factoring program this year and next, please. Thanks. On the factoring, you know that we have this commitment to remain below EUR 1.3 billion since, in fact, the acquisition of Hella. This is actually what happened in the first half. I confirm that, in fact, we will be below this level in the future. EUR 1.3 billion is the max that we allow ourselves on factoring. This is one funding source among others. We monitor the cost and therefore the value with this cap.
Okay, there's no further questions on the chat, which brings me to a brief summary. First of all, I want to thank the teams and the leaders at FORVIA for having delivered on an H1. That was very important to me personally, taking over the lead in March, that nothing would fall through the cracks in terms of operational performance. At the same time, our three strategic priorities, performance and transformation, as well as cultural invigoration, are in full swing. It's going down the way that we say, hey, we are going to achieve a recurrent and very structural performance the way we lead the group forward right now. Stay tuned. I want to thank you for really your continuous guidance and for your interest in FORVIA. I already look forward to our next call. Thank you very much.
Thank you.