Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Michelin Conference Call. I now hand over to Mr. Florent Menegaux, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Yves Chapot, General Manager and Group CFO. Gentlemen, please go ahead.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us tonight for our semester results. In a highly volatile environment that I am sure everyone has noticed. I would like to emphasize the very solid profile of our group. What we can see on the slide is that we have very engaged and agile teams. We have an 85% engagement rate in 2025, which puts us in a very good position in terms of engagement. We have the ability to cope with crises quickly and to adapt, and we also have a very strong innovative background. We have built over time robust financials, a high level of profitability and cash generation, and a strong balance sheet. All major agencies rating at A level, with Scope and Moody’s reaffirming their notation a few weeks ago. Our local sourcing strategy pays dividends, especially in this time.
70% of our U.S. sales is produced in the US. And the same U.S. sales, 90% of the same U.S. sales, is USMCA compliant. Our business profile is very balanced, both in terms of destination markets and geographies, and this participates to our resilience in turbulent times. We are evolving in a very challenging and unpredictable context. First, public regulations that are appearing everywhere. We have duties, EUDR, taxes, and all in all these new duties, taxes, regulations have a negative impact of more than EUR 100 million on our group results in the first semester of 2025. Forex as well, and I am referring mainly to the U.S. dollar/euro exchange rate, is evolving very quickly, and we started the year with a positive FX assumption for 2025, and now we see a negative impact with a euro appreciating sharply versus most currencies, especially the U.S. dollar.
We also have risk on global growth and the consequence of economic and geopolitical uncertainty. Businesses hate uncertainties in the context. We have taken actions to manage risk and to seize opportunities. We have adapted and stabilized our way to play. We have now exited from most of the least accretive areas, and this adjustment is mostly behind us. We have a clear OE positioning, working with the right partners and other fair contractual conditions. We have optimized our manufacturing footprint. We have done a lot over the past two years. 12 activity closures have been announced, and we are pursuing with two announcements over the past quarter. We are starting to see the benefits of it, both in terms of loading and in terms of financials.
We also have a sharp steering mode in the short term, agility in adjusting our spending to the current context, both in OpEx and CapEx. In the medium term, we continue to invest in the drivers of our differentiation. I mean, two of them. One is digitalization, and two is innovation. Thanks to our actions, and despite numerous uncertainties, we are maintaining our financial ambitions for the year 2025 in the absence of any further deterioration in the economic environment i n the second semester of 2025. A lot of unexpected events will occur across the world and will affect the general economy and our markets in a positive or a negative way in the year to go. We have, and we are solid on our fundamentals, and determined to leverage every opportunity. What you can see on the screen now is our performance in a 360 mode.
As you are aware, at Michelin, we always look at the group's performance from a combined perspective: people, profit, and planet. On the people side, we have made strong improvements in terms of safety and also in terms of retention rate for employees with less than two years' seniority. You see the rate has improved, and that shows the ability of our group to retain its new talents. In terms of profit, we have generated EUR 1.5 billion segment operating income, which is a solid H1 if you consider the strong headwinds, and it is in line with our sequencing of our profit generation for the year. This year should be more back-end loaded.
In terms of free cash flow, you see almost at the equilibrium, we have returned to a seasonal pattern of cash flow generation with a strong increase in working capital requirements in the first half of the year. In terms of planet, you see we have had a strong reduction in our CO2 emissions, - 15%, mostly driven by our progress initiatives in that respect, and it is across all our activities. As a reminder, our climate-related ambitions have been validated by SBTi. The second metric to emphasize our progress there is around water withdrawal. You see we have, it has diminished by 11%, thanks to, again, the numerous actions taken into our plans. We have just obtained a Triple-A from the Carbon Disclosure Project, CDP, rewarding our group's commitment towards climate change, water security, and supplier engagement. I will leave the floor for more details with Yves.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to drive you through our results for the semester and the guidance for the full year. First, regarding the market, I just want to remind that when we speak about OE volumes, it's linked to the production of vehicles, the sales of tires to produce vehicles, and the replacement volumes are the selling market, so the sales from manufacturers to distributors or the imports in a given country for non-local productions. You see first that on the passenger car and light truck segment, we have a contrasted picture between original equipment and replacement, with a sharp drop of original equipment sales market in Europe and North America, plagued by consumer confidence, question about the pace of electrification in some countries, and of course, the impact of incentive on these electrifications.
