Welcome to the 2024 annual results. That is Mersen's results. Now, perhaps say something about the past two years and what we did with our operations. In 2023, we decided to refocus to some extent after many years of growth. As you will see, we have a growth in sale, which is remarkable, which started in 2020, or perhaps a bit earlier than that. In 2023, as you probably know, the markets were turning to us for silicon carbide semiconductors, for EVs, and for electric components for EVs. Therefore, we decided to change our growth strategy. We contemplated a capital increase, which is what we did because there were massive investments to be made. As you will see, we always talk about capital expenditure at Mersen. The level is high, and that is because at the time we had constraints with our deliveries.
You can't say that you're going to do something if your deliveries are vague. There were penalties for some contracts. We did the job. We changed the group quite radically in 2023 and also throughout the following year in 2024. Before, as we told you in 2024, there was a slowdown for SiC and EV. Two dynamic years, I would say. If you look at our results for 2024, they're really quite good, which is what you have here summarized on the slide. Thomas will tell you more about the numbers. As you can see, record sales. An intense year in terms of acquisition. We have acquired three companies. We'd not done that for a while, but this started a while ago. We started negotiating all of that years ago. Now we have acquired them.
A good year if we have a look at our growth profile. That is true for many of our markets. That is quite interesting at Mersen. If some of our markets are not doing well, if some geographies are not doing that well, we can always offset the situation. We will not go up and down and up and down, which was the case several years ago if you look at our sales numbers. Transportation is a very good market. Thomas has more information on that. Wind, process industries, and the solar market, which was not that good this year, starting as of the beginning of the second half of the year. There are more explanations to come. The classic semiconductors, well, so, so we could have done better, but not that bad. And SiC, that is a story we told you in December.
In a nutshell, Thomas is going to tell you more about this. The rest, he's much more brilliant than I am. EBITDA is solid at 16.5%. We had an adaptation plan at the beginning of the year with a different name, but the objective was to make sure that some of our business lines would have better results. That was okay because in September, we decided to continue with the plan. We have a very good cash generation. That's quite incredible. The dividend would be at EUR 0.9 per share. Solid financial structure. Thomas will tell you more about this. Secured financing for our 2029 plan. Now, it's your turn, Thomas.
Good morning, one and all. Is it working?
It is.
Let me start with our sales. We discussed this at the end of January at length.
As you can see, total sales for the group reached EUR 1.1 billion, 244 million. A record, as Luc said. A nice growth in sales since 2020. CAGR is 10% annually. Where does the growth come from? That is for 2024. It came from North America mainly, as you can see. APCC, 6.3% growth. The region represents 41% of total sales for the group. This growth in North America was based on aeronautics, chemistry, and process industries mainly. In Europe, we have enjoyed growth, but at a lower level, more or less 2%, thanks to the transportation market mainly. In Asia, as you can see, there is a slight decrease, a negative 1.2%. That is due to a big slowdown in solar cell production in China during the second half. We were growing during the first half and then a negative growth during the second half.
Let's have a look at the market breakdown. I won't be long. I think we've discussed this before. All of our markets, as you can see, have grown, except for the energy market. This is due to the solar sales, as I've just said, the solar market. The best markets in terms of growth were transportation and aeronautics, EVs, and the rail business, the three sub-business lines, if I can say, or sub-markets. Back to our profit level. EBITDA has reached EUR 206 million. Therefore, up from 2023. This is a record for the group. It's the case for the sales, but EUR 206 million, which we had never seen before. The EBITDA margin is not yet at the level that we had in 2023, but not far. I'll tell you more about the reasons in a minute.
Before doing that, if we may, I'd like to tell you more about amortization. As you've seen, we have an increase in our amortization, and that's connected to our investment plan or CAPEX plan. That's quite logical. Since we've not yet got the volumes we expected from our investments, our operating margin before non-recurring items is going down in 2024 by 80 basis points. An increase in amortization will be continued in 2025. Luc's going to tell us more about this when he talks you through our guidance. Let's have a look at the different segments. Let's start with the advanced materials segment. It's the lightest of the two colors. Operating profit is going down, as you can see. Operating income going down by the tune of EUR 9 million between 2023 and 2024. There's more than EUR 6 million due to the amortization.
We have a lower level of performance. One of the reasons, which is more marginal, is that we have had some mixed volumes that were negative. Also, we expected that development costs would go up. That is for pSiC. Luc will tell you more about this. If we look at the EBITDA margin, it is more than 21%. That is a very high level. The electrical power segment is up if we look at the income, but also the margin. That is what is shown in darker orange. The margin is up 40 basis points to reach 10.5%. The mixed volume effect was positive. There was no increase in amortization. That is why we have a margin that is increasing. The EBITDA margin is good, 14%, as you can see.
