Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 Sales and H1 2020 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question at this stage, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. I must also advise you the call is being recorded today, Tuesday the 28th of July 2020. I would now hand the conference over to your speaker today, Patrick Berard. Please go ahead.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today. Welcome to this presentation of Rexel second quarter 2020 sales and first half results. Next to me is Laurent Delabarre, our CFO. Both of us will bring you through the presentation and obviously at the end, to answer any questions. We continue to operate in an uncertain and volatile environment. As you will see, Rexel has also shown its resilience.
All the investment we have made over the past three years in people, in inventories, in branch openings, in IT, in digital transformations, all have proven to be relevant and contributed to transform Rexel into a much more robust company, able to navigate the current turmoil without compromising its medium-term ambition. It was my goal. We always explained it, that until you are in the middle of a real crisis, you never really know. Now we know. I will start this call explaining how we are adapting to the current environment and how we have managed to mitigate its impact.
Laurent will bring you through the detail our Q2 sales and first half financial performance. Then I will conclude with a look at our immediate priorities and actions, and obviously, we will take all your questions. Now, if I look at Rexel in the crisis, and if there would be one way to set agility and one company responsiveness. Under this agility and one company responsiveness, what does it mean? If you look at this slide three, successfully navigating the turmoil, it means, first of all, protecting our people, protecting our customer, protecting our stakeholders.
Across the group at every site, from branches to logistic to our headquarters, we have implemented all sanitary measures to ensure the health and safety of all employees and all our customers. We have put in place a strategy called Zero-COVID at Rexel, and I am pleased to report that we have largely contained the first wave of this terrible pandemic, and that we are gradually resuming normal working conditions while remaining very vigilant and adapting to every situation.
I would like to thank our team once again for their remarkable dedication in these moments and the way they are living through and with all these measures. Second, preserving the business continuity for our customers. We managed to be very quick. We have been able to switch our operations online and at home, while at the same time maintaining a high level of customer service. We always kept a high level of delivery. This allowed us to preserve the quality of our customer relations. Third, we demonstrated a great agility and responsiveness.
As promised in our Q1 presentation, we maintain a very strong focus on OpEx management and free cash flow generation. This allowed us to reimburse at the end of June, the senior credit line we had drawn down as a precautionary step in mid-March. Fourth, leveraging our digital investments. From an internal point of view, our enhanced digital tools, such as Power BI, enabled us to monitor the business in real time and take agile decisions. From a sales standpoint, digital sales reach almost 21% at group level in H1 and represented 31% of sales in Europe.
A level never reached before by far. As you can see, up 572 basis points. Last but not least, throughout this crisis, Rexel operated as one company, one way of doing, one way of protecting the people, one way of preserving business continuity, one way to create agility and responsiveness. Nobody was out. One way of leveraging our digital investment. Nothing was forgotten. Sharing best practices and applying clear, strict rules across the group. I'm very proud of how the team responded, demonstrating that Rexel has become a robust company.
What does it mean to be a robust company? Delivering robust KPIs in H1 2020 despite sharp sales drop in Q2. It means same-day sales in H1 -10.6%, but digital sales up +7%. As you can see, the key aggregates of this first half show that we managed to deliver robust KPIs, whatever the challenge was at the outdoor. We maintained a drop in sales, notably thanks to the strong online performance. Digital sales really came as a way to mitigate the outside world changes in the pattern, in the way they were purchasing. Gross margin was resilient at 24.6 points, down 36 basis points.
This drop was mainly due to an unfavorable country mix, as our most profitable countries recorded significant drops. At the same time, the drop in volume directly impacted the amounts of rebates we anticipated to receive from our suppliers. Our adjusted EBITDA margin stood at 3.3%, down 136 basis points. This resilient performance is attributable to the major efforts we made to reduce the OpEx in Q2 by adjusting our cost base throughout the organization, either through internal actions or by taking full advantage of government measures, where there were some available.
We managed to reduce salary and benefits by 19.7% in Q2, while our top line was down 17.7%. At the same time, we posted very strong cash flow generation at almost EUR 177 million, versus an outflow of circa EUR 17 million in H1 last year. This enabled us to lower our net debt to EUR 1.69 billion, the lowest level since 2008. As a result, our leverage ratio was even better than last year at 2.59 x the EBITDA after leases, despite the crisis. On the page after, we wanted to share with you the gradual recovery since mid-April, and recognizing through the curves that North America is lagging behind.
When you look at these curves, we reached the worst in the first two weeks of April, when group sales were down 27.7%, and then we saw gradual recovery, quite uneven, to reach -5.6% in the first two weeks of July. This gradual recovery is largely driven by the residential market. While commercial's recovery started later due to sanitary measures, industry has been harder hit than with sharp and continuing drops in sectors such as automotive, aerospace, oil, and gas. Europe saw the biggest fall, and as much as 37% in early April, but has since gradually recovered as lockdown measures were lifted.
Overall, in the first two weeks of July, sales are down 3.6% year-on-year, despite very contrasting trends from country to country. France and Belgium have rebounded quite well, while U.K. and Southern Europe continue to be affected. North America has lagged behind, falling less at the start but taking longer to recover, and we experience very diverging trends from region to region. Pacific, overall trends were resilient, with the low point at -19.2% before bouncing back to -0.7% in the first two weeks of July.