On the other hand, the market in China was pulled by incentive and by export and grew by 10%. On the replacement market, the market grew by 3% overall, + 5% in Europe, + 2% in North America, and 0% in China. In Europe and North America, we believe that the market is mostly pulled by anticipation in the inclusion of anti-dumping inquiry in Europe and the threat of strong tariffs, particularly from Asian countries in the US. On the two-wheel market, the market now is at a pace which is quite coherent between selling and sellout, and the market grew steadily in the first semester. On the truck and bus market, you see as well that the original equipment markets are down in Europe and North America.
In truck and bus, we focus only on the regions where we have significant market share, so basically it's Europe and the Americas. In North America, the - 19% is even worse if we look at Class 8 vehicles, so the widest, the biggest tractors, and it's mostly due to the accumulation of inventory by OEMs over the past three years, when at the same time the new U.S. administration decided to postpone some environmental regulation that would have triggered anticipated purchase from the fleet. On top of that, in the current environmental context, the fleets are hesitating to invest in new vehicles because of the lack of visibility and uncertainties. The market has been down already since July, August last year, and it has continued over the first semester. On the replacement market, I will probably do the same comment than on the passenger car.
The market grew by 4%, but we observed very strong movement of imports, particularly in North America, from tier three brands from Asia, probably as well in anticipation of some tariffs over the countries of exportation. Overall, when we look at distributors in both passenger car and truck tires, they seem to be a bit overstock, looking at budget brands. Looking at our own brands, we consider that we are at a healthy level both in Europe and North America across both segments. On the specialty side, the picture has not considerably changed versus last year. We are still seeing mining, replacement in beyond tire, in aircraft growing at a steady pace. Mining and replacement tire for beyond tires at, let's say, low single-digit pace. At the same time, the original equipment markets for agriculture infrastructure is still down. It's for probably the third semester in a row.
We believe that probably during the second half of the year the market will have probably bottomed. The composite polymer solution shows overall stable evolutions over the semester. Now looking at the bridge of our sales. First, you observe that the sales are down by 3.4% at current foreign exchange rate. Given the EUR 200 million, so 1.5 points of currency effect, the sales are down by 1.9% at ISO Forex. Maybe before I detail the different elements of the bridge, I would like to do a preliminary statement. As the European Union has opened an investigation into statements or answers to questions about pricing during public earning calls, although limited to Europe, we will not comment on pricing matters. We maintain that we are complying with the competition rules, and we are actively defending our case.
Given the circumstance, we will not detail, for example, the breakdown between price and mix, and we will not detail about the pricing. The different elements you see, of course, the volume effect, which is - 6.1%. Basically, if you look overall at the group level, it's - 18% for original equipment and -1 .2% for replacement. You see that non-tie-up business are contributing positively, +0. 2% at the group level. We benefit from a strong price mix effect driven both by price. We benefit from the indexation clauses following 2024 raw material cost increase and mix, both with the product, brand, and market mix, which is obviously positive due to the big difference between original equipment and replacement market evolutions.
Looking now at the evolution of our volumes and to give you a little bit more flavor about this volume's evolution, you see that overall original equipment accounts for 85% of the total volume decline, mainly in truck and agricultural markets, when some targeted business segments are generating growth. In original equipment, we are as well penalized for passenger car in RS1 by customer and vehicle mix, which is unfavorable versus the market. On the replacement market, the Michelin brand is flat, and the loss of volume is mostly coming from other brands, such as Corsa, for example, in Indonesia, or Uniroyal in the US. Looking at the second segment, transportation, you observe a sharp drop of OE on heavy vehicles, particularly the Class 8 I mentioned in North America.
When replacement sales are stable, and we observe that the Michelin brand is keeping its share of line in these segments. On the specialties, strong drop in OE mostly triggered by agriculture infrastructure businesses. A drop in replacement, which is mostly coming from other brands, such as the Camso brand, for example, when at the same time Michelin replacement, for example, is growing in replacement in agro as well as in mining and aviation. Now moving to the bridge of the segment operating income. At the end of the semester, our segment operating income at constant Forex is at EUR 1.5 billion, representing an 11.3% margin. We have nearly EUR 50 million of negative currency effect, mostly triggered by the evolution of the U.S. dollar during the second quarter. Looking at the other elements, scope effect is not meaningful during the semester.