It absorbs, if I can say, the cost for us to set up a team for electric vehicles. They're not yet profitable. We don't have enough sales for the time being to offset the costs of setting up or putting up such a team. Let's have a look now at our operating margin. This time, we're going to have a look at group level. There's one salient point that you can see here in gray. What's quite striking is that we've managed to offset the raw material or commodity inflation and wage increases with more productivity and an increase in our selling prices. Pricing power. What we've included as well here is the first effects of our adaptation plan.
Now, apart from this, if you look at the other bars, the most important ones, the volumics effects that were a bit negative, but also the impacts that 60 basis points connected to the pSiC project and additional resources required for EV. The sales level is too low to offset these costs. Then amortization that I mentioned before. Right. Since I was talking about our Adaptation Plan, it was announced in October. That is for EBITDA. To this, we had added something else. That is the way we manage our inventories. That is what we told you in December. The estimates have not budged from December. Nothing's changed. For the full year, the gain would be EUR 17 million, including EUR 3 million that we've booked in, and that was in 2024. There will be the full effect to be seen in 2026.
I know you're going to ask about 2025, but it's going to be lower than EUR 14 million. We intend to reduce our inventory levels to the tune of EUR 30 million on the same business level, same level of sales. We've started seeing the effects of this. We saw that in 2024. This is why we have a very good cash flow generation this year. This has a total cost, which is EUR 23 million, including EUR 14 million in cash. For those who'd like to try and think about what 2025 is going to look like, there's EUR 6 million out of the EUR 23 million that will be booked in 2025 because we've only booked EUR 17 million in 2023. That's for the P&L. In terms of cash, we've said EUR 14 million. All of this will be for 2025.
That's for our optimization plan or savings. Now, let's talk about the net income at the P&L. Net income is down, which is normal because we have expenses, non-recurring, costs, EUR 23 million. That is EUR 17 million for the adaptation plan, plus EUR 5 million of other non-recurring expenses. The income or the proceeds of asset disposals and, expenses for acquisitions, EUR 24 million of financial expenses as well that are factored in. They're up because the debt has increased and also the rates have increased. In addition to this, we have more of our debt in dollars. It's normal. If you look at the dollar rates, they're higher than the euro rates. It's going up. EUR 22 million, that's for tax. The effective rate is 24%.
If you restate from the expenses in the Adaptation Plan that are not deductible, that we will not get as a tax return. Therefore, they have not been included here. There we are. That is for our net income, EUR 61.5 million. A few words about our cash generation. Our model was really good, up 8% in 2024 versus 2023. 2023 was a good year. Very good performance. That is due to two principal factors. First, the first effect of the inventories that have gone down. Now, the stocks or inventories were reduced to the tune of 5% on a like-for-like basis and same exchange rates versus 2023. Therefore, minus EUR 14 million. We did that very swiftly. The second effect is that we received advanced payments on our contracts for SiC semiconductors.
Therefore, if you look at the net effect, we've gained EUR 10 million from 2023. Finally, we've paid less tax in 2023, which is normal. Excellent cash performance, as I said. This means that the debt is not as high as planned. We'll come back to this later on. Now, capital expenditure. As Luc said, we've invested massively. EUR 204 million were invested in our industry business. That's less than what we thought we would do because there were payments made in January. EUR 15 million paid in January. There you are. If we restate from these payments, we would have reached EUR 220 million, which was our objective. Most of these investments, that is EUR 110 million, are connected to the growth plan, SiC semiconductors and EVs. We have other growth projects, as you can see, other applications.
For instance, the rail business in India, EUR 44 million. We also invest in safety, security, and the safety and the environment. The total amount was EUR 10 million in 2024. The total amount for these investments is really a peak, if I could say. This number will go down in 2025 and even more so in 2026, which is what we told you last December during the CMD meeting. Now, a few words about the debt. The debt is up, which is quite normal, reaching EUR 370 million. Why did I say naturally or normally? Because we made massive investments, as I've just said. We also acquired companies, as Luc said. The total cost of that, this includes the earnout, was EUR 74 million. Our debt has reached EUR 370 million, but it's lower than we thought.
We said below the EUR 400 million mark, and it is well below that level. Our financial structure is still very solid. We have a leverage of 1.8x, which is fully in line with our group level policy for the leverage. We acquire companies, we invest, and yet we stick to our leverage objective. In 2024 and beginning of 2025, we also decided to work on liquidity to lengthen the terms. We did two things. First, a Schuldschein, EUR 100 million. Redemption date is 2030, and that was in 2024. Two USPP tranches, EUR 90 million, as you can see. That is for 2032 and EUR 96 million for 2035. We did not have those in December, but they have been negotiated and we will get the cash next month.
New financing lines, thanks to which, as you can see, we can cover our objectives for the three, four, five years to come with no objective, no difficulty. Very good cash generation. The solidity of our financial structure is such that for the general annual meeting, we have decided that we would submit to you EUR 0.90 or 90 euro cents. That is a good payout, which is 37% of our net income. If it is restated from the Adaptation Plan, the payout ratio would be 30%. This is our policy, the usual policy. We always stick to this policy to stick within the 30-40% limits, upper limit and higher limit. Last time, you asked us if we would pay dividends. Now you have your answer.