The important volume effect is due at two-thirds by the margin effect driven by the volume, one-third due to the inability to absorb the fixed cost linked to this volume drop, which is penalizing, of course, the level of capacity utilization in our factories. The price mix represents nearly EUR 500 million. Looking now at raw materials and manufacturing and logistics. In raw materials, you have mostly the effect of the increase of the raw materials during the second half of 2024. For example, the natural rubber, the butadiene, stay at a pretty high level till basically the month of March. It has started to drop after the beginning of April. In these EUR 240 million, you have nearly EUR 63 million, which is coming from the tariffs implemented in North America.
When we look at the manufacturing and logistic cost, it includes nearly EUR 50 million linked to EUDR, so the implementation, the premium we pay on natural rubber. Although we have decided to implement according to the directive, the EUDR, to purchase EUDR natural rubber, the European Parliament decided to postpone this regulation at the very end of last year. In this context, it's extremely difficult to repercute this cost to our customers. During the first semester, we have some positive effect, the start of some positive effect of the restructuration. Due to the fact that we are running at a lower capacity than planned, this effect is not fully visible yet in our P&L. You see that SG&A are well managed because EUR 23 million represents less than inflation just on the payroll and the SG&As. We observe a positive contribution of the non-tie-up business over the semester.
Now looking at the profitability across segments. It's not a surprise. The segment which is the most impacted by the drop in volume is mostly the second segment, where volumes are dragged down by the original equipment market and sales, - 9.3%. Consequently, it has a huge impact on the operating margin of this segment. The first segment is showing stronger resilience thanks to a very positive mix effect, both market and product and brand effect. In the RS3, we land at 14.5%. It is nearly $100 million, more than $100 million less than last year, but with a very contrasted situation, strong drop in the beyond road profitability due to the original equipment effect and the same impact of factory capacity utilization, but with a growing contribution from mining and aircraft tires.
Looking now at the cash generation, we end the year with nearly zero cash flow, - $100 million at the end of the semester, sorry, the semester, not the year. Our EBITDA is globally in line, 18.6%, nearly 19%, with the level of the previous years in percentage. Of course, it is penalized by volumes, slightly impacted in absolute value. We are now back to, let's say, the usual, the seasonality, where our working capital is growing during the first semester, in reality growing till the end of August, and then decreasing during the four last months of the year. Particularly at the end of June 2025, we have in the $1.2 billion increase in change in working capital, you have nearly $250 million, $60 million linked to inventories, which is shared between volumes two-thirds, and price, one-third.
Accounts receivable also increase, and here there is a one-off effect, which is due to the change of our distribution scheme in North America. At the end of last year, we were still working with ATD, but with very constrained credit facilities. When we decided to switch, to stop to work with ATD during the first half of this year, we are, of course, working with other customers that are benefiting from, let's say, better conditions. Other elements like CapEx or restructuring or taxes are quite consistent with the previous year. We just have to notice that in the JV and other financial asset variations, we have nearly EUR 90 million, $100 million of dividends paid by our joint venture, TBC, following the disposal of the Midas franchise in North America. At the end of June 2025, our debt has slightly decreased versus June 2024, $300 million.
Of course, versus the end of the year, it has increased mostly because of the dividend paid at the end of May. We have a gearing at 22.2%, so slightly better than last year at the same period. I will not further comment on the agency rating, as Florent has already explained that we have four A ratings for our long-term debt by all the agencies. Looking in order to try to give you some colors about our guidance, we are in an unpredictable and extremely volatile environment. When we look at the first segment, passenger car and light truck, we believe the overall year should land between -2% and +1%, with probably a slightly, comparing H2 to H1, worst perspective on H2 than H1. Mostly driven by the fact that, for example, in China, in the second half of last year, the government has started already to implement incentives.
The basis of comparison will not be as favorable as this year. We believe that the market should be slightly down in H2 on OE. On replacement, we expect the market to be overall flat, probably with less sales of less non-pool brand flows on one hand, and as well a higher comparison basis in 2024. For example, in Europe, in 2024, we benefit from a relatively good winter season, which might not be necessarily the case in 2025. As far as the truck and bus segment is concerned, we expect the market to slightly rebound in Europe, but we believe that the North American will still be. OE sales will still be depressed over the second semester. On the replacements, a little bit the same picture with a market stable versus the second half of last year. Specialty, no major change.