Yes, we're going to pay a dividend because we have a solid financial structure and a good cash flow profile. There we are. Now, I'll hand over to Luc again. And Luc's going to talk about growth in the midterm.
[Foreign language]
Yes, thank you. Let's talk about the markets that drive our business. First of all, I'd like to say a few words about the company's footprint. We decided before January 1 to talk a little more about the U.S. I'm sure there will be tons of questions on the topic during the Q&A. I'd like, as I said, to say a few words about the company's geographical footprint. I think we're very similar now to some of the other large CAC 40 companies. We're present in all large geographies, including India.
As you heard earlier, we started business there a while ago, and we're now seeing interesting growth. India is a country where you have to be for the years to come. We've done the groundwork. The focus is now on continuing to pursue growth in India. The company is also widely focused on the energy transition. Not all our businesses, but most of them, and across our different divisions. No matter how long the energy transition will last, it will be profitable for Mersen as a company. I will illustrate this in a moment with some concrete examples. Here is the map. This is a slightly different map from the one we show normally. Typically, 33% is North America, 33% in Europe, and 33% or a bit less in China. This is a bit different. As you can see, this only shows China for Asia.
This is continental Europe in the center of the map, and only the U.S. on the left side of the map. For Europe and China, you can see that virtually everything we sell there is produced locally. I'm not going to go into geopolitical questions. The point on this slide is that we have lower transportation costs, we're faster, and we can be much more interactive by being local. The products we manufacture and sell are purchased locally, so it only makes sense. We also purchase ourselves locally. We have a number of industrial sites that allow us to do this. As far as the U.S. is concerned, there should be another slide on the U.S. to explain the EUR 450 million. We have 15 sites. This includes the new ones. For 75% is local.
The rest of it is coming from Mexico, a Mexican maquiladora, with a taxation system. 25% is the going number. Just to reassure you on the 25%, we're talking about $80 million-$85 million US. The tariffs will not be applied to that amount. It should be applied to the added value coming from the maquiladora. It will be a lot less. We still don't quite know exactly how the tariffs will be calculated. There will be an additional cost, which we can, of course, offset by price increases. We have two competitors who are exactly in the same location, same context. Just in brief, Mersen started doing business in the U.S. a long time ago on a small scale first. We accelerated substantially in 1991 on graphite and isostatic applications. In 2000, with a major acquisition in electronic electric components.
1991, 2000, and ever since, we've been growing, we've been adding products. The main industrial infrastructures date back to those two years. EUR 450 million in 2024, that's sales. This is quite massive, as I said two or three years ago. Mersen's sales are significant in countries where the industrial GDP represents a high percentage. The higher, the better, obviously, for Mersen. I think the U.S. are in the vicinity of 18% of industrial GDP. I think France is now slightly below 10%, dropped to 10%. The Germans are also suffering quite a bit. They're still at 20%. Wherever there is a high percentage of GDP, which is industrial, we do very well. The real benefit of the U.S. is that in the U.S., we cover, we have the entire product offering, electrical distribution with over $100 million U.S. semiconductors as well.
There are Micron, Intel, Nvidia, ND, and others. They do not make everything in the U.S., but they are really some of the big industry leaders, big OEMs, Applied Materials, for example, and many more. There is also some in Japan, aeronautics, aerospace, same thing as in Europe. They have Boeing. We are addressing a number of large customers there. They have a very big process industry as well, a process industry which is doing very well. It is a very buoyant, dynamic economy. We are now there. We have a local footprint, of course. We are fully aware and sensitive to what is happening, including on tariffs, of course. We are quite autonomous. We have an autonomous team now that are working in the U.S. as well. We started discussions with these three companies a couple of years ago, three beautiful acquisitions, starting with GMI.
GMI is a company we've been looking and scrutinizing for a number of years. The owners of GMI decided to pull out $40 million. They were a Mersen customer. They were buying graphite from us. They're quite complementary to our local businesses and footprint. There is no overlap with GMI. They're mainly in Pennsylvania, which helps as well. It's better than having one entity at one end of the country and another one somewhere else. The perspectives, the growth perspectives for GMI are good. KTK is a company that makes cooling equipment for electronic equipment. With this new acquisition, KTK, we're going to be able to group together this activity. They're in Rochester, where we already had our Busbar production site. This was quite logical. Barlow is a bit smaller. They make graphite for semiconductors.
This is a business we were not very big in. It's more of a niche market for us. Here again, we are only 10 minutes away from another location. We had a New Jersey. It makes it quite easy to manage those operations. I think GMI, they've been with us for four or five months, and the two other companies have been with us for a little less, but things are going smoothly so far. Let me just come back to some of our key markets. The numbers for 2024 in solar here and for the ones that will follow may slightly change with some interesting news in a disrupted solar market. 560, that's the jump, as opposed to 440 for 2023. That is a big jump upwards. Clearly, this is a buoyant market going from 440 to 560. That is a major leap forward.
All companies had to contribute to deliver this, to make this happen. As you can see, the forecast for the years to come, we have high expectations and low expectations. So far, we've always stuck to the higher end. Sometimes we've even been above. You can see that China is clearly fueling the markets, and they export a lot, 95 GW to Europe, 30 to the U.S. There are some companies that make equipment in the U.S., but most of it is coming from China. Some of it is going to India as well. The tariffs are very high, and Indians are creating their own industry. There is another slide on this in a moment, as a matter of fact. Growth perspectives for 2025 are at 680, more or less, to be taken with a pinch of salt. That is quite ambitious.
Again, these are very positive numbers, looking very, very positive. We had some challenges during the second half of the year because the Chinese were producing. They have about 1,000 GW in terms of capacity. They are really very ready for the years to come. Some of them even had too many cells. This is why we are seeing, we saw a bit of a war price. Things seem to be getting better now. Again, towards the end of the year, my understanding is that there is another 200 GW in storage in stock. Looking at the forecasts for next year, we think that this will very quickly be absorbed mid-year, and we expect the market to pick up again, hopefully a little before mid-year. Hopefully, this will come with some price increases as well. The outlook remains unchanged, with a focus really on China once again.
Here's a map that shows projects that are being launched in other geographies as well, starting with two main projects in the U.S. Two projects we're involved with. There will be sales starting in 2020, probably H2 2025. The companies are currently purchasing equipment. We've not reached full speed yet. We think that H2, we will start receiving some sales. We're looking at several million EUR. The Türkiye project, which is pretty much up and running, we've started to deliver. There are two large projects in India. They're so big that India decided to do some total vertical integration with polysilicon cell coatings, panels, 10 gigawatt each. These are very big projects. As I said, there are tariffs between China and India. We're talking about 40% tariffs. I think the Indians will be quite successful.
We have many more projects that are popping up, Southeast Asia. I don't really have any comments at this point to make, but many projects there as well. A very good-looking market, good perspectives. We're now in a better position when it comes to the competition coming from China, and we think there is great potential moving forward. Again, we expect to start generating sales soon. I think you heard most of the comments, the slowdown towards the end of the year on solar. We expect this segment to pick up again this year, mid-year. We really need to have a good understanding of how the Chinese industry is organized. We're talking about players. Most players, we think, are going to be, I think in China, they want to get rid of small companies, small producers, and to keep four or five business or industry leaders.
We're waiting for this to be over, to be consolidated. As you can see, looking at 2029, for China and other markets, things are looking well. On wind, I don't have much to say. Things went very well. We have an equipped installed basis, which is very strong. We're seeing fewer windmills being built today. We have a strong installed base. For both solar and wind, we need power conversion. That's an area where Mersen is very strong. We need conversion. We need power storage as well. We're not really prepared yet for a dedicated slide on storage because it takes a few million EUR in terms of investments. It is a growing industry. Again, power conversion, which is something we do, power transmission as well. A lot of the new windmills are offshore.
The power has to be taken back to the coast and to large cities. We have deals with big companies like Siemens on energy transformation equipment. A quick look now at EVs, electric vehicles. We talked a lot about electric vehicles back in December. These are the actual numbers for 2024. We're seeing the European market and the North American markets, which are quite accessible. You can see that those markets have declined. It has made the headlines. We're all aware of this. This is not something new. We don't really know what the expectations are for 2025. I think we're probably going to be in the vicinity of 7 million accessible EVs on the right part. The lighter colors have yet to be confirmed. It will depend very much on what happens in 2025 first. Obviously, the market has so much shifted.
We're talking about a two to three-year shift, which will translate also for silicon carbide. There will be the same two to three-year shift. We think the market will be pretty close to what's on this slide. We're looking at 13.5. I don't know if it's the Chinese or the inaccessible market, but we're talking about 13 million vehicles for next year. This is the information, the explanation I wanted to give about this gap. We're going to continue and monitor this, track this very closely. We're looking at global markets. Of course, we're monitoring our customers very closely. Most of the figures we can provide come from our customers. The one that's most important is the one in the middle. It's ACC. You've heard of ACC North Salt as well. They discontinued their operations.
We worked with them, but we mainly work on industrial storage, power storage. They had some major trouble developing packs for BMW and Volkswagen. They took a share. ACC is a different story altogether. They make packs for Stellantis. Here again, the market somewhat shifted, a bit delayed, but we expect accelerated deliveries as of this coming summer. I'm sure you're very familiar with this. We're talking about long range, long autonomy batteries for the 3008, 5008, DS3, DS7 models, the Opel vehicle as well. Beautiful vehicles. There is a real, hopefully there will be a real commercial success as well for Stellantis. The bottom line is deliveries will be accelerating towards the end of the year, which is positive news. With that, the platform is expected to be successful as well.