At one stage, we believe that both agricultural and construction infrastructure original equipment market will probably reach a bottom. We rather expect a rebound in 2026 of this market than in the second half of 2025. Now, before coming back to the guidance, I would like to share with you the fact that despite there are these hazardous conditions, we are determined to fight and enhance our customer value proposition thanks to several levers. The first one is obviously our product plan. We have major new product launch during 2025. I just took two examples here. In the first segment, the new CrossClimate 3, which is initiating a new segment with the CrossClimate Sport segment. In the transportation industry, the Michelin X-Line Grip D, which will give + 20% of mileage and + 20% of rolling resistance to the end user.
Looking now at the volumes in mining, we are now starting to see our sales rebounding. We expect the second half to be significantly above the first half of the year. In beyond road as well, we are observing some segment of the market where sales should stabilize during the second half. Now, to give you some other perspective, our presence in China. We have been in China now for nearly 46 years commercially and nearly 30 years from a manufacturing standpoint. China represents roughly 6% of the group sales. We have 6,000 employees, five factories, including our polymer composite solution factories, an R&D center, which is here to serve the local market, in particular the local OEMs. We are enjoying a premium first position in a premium tire market share, both in OE and RT.
On the first segment, the Michelin brand in China has very strong awareness, 89%, nearly the level we have in some Western European countries. Our sales are supported by a strong franchise program, TirePlus, with 1,700 service centers across the country. We have as well a very strong position with leading domestic OEMs that we serve in China. GE, BYD, SAIC, Xiaomi, NIO, Xpeng, Li Auto, and more as well. In terms of innovation and ability of the group to offer the best compromise of performance versus our competitors, I would like to come back on the last publication from ADAC. ADAC summarized in the last June all the studies they have done on tire abrasion since 2022.
Looking at real usage, so with a convoy of vehicles across a very large number of dimensions, Michelin stands far ahead of its premium competitors in terms of abrasion, so quantity of particles emitted for 1,000 km. We are, on average, 27% better than our premium competitors and 18% better than the first of these premium competitors. ADAC mentioned that Michelin continues to offer by far the lowest abrasion rate, where at the same time we offer the best balance of performance when you look at energy efficiency, mileage, safety, handling capabilities, and noise. Last, in composite polymer solution, as you know, we have acquired in the recent year different activities, generally exposed to different markets than automotive. I just want to share with you two examples where our research and development capabilities allow these companies to accelerate their synergy for their mission-critical applications.
For example, the gangway below, so for trains or metro, Michelin technology enhances the durability, the tear, and the UV resistance and the soundproofing of the vehicles. In another application, which is linked to expansion tanks for energy supply, we are able to improve the continuity and the security of the product and avoid any contamination thanks to the materials that we introduce in these products. That is another element which gives us confidence in our ability to further grow in these business segments. Now looking to the full year, as Florent mentioned, we are in a very erratic environment, both from the tariff, the overall economic perspective, and the foreign exchange rates.
We have, in the absence of any further deterioration in this economic environment during the second half of the year, our outlook for the full year remains unchanged, with a segment operating income above the one of 2024 at ISO Forex and a free cash flow above EUR 1.7 billion before M&A, but at current Forex. In this context, we are going to pursue and to implement from the 1st of August the second tranche of our share buyback program, to be completed by the end of the year with the program of EUR 250 million, which is consistent with the announcement we made in February 2024 with the EUR 1 billion share buyback over three years. Thank you very much for your attention. I think now we can move to the Q&A session.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. We kindly ask you to ask two questions only per analyst or investor. Please ask your questions in English. First question is from Harry Martin of Bernstein.
Yes, good evening, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. The first one just on the full year guidance. The H1 EBIT decline was EUR 282 million. You're still maintaining the guide for flat EBIT for the full year. You need to reverse that decline with around 18% year-on-year growth in EBIT in H2. How can we get comfortable with that given there's limited volume growth in the second half? Would you be able to lay out some of the largest buckets within that step up in the second half? The second question, a strategic one on the truck and bus segment, just with some of the performance this year. I mean, this segment is margin-dilutive versus the average in any year, not just a tough year. It's more cyclical, seemingly more exposed to Chinese competition. My question really is, what are the reasons to stay in that segment at all?
What are the parts of it that are still attractive even when you get these tough years as well? Thank you very much.