We would like to be qualified on a new battery pack with another car manufacturer. We've been qualified with Busbar on power, high voltage power. We have the essential of our sales in this area, about EUR 30 million, namely in fuses. We are confident on the EUR 100 million for 2029 as part of our growth plan, which was launched and introduced two years ago. Silicon carbide, here it is. The end market is 70% of the end market is electric vehicles. Vehicles, 30% is industrial, which is a much smaller share. This market has not really been delayed, but it's only 30% as opposed to EVs. As you can see, the prospects are quite good. Back in 2022 and 2023, we knew that electric vehicles were going to be picking up. There were some platforms that were launched by a number of car manufacturers.
Those platforms, again, were delayed and some sold less than expected. What happened is that in terms of production of wafers, as you can see on this slide, they manufactured a lot of wafers, but they could not find customers. Today we have a lot of inventory, a lot of stock with Wolfspeed, BC Crystal, and other customers. They have stockpiled. Our estimation is that it will take two to three years before they sell these products. We can come back to the initial forecasts. There will be somewhat of a dip for us in terms of business in 2025. We have the updated Mersen scenario, which will be back to normal after two to three years. This is also what we are hearing from our customers. Some customers are saying that in 2026, things are starting to pick up.
Towards the end of 2024, they did not quite know. They seem to have a better picture now. A quick word on pSiC. The same reasons apply here. If we do not have EVs, it will not work. We will have big volumes of pSiC on the basis of the number of EV cars that are going to be sold in two or three years to come. Now, I am not going to say anything that is technical. Look at the wafer. One is gray. The other one is green. Anyway, 200 millimeters in diameter, 0.5 is the thickness. With that, Solitech is going to be able to add a transfer layer and then produce transistors. It is a bit more delayed for pSiC, industrially speaking, compared to the classic cycles. We did our job by and large. We have almost finalized the solution technically.
We now have to produce this product on a dedicated industrial site with dedicated machines that are reaching the site. Now, as far as wafering is concerned, that's milling or machining of wafers so that they're nice, shiny, with the right thickness. The machines are on the site. We have laser cutting. We have rectifiers. This will be installed in the hall that you can see. We have also kilns. We do not usually want to show these machines, but we have two industrial kilns that are being commissioned. If everything works well, we will start industrial production. The yields will be what they are. This will happen in October or November after summer. We will be able to deliver high quantities of the product next year.
The pSiC product, just like the SiC product, as you can see on the right-hand side, has been changing in the past four years. We started the project four years ago, and industry has changed. We had 150 millimeter wafers, and now we have larger wafers, 200 millimeters, and sometimes bigger for more or less the same cost, perhaps twice as many microprocessors. That is interesting. It is not simple, you see. The production lines for eight inches are different from the six-inch lines. Massive investments here and there, in any case, that is the story of wafers. The wafers sold in two or three years will be the eight-inch wafer. We have worked a lot with Solitech this year to make sure that we have an eight-inch wafer that is economical and meets the technical specs. By and large, that is it. A slowdown in 2025.
2024 was probably a record if we look at sales, or not far from a record year. It is normal to have a decrease in terms of the number of SiCs that will be sold in 2025. Renewal of contracts since the quantities have been postponed. Everything is moving forward, but we keep the same quantities. Nothing's changed. That is for 2029. What else? We are discussing with the clients. We do this regularly. On the following page, the silicon semiconductor. Now, look at our market share. Nice market share. Good sales as well. Now, the numbers are available. 640, 640 more or less. 720 for 2025 is a nice surprise. We did not want to show you year 2022. It was interesting, but the bar was higher. There was a slowdown in 2023, but we did not feel it, not really.
A bit at the end of the year, but we saw the effects in 2024. That's why we have a bit of a sluggish year. At the end of 2024, there was a good recovery, and we think that 2025 is going to be good. Now, what do we include in the $640 billion? These are in billion dollars. $640, there's $200 there, there, there in this showing a cell phone. The automotive industry probably uses $45. Automobiles, $55. That's a lot, but not much given the number we have here, $640. There's something new. The servers, the data centers, but mainly the servers. That's where we need the semiconductors for computing power is more than $200 now. The number is above $200. That's where we have a good market for semiconductors, the servers.
In terms of units, I don't know, but in terms of value, that's for sure. And with AI, quick computing, big computing power, HBM memory with high storage density, you can't have quick computing and then pick from the datas that are here and there. They have to be close to your systems. Quite a lot of HBM memories produced. On the curve, I would say there's going to be an increase due to data centers, AI, quick computing, and the rest. It's mainly memories, microprocessors, microcomputers, and/or CPUs. There's another market for RF and electronics. Those are the drivers. This is what we do, what we focus on. We have a very good position in two of these steps that use a lot of graphite. If you produce a microprocessor or a memory. The outlook for 2025 is quite interesting.