Okay. Two elements to understand. First, the normal seasonality of the market is that the second semester is more weighted versus the first semester in terms of because vehicles are equipping themselves for the winter season, especially in the B2B area. It means that normally, it's logical that we have more volume and margins in the second semester versus the first semester. Then we mentioned the fact that we have made a lot of restructuring, and those restructuring will pay a dividend in the second semester. For example, we have also advanced some closures, so you will see the full benefit of that in the second semester. As Yves mentioned, we have made the assumption seen from where we are today. With all the reasons I've mentioned, the profitability in the second semester should be much better than what it is in the first semester.
However, there are many hypotheses that could change because of the environment. We have made hypotheses on tariffs. We have made hypotheses on many things. Of course, in the second semester, for external reasons, we may be impacted, but today we don't know. Now, as far as the truck business, the fundamentals of the truck business now are sound. We have made the restructuring. I'm sure you've noticed over the past two years we have addressed the excess capacity we had, and we have also streamlined the markets where we were selling. Of course, it has weighed on our volumes. However, we think now we are in the appropriate condition. Now, we have a cyclicality in this business, especially in OE, that is today hampering our profitability in that segment, but we think it's exceptional.
Yves mentioned the truck OEMs have built inventory of trucks over the past few years in anticipation of a regulation that was postponed at the last minute. Now we are dealing with an excess inventory of trucks, but we have all the reasons. In North America, we were expecting things to improve by the second semester. It would probably be in the first semester of 2026. However, we see in Europe the OEMs' trucks are getting better. That's what we anticipate. On replacement, all what we have done is paying dividends, so the profitability should improve in the second semester, and structurally, we'll improve because we have made this restructuring of our assets of production. For those reasons, and also figure that in the second semester, we will have less issues in terms of fixed cost absorption than we had in the first semester.
For all these reasons, this is what we are doing. Now, we cannot divest from the truck business because we share the semi-finished product. We have dedicated plans for especially mixing for truck, and it will be very difficult to separate them from the passenger car activities.
If I may, there is another element of comfort, which is the fact that during the first half of the year, we have a - EUR 240 million effect on raw material that should be nearly neutral in the second half. As the raw material prices have started to drop in April, it should lead to a very positive effect in the last four months or last quarter of the year.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question is from Akash Kakkar of JPMorgan.
Thank you for taking my questions. A couple of questions, please. The first one on the volume development in the business. Could you please share your current outlook for the full year that supports your full year earnings view as of today? Do you still expect volumes in the full year to be down 2%-3%, or should we be thinking about a more negative number? Within that volume outlook, could you confirm that within passenger cars, on the replacement side of the business, do you expect to be in line with the market in the second half, or do you expect to underperform in the second half, please? The second question is on tariffs and your strategy in response to those tariffs.
Could you just tell us and give us some more details on how tariffs have impacted the business from a cost perspective in the first half of the year, and if you have changed your pricing strategy in any of your business segments going into the second half, please? Thank you.
I will leave on tariff. To give you more details about what we're doing, except on pricing, because we will not make any comments on pricing. On the volume outlook. We anticipate that. Especially the big selling that happened in tier three product. Across all regions will s top in the second semester, which would have a positive effect for us. Now, we have. Shown that we have also exceptional products that have been launched: CrossClimate 3, Primacy 5, CrossClimate Sport. Those are really. Market-defining products that should have a positive impact on our volume. We anticipate globally that our volume should be s teady versus the second semester of last year. That's the hypothesis we made. On tariff?
Yeah. Which this hypothesis leads to nearly -3% over the year. Given the p erformance of the first s emester. On the tariff, the impact of t he t ariff during the first half was in terms of cash ±EUR 125 million, and in terms of P&L, -EUR 63 or -EUR 64 million. Why I make the distinction? Because some of these tariffs are still in our inventory and will be b ooked in the P&L when we will sell the related product. Our expectation—so I'm not commenting on the strategy—but our expectation, w ith the knowledge of the moment i s that the full year effect of the tariff on our P&L should be around EUR 200 million. Basically, one-third in H1, two-thirds in H2.
Based on what we know today?
Based on the knowledge we had, let's say, yesterday morning.
Understood. Thank you.
The next question is from Martino De Ambroggi of Equita.
Thank you. Good evening, everybody. The first question is on free cash flow because you mentioned that the guidance remains with the current Forex. I was wondering if there is any Forex translation benefit on this guidance. The other components, the main components for the free cash flow in terms of working capital, if you can remind us, CapEx for the full year, and if there is any restructuring cash out to be taken into account in the current full year guidance. The second is on tariffs because you just mentioned $200 million impact for tariffs. Excluding Forex, does it mean that you would be able to offset this $200 million since you are confirming the guidance, or I'm missing something?