If we look at the outlook for 2029, it's quite good as well. We can confirm the 100 million that we could reach. We discuss a lot with the OEMs. Geographically speaking, we have good locations, strong in Korea, good foothold in China, of course, in the U.S. By and large, this is it. You have it. We have some type of presence in Europe. Right, a few words about the outlook for 2025 that you've received in the press release, but let me share them with you. Reported sales include full year and exchange rates is up or stable. If we look at organic numbers, as we usually do, you have something between -5% and 0%, EBITDA between 16% and 16.5%, operating margin, as Thomas said, between 9% and 9.5% due to amortization or depreciation and their impacts on the P&L.
Industry capital expenditure nearing EUR 160-170 million. We postponed EUR 15 million of CapEx this year, which means that for the midterm plan 2029, if we take what we told you in December, these are the numbers we showed you several months ago. They're still very much valid. For 2029, the group sales would reach EUR 1.7 billion, operating margin 12%, more or less 0.5%, minus or plus. Current EBITDA margin 19% with plus or minus 50 basis points and ROCE 13%, plus or minus 50 basis points. I think the time has come for the Q&A.
I'm Geoffrey d'Halluin from BNP Paribas Exane. I have three questions to ask, if I may. Number one, how quickly will you grow your sales in 2025, organically speaking? And more information about the first two months of the year.
Given the fact that you've said that the market will recover, is it fair to say that organic growth could be negative at the beginning of the year and then gradually it would be slightly positive during the second half of the year? Question number two about financial expenses. We've seen that these expenses have slightly increased in 2024 versus 2023. Could you tell us what you think about this or where's the landing point for 2025 full year? Finally, the free cash flow. Operating cash flow from operations was good with the net debt that's lower than what you expected several weeks ago. What should we say about free cash flow in 2025, given the CAPEX that you've announced and the EUR 15 million that were postponed in terms of capital expenditure?
I'll answer the question. I'll answer. You asked the question several times in December.
I said, "I'll give you more color today without being too accurate." In this slideshow, you have quite a lot of information to calculate the free cash flow. CapEx level, sales level, EBITDA margin, tax rate, financial expenses will, of course, increase to some extent because the average debt level is higher. Even though it's the same debt, we have a higher level of average debt. Several millions. Do your maths. The cash outs for the adaptation plan and the dividends. Those are the cash outs. With this, you have all that you need to do your maths. Let me try and answer the question. It was a question you asked last year. Will your free cash flow be positive? After paying out the dividends, my answer is no. Before the payout, it's going to be difficult. Difficult.
We do not really think it is going to be positive, but it might be for the reasons we mentioned before. That is a restructuring plan or Adaptation Plan for which we have to pay. Therefore, the debt is going to increase. To answer your question, Luc says he is going to answer the question about the negative growth.
It is the baseline that has changed versus last year. Difficult to do better. Lots of deliveries for solar, quite a lot for SiC or SiC. I mean, organic growth, it cannot be positive at the beginning of the year. We will spread this out throughout the year to reach the level we have in the guidance.
Hello, Julien Léon, Stefan. I would like to come back to the 2025 outlooks, the markets, the process industries, chemistry, and power distribution in the U.S. and in Europe.
My question is, what would you say about these markets? Can I add as well transportation, not the EVs, but aeronautics and rail transport? That is four markets all of a sudden. What is your visibility on those four markets? You have said you are going to phase in all of your plants. You have good visibility for the first half. As you have said, there is -5% to 0% for organic growth. Is it because of these markets? I know that for renewables, SiC semiconductors, your visibility is rather good. You know what is going to happen. Could you perhaps tell us more about the uncertainties or the certainties that you have for these markets, please?
We have quite a good level of visibility. Certainly, we have our track record. We have been working with some of the customers for years, so we know how to calculate our outlook.
We can't say that we have one big plan with only two years to come. The process industries, as you know, the process industry has been a good market. The future looks quite good. I don't have a regional breakdown, but it's okay. Power distribution is something very important to us in North America. It's not because we don't care about Europe, but it's a lower level. It's 100% of our sales on electric components in the U.S. In Europe, it's not even 50%. In this case, what can I say about the market? We see all the impacts of what Trump has decided. Some of our clients have ordered more volumes than usual because they want to get the products before the end of the month, before the products are heavily taxed. Therefore, what has been booked is quite good, and therefore we sell quite nicely.
What else can I say? I can't say anything about April. I can't say anything about May. Our business in the U.S. is still good. There's no slowdown, but there's this phenomenon which is difficult to understand. Aeronautics now. Aeronautics for us is like aeronautics for Safran, but it's not 100% of our total sales. We're not overly worried until 2035. That's when it's going to be difficult, 2035. It's the very long term, and we're growing a lot. The rail business is growing as well to the tune of 3-4%. We have good positions, and we're investing in India as well. India is a good growth relay for us because they electrify the grid, and chemistry is not going to be an excellent year. Compared with this year, 2024 was a very good year. A baseline that's difficult to repeat.
What I can say, says Thomas, is that, as you can see in our guidance, we give you a bracket. That is due to the fact that we have the geopolitical and macroeconomic environments to factor in. That is why we have this guidance with brackets. Is it going to be the process industries? Yes, probably. Solar could pick up, is what we said, from the second half onwards. Two or three months' lag can make a big difference. Difficult to give you more information on that.
Now, back to electrical distribution. Would you say that the first quarter could be good because you could seize this opportunity before we get Mexican tariffs or taxes?
Yeah, it looks quite good, the first quarter.
Thomas says, "Okay, but these announcements are postponed, should be postponed months after months so that people would order more and more."
Thank you.
Hello, Thomas Renaud, Kepler Cheuvreux, I have several questions to ask. Number one, it has to do with your guidance, your outlook. And what are the macro scenarios that you've taken for the minus 5% to 0%? Is it the same scenario that you presented in December? We were thinking about a North American platform that would be dynamic and Europe would still continue to suffer. Is it still what you're thinking is going to happen? Question number two, EVs. In your presentation, you said you'd like to be qualified for another battery pack. Does that mean another manufacturer, not ACC, for this new pack or still with ACC? And thirdly, I thought I had a third question. No, no, two will do.
I'll answer for the United States, says Thomas. You know, we have markets. Now, to try and answer your question in a general way, I'd say that we've not thought that there would be a sudden collapse in the U.S. in terms of growth. Is it exactly what we said we would plan in December? We've given you a guidance with brackets. We've adjusted the lowest amount of the bracket, but we've not factored in a very sudden and abrupt scenario, a recession in the U.S. or something like this. This could be offset with a better scenario in Europe, possibly. Is that something you've been thinking about? In Europe, things are rather good, better than what we thought.
Another question about Germany. I was thinking 10% of your total sales in Germany. Is this correct? Will you benefit from the investment plans there?
This will be positive is all. In Germany, if you look at the beginning of the year, we got off to a good start. What about your sales in Germany? I think it's 9%, 10%, 9%, I think, if my memory serves me right.
Okay, good, thanks.
The decisions were made last year. We've not changed our budgets, nor the outlook. You've asked another question on electrification. Oh, sorry, the packs. With ACC, we're working on the next generation, but that's sales to come in the future. That's interesting. If you look at our plan, we are targeting another OEM. That's true. Maybe several OEMs, but smaller ones, because the ACC contract is one OEM, one manufacturer that produces a battery pack that you can assemble on many cars, many EVs.
To my knowledge, it's a bit different for Renault, different for the other car makers. For us, this is a major client, and there are applications that we usually don't talk about. You have light vehicles as well. We're working with Iveco and these types of makers, and there's interesting sales there.
Okay, and that means you wouldn't need to invest even more if you were to look for a new manufacturer or no? Am I allowed to say this? Anyway, no. For electronic power bus bars, there's a German producer. You don't know who this is. Production will be transferred to the bus bar battery production lines that started two years ago.
They can't reach the ACC quantities, but we can do things with these production lines.
Okay, thank you very much.
Hello, I have a question on working capital, working capital requirements.
You've done a lot of work in 2024. Stock-wise, I think you're halfway. What kind of improvements should we expect for 2025 besides stock and inventory? How about advance payments on SiC? And do you think that this is something you may lose in 2025?
Advance payments, we don't expect major losses or gains, as a matter of fact, versus 2024. Our priority is to continue our efforts on inventories. We said EUR 30 million within one to two years. We are working hard to make it one year rather than two years.
Thank you.
Jean-François Granjon from OBHF. Could you please come back to margins? You talked about both divisions. You talked about the same organic growth for both divisions. Margins are different. Is that something you expect to continue in 2025? Question two, there was a 2% price effect in 2024.
Do you expect to have additional price effect in 2025 or not? Operations are very sensitive to volume. Question three, could you please tell us about the development costs for pSiC? You told us about investments and what are the costs for investments. A last question on guidance. You gave us quite positive trends and perspectives for the different divisions. Chemistry, flat semiconductors supposed to pick up. Solar, you were a bit more conservative for solar for the first half of the year in SiC with contributions that are quite moderate. Why is your guidance where it is between 5% and 0.5% and 0.9%? Could you be a bit more specific?
In chemistry, we said it's going to be difficult to remain stable. I guess the process industry has been very favorable in 2024, and there has been a substantial decline in solar.
You can do the math for SiC, but this is why we're coming to our guidance. I don't think I left any divisions, any sectors out. It's really those two sectors that are slowing down significantly. They started to slow down in Q4 2024. All that means you have to reduce your sales for that division, for that segment. To your question on prices, the price effect, I'm going to repeat what I said in the past years. Our strategy is to ensure that our products and productivity cover inflation. If the question is, can we do it in 2025? The answer is, I hope so, but you never know. Prices are going to be a bit less favorable this year, mainly in Asia, as Luc said, in solar, because of very low volumes, prices tend to decline.
All in all, we expect a positive price effect, but not as much as in 2024. Your next question was on margins. We do not comment on margins by division. However, what I'm about to say is quite logical. Amortizations continue to increase, especially on advanced materials, because this is where we have the highest investments. This being said, operating margin has the amortization. SiC and solar is advanced materials as opposed to electrical power. I hope that answers your question. You had a last question on development costs on EV and SiC. With EV, you need to have a dedicated team to OEMs because they keep redesigning their, you know, they go from small battery packs to big battery packs. You do not know if that's what they will be using five years from now.