On pricing, we will not make comments. You will have to make your own hypothesis. On restructuring in 2025, we will have an impact. The full benefit of the restructuring of around EUR 200 million in the P&L, and in cash. The cash out would be around EUR 400 million. Then Yves on the details about the CapEx.
Yeah. On the FX, for the free cash flow, first. The FX has a rather negative impact as the dollar. We are overall long in dollar, in USD— as the U.S. represents 30% of the group sales. Therefore, it means that our revenue and our profit in dollar and the cash generated in dollar is negatively impacted by the evolution of the dollar versus our functional currency, which is the euro. Restructuration, so Florent mentioned, it's -EUR 400 million on the full year on the free cash flow. In terms of working capital, overall, we have probably at the end of the year, so as I mentioned already, between November and January, it's the moment of the year where we have the lowest working capital. Because our winter sales, we have a strong seasonality of sales between September and October, August, and November, let's say.
Therefore, inventories are at the lowest level, and most of the accounts receivable of the peak of our sales have been paid by our customers. The only effect that we will have, which is slightly negative on the overall free cash flow this year, is due to what I mentioned during the presentation, is the fact that we reorganize our sales in the first segment in North America, in the U.S., with the decision to stop to work with ATD and to redirect the volume to U.S. Venture and NTW, which are benefiting from, I would say, normal payment term when ATD being under Chapter 11 during the second half of 2024 was managed differently.
Okay. CapEx?
CapEx should be in the same range or slightly below than last year, but very similar than last year. In the CapEx, in contrary, there will be a positive effect on the forex due to the fact that part of our CapEx are spent in dollar-based countries.
Yep. Thank you.
The next question is from Monica Bosio of Intesa Sanpaolo.
Yes. Good afternoon and good evening, and thanks for taking my question. The first one is on the truck business. I understood that the second part should be much better in terms of margins and those volumes, hopefully, at least for Europe. I'm still wondering, are you still confident in achieving a sustainable margin of 10% in this division, which was your indication at the Capital Market Day? I'm wondering, the restructuring actions should bring EUR 200 million of net positive impact or EUR 120 million? Just a clarification. My second question is on the segment operating income. In the first half, the company had a negative impact from manufacturing and logistics of roughly EUR 175 million. Can you give us a rough indication by year-end? Thank you very much. If I may, a follow-up. Considering the current environment, do you see opportunities for M&A in the non-tire business?
If yes, any color would be really appreciated. Thank you very much.
On our forecast for truck, yes, what we have shown during our Capital Market Day, this is what we are shooting for. What I was explaining is that the current environment is truly exceptional, especially at OE in the truck business. Based on what we know today, we think the second semester will improve, but also in 2026, it will improve sharply. Your question gives me the opportunity to remind you as well that I forgot to mention that in the first semester of this year, we have incurred also dysfunctioning in terms of industrial costs because of the restructuring, because we had to make movements, we had to industrialize, we had rundown, etc. The fact that the plants that are especially in truck would be closed earlier will have a bigger benefit in the second semester.
It will benefit mainly truck because that is where truck has been—that is where we have focused most of our restructuring. Apart from that, on the M&A opportunities, and then I will leave the industry to Yves. On the M&A, Michelin, to deploy its strategy, has an M&A chapter. Of course, I cannot tell you where we are. Of course, the current environment, in every turbulent environment, there are opportunities. However, I remind always everyone the fact that in order for a transaction to happen, you have to have a buyer. Michelin is a potential buyer. You have to have a seller. That is not obvious and not evident every time. Then we have to agree on the price. That is even more challenging. We will see.
Okay. Thank you.
The negative impact of EUR 175 million on the manufacturing and sourcing logistics should be nearly slightly positive on the second half of the year. Because it's due to the fact that in the second half of the year, we should start to see more the benefits of the reorganization of our manufacturing footprint. And we should have mechanically better capacity utilization than on the first half. Of course, it's conditioned to the fact that there is no worsening in the overall economical environment.
It's based on what we know today.
Okay. Thank you. Just a clarification on the positive impact from the restructuring in the second part, could it be quantified in 200 or 120 million? Sorry, I didn't get it.