The fact is we do a lot of prototyping for customers. Not much happening on fuses. And on SiC, I think there will always be some marginal business. I think a lot of it was covered by subsidies and support measures, but these two sectors are really moving quite massively. I do not think there will be any margin gains coming from that specifically. What I would also like to say, earlier on, we talked about tariffs. The higher the taxes in the U.S., U.S., Mexico, the more positive the price effect will be.
One more word on prices and more specifically SiC. You are anticipating a drop in volume. It is not an industry with that many players. Do you expect price drops in SiC? It depends not only on you, but also on your competitors. I would like to come back to contract renegotiations, Wolfspeed.
Tesla, Tesla has dropped very, very sharply. There were some guaranteed volumes. How are the negotiations going? Very concretely, are there some cash compensation mechanisms if contracts are terminated? Mainly with Wolfspeed, how do you manage this? I guess this is directly connected to prices. When volumes are flat, it must be more difficult.
The prices were included in the contract, so they're not renegotiated. What's renegotiated is the volumes. We cannot really disclose any of the details of this. Maybe later we can. At this point, we cannot really tell you what we negotiate with Wolfspeed because of confidentiality. Wolfspeed has two markets. You were referring to Tesla. I'm not sure. I know that the wafers go through Tesla through a third party.
In spite of some financial problems last year, Wolfspeed is a company which we think is technically the most advanced. Again, we're not disclosing any of the details of the contract, but we like to do business with them. They're serious people. They have good perspectives, good volumes. They're not discussing the prices. We see them on a regular basis. There are two or three other customers for whom it is the same, but I think that Wolfspeed is really one of, obviously, an industry leader. You're right. There are some price disruptions, especially on wafers and Wolfspeed, a bit like Western companies, see wafers from China. We know that it's mainly the case with Chinese wafers. We have to believe in them and see crystal because they really have the best view of the markets.
They will clearly have an impact on the number of cars that will be out there in the market. We now have some questions we've received remotely. What are the drivers of the operating margin in your guidance? I think we answered that question. Another question, do you expect higher profitability? Will it be stable? I think we answered that question as well. Not by division, but I think we gave you a flavor of the trends for advanced material, which means also for electrical power. Next question. What is your planned dividend policy? Will you revisit those plans if you have a better cash flow? I think for the time being, we're looking at a 30%-40% payout ratio for dividends. Right now, we are not going to reconsider this payout policy. Could you tell us about railway and aerospace?
I think it's $100 million for rail and $60 million, $60 million plus for aerospace. I don't know if we can actually give these numbers, but anyway. What is going to be the contribution of mergers and acquisitions to 2025 sales? All the numbers were disclosed, and we included consolidation dates. We said there would be no acquisitions in 2025. Now it's pretty easy to do the math and get the full year effect. I can do the math for you. It's going to be between $35 million and $40 million. That's an estimate. Here is one more question, which just came in. How many of your products are manufactured in Mexico? In units, I don't really know. I think we're talking about $80 million in sales that are distributed to customers.
In Mexico, we buy American products, so they come from the U.S. to Mexico, and then we process them, and then we ship them back to the U.S. If the question is how much of this is going to be impacted by tariffs, when the majority of your products come from the U.S., there is real economic value in Mexico is low. Calculating the tariffs is difficult. We have to discuss this with the U.S. customs. Things keep changing, and they're not very good at getting back to us. Right now, there is a bit of a question mark. If components are purchased in the U.S., that's good for them.
If they're assembled in Mexico and then shipped back to the U.S., obviously, the tariffs will be lower, as if we purchased the components in China to process them in Mexico and then ship them off to the U.S. For us, it's looking pretty good, but the same thing is true for most companies in our industry. If you go to El Paso, great place for holidays, by the way. All American companies have massive halls right near El Paso to just collect the products that are coming from the other side of the border. I mean, we're a tiny, tiny little company in the middle of this vast ocean of big American firms. We're talking about fuses, advanced materials. Everything is produced in the U.S. for the U.S. Here's another question that just came in. Can you further reduce CapEx?
I think we've come a very long way. We are removing between EUR 30 million and EUR 40 million in terms of CapEx. I don't think we can do better than that. What's the CapEx in 2026? That's another question. We've not yet given CapEx for 2026, but if you take a slide 67, you can see that we'll be back to normal cruising speed. Eventually, in 2027, we'd like to have 6.5% of our sales in CapEx. In 2026, we are very close to that. Just take a look at that slide, and you'll see the projections. It's not very accurate, but it'll give you a flavor. Okay, are there any final questions at this point? No, I think we have no questions from those of you who are listening remotely. No questions in the room. Many thanks. Thank you for your time, and we'll see you for HV.
The Q1 results towards the end of April.