No, it's EUR 200 million for the year. For the full year.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
It is not only for SR2. It is for all the business segment.
For sure. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Thomas Besson of Kepler Cheuvreux.
Thank you very much. I'll ask two questions, please. The first is on cash returns. I think you are confirming you're going to generate EUR 1.7 billion of free cash flow. You have four A ratings, and it's difficult to see M&A in a turbulent environment. Why not go straight to EUR 500 million share buyback in the second half with your share price lagging rather than talking about just doing EUR 250 million? That would be the first question. The second question is on the expected development of your SR1 volume versus the market. You've lagged your main competitors in the last 18 months. Your performance improved clearly in Q2 versus Q1. Do you assume that Michelin's SR1 performance is going to be closer to the market in H2, or should we still expect you to be one or two points below the market? Thank you.
On the SR1, on the share question, you know we measure market share on sell-in, meaning that tires sold by manufacturers to the retail or the wholesale distribution. You had a very heavy loading of Tier 3, Tier 4 brands all across the world. Very heavy loading. We anticipate that this heavy loading will stop in the second semester, which means that then suddenly the market vision of the share will change because of that. We have very good products that have been just announced and launched in the first semester, and especially that they will affect the winter market. We anticipate in the second semester to return to a more normal view of our share. We are not really concerned by the share losses we have, especially at Michelin brand. Things are, I would say, normal. OE is different. We have a vehicle mix, a customer mix slightly different.
Also, your question gives me the opportunity to tell you that in China, we had some issues to fix. Some of the problems we had in terms of positioning and what we were doing also on the replacement market in China. That is over. We now are back to a good growth mode in China. As far as the cash back, based on what we know today, we think $250 million is the right number. Of course, if things change towards the second semester, we will take into consideration your remark about our balance sheet.
Thank you, Florent.
The next question is from Stephen Benhamou of BNP Paribas Exane.
Yes. Good evening. I just have one remaining question. It's about the guidance because I'm not sure how to reconcile the confirmed SRI guidance and the EUR 100 million adjustment to provisions for bonuses. That would suggest, in my view, a bonus cut, as fully objective won't be achieved. Can you please help us to understand the mechanics between this positive adjustment and the confirmed guidance? Thank you.
Very simple. The bonus is not triggered on the guidance. We have management bonuses that have objectives, and we know that we will not reach those objectives because of what we have done in the first semester. The objectives are well above the guidance. That is why you may see a difference in. But you cannot interpret the fact that you have that, and that does not give you a flavor on our ability to reach the guidance.
Just for, yeah, if management bonuses are not based on the guidance, they are based on, I guess, long-term objectives. Can you please just elaborate a little bit more on how we should look at this order line in the EBIT bridge for H2?
We have management objectives, not only we have them on a long-term basis, but also on a yearly basis. We fixed those objectives for the year, managerially. Those objectives are above, well above the guidance. The guidance is something we do, we commit to the market. That is different from what we expect out of the management.
Understood. Thank you. What should we expect for H2?
In terms of bonus, we have made the adjustment on the bonus that we needed to make.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
The final question is from Christoph Laskawi of Deutsche Bank.
Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. It's actually just one clarification left. On M&A. You said there's nothing obvious right now, but I think a couple of assets are coming to the market by next year. If there's a right asset, would you be willing to do larger transactions as well, or is it something that you currently wouldn't consider?
What do you mean by larger?
A couple of billion, theoretically. In purchasing price.
Sorry, what do you mean by large transactions?
Large transactions in the sense that you would be willing to pay a couple of billion dollars for one deal, or is that too big to even consider at the current state of the market?
We will not. I don't think we want to enter into this level of detail. The M&A operations are rather confidential. You can do $2 billion in one transaction, but you can do it in three transactions of $700 million. In fact, we have been clear about where we want to grow. It's mostly in composite polymer solutions. It has been shared with you during the Capital Market Day last year. We have as well very strong and demanding criteria from a financial standpoint, which link to Florent's previous comment about the price. It's not really the size of the transaction which matters. It is the transaction: are we better parent for the acquired activities, and are we able to grow it and to create value with these acquisitions? It's not a question of the size of the transaction.
Understood. Thank you.
Gentlemen, there are no more questions at this time. May I hand it back over to you for any closing remarks?
Thank you very much. I just want to remind everyone that our group fundamentals are very solid. The external environment is less solid than Michelin. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's Michelin conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.