Here too, there was a clear difference between Australia, that held well through the crisis, while New Zealand felt the impact of a very severe lockdown. One thing, if you go on page six, we have succeeded to navigate without compromising our midterm ambition, as shown on this slide. Despite the fall in activity, we have not closed branches during the crisis. First of all, this compare with 265 branch closure during 2008-2009 crisis, and we believe our broad footprint will be a competitive advantage and allow us to benefit from the recovery.
The long-term patient rebuild that we just had been finished in the U.S., we didn't want it to jeopardize. We have not done. It's all intact. We have adjusted the staffing, adjusted the OpEx, not given away the asset of the footprint. We also took the opportunity of the crisis to reinforce our relationship with our main suppliers. We have intensified, in content and frequency, the interaction with them. Our analytical tools make us the eyes and ears of our suppliers in our markets, providing them with business intelligence to navigate the crisis and demonstrating our key role in the value chain.
We continued investing for growth, notably in digital, in all three layers: data, layer of transaction, and layer of predictive. We have continued progressing in automatized storage solution that places a broad offer at the disposal of our customer with minimal time spent, enhancing efficiency and productivity. We will not stop doing. We will continue. This also minimizes human interactions and improves safety conditions in a COVID-19 context. Finally, we continue to favor social and environmental actions. For instance, we did not suspend any apprentice contracts in France to protect youth employment.
We are revising transportation as we target carbon neutrality. On page seven, for the crisis, we also changed it in order to continue having the full benefits and the full support and engagement of our board. Therefore, for example, we held nine exceptional short board meetings since mid-March, then enabling rapid decision-making and buy-in for all our measures. Our board is experienced, diverse, international, with 80% independent members, nearly half our directors non-French.
We recently appointed Brigitte Cantaloube as an independent director, so that we have reached full gender parity at our board. This board worked in a very reactive way, fully supporting of us in these special phases. Let me also point out that our recent AGM, which was held behind closed doors due to the pandemic, it was decided to extend the age limit of the CEO to 70 years old from 68 previously. I intend to use this period to continue the transformation that has put Rexel in a stronger position to navigate in turbulent waters.
Now, I will come back later in order to go through Q2 sales and H1 financial review. I leave the floor to Laurent, and I thank you, all the employees, all the board members, all the stakeholders for having reacted extremely well during this H1 period.
Thank you very much, Patrick, and good morning to everybody. I will start on slide nine, where you see the geographical breakdown of our sales in H1, Q2 and June to share with you the latest trends of the quarter. Let's focus on Q2. Patrick has already commented on the overall trends on a biweekly basis, region by region. Let me remind you that same-day sales were down 17.7% in Q2, with -23% in North America, -16.7% in Europe, and -0.6% in Asia-Pacific. In June specifically, conditions remained difficult in North America, with sales down 20.5%.
Europe benefited from a gradual recovery and was down 6.9%. Asia-Pac, for its part, was down 2.2%. On the next few slides, I like to show how our sales have evolved by region, starting with Europe on slide 10. Europe sales were down 16.7% in Q2, with a particularly sharp drop in the first half of April, followed by a gradual but steady recovery overall, reaching -3.6% in the first two weeks of July, with diverging trends from country to country. Let me highlight four key trends. First, we saw an imperfect V-shaped performance in our most profitable markets, France and Belgium.
Specifically for France, sales dropped up to -64% in the last week of March before gradually recovering, mainly as a result of positive momentum in the residential and industrial activities. Commercial business lagged in the recovery phase, mainly due to sanitary measures in large project and lower public spends, partly related, as you know, to the three months postponement of the municipal elections. The combination of business continuity offered to our customers and our digital offering translated into circa two points of market share gains in the first six months.
Second, the countries that had light lockdown measures, namely the Netherlands and Nordic countries, posted a resilient performance. Nordic countries also benefited from good demands from utilities. Third, Germany remained positive throughout the crisis, notably thanks to the construction-related business and the limited lockdown. Fourth, Southern Europe and U.K. were particularly hard hit, and the rebound is slower. In the U.K. specifically, activity was hit by the lockdown until beginning of July and the continuing effects of Brexit.
On slide 11, let's have a look at the situation in North America. Sales were down 23% in Q2 in the regions, with a broadly similar performance in the U.S. and Canada. Overall, the drop was less severe than in Europe, but the pickup is less noticeable as well, with sales down circa 13% in the first two weeks of July. This is largely due to the stop-and-go measures on lockdown and to contracting performance in different regions that I will comment on the next slide. In Canada, sales dropped by 23.6% in Q2 on a same-day basis.
Sales recovered since mid-May, driven by the western part of the country, notably helped by a more positive downstream activity in oil and gas. In the U.S., on the next slide, we observe very divergent situations from region to region. As an illustration, the western part of the country, namely California and Northwest, were the first states to lock down before gradually recovering. In regions like the Midwest or the Gulf, activity was largely impacted by depressed end markets such as automotive, aerospace, and oil and gas.
In the New York area, the pandemic's impact has been significant, and we are adjusting costs and taking the opportunity to adapt quicker the organization. Overall recovery in the U.S. will, of course, largely depend on whether some regions see a second wave of lockdown. Finally, in Asia-Pac, on slide 13, sales in the region were resilient at -0.6% in Q2, with sharply contrasting trends. China was hit by the pandemic earlier than other countries and also rebounded earlier and was up almost 14% in the quarter. However, much of this is due to a catch-up in activity, and we anticipate a lower pace of growth in H2.
Australia benefited from a relatively mild lockdown and was broadly stable at -0.9%. New Zealand and India were severely impacted by strict lockdown measures, with activity dropping between 80%-100% in April before gradually picking up. On slide 14, we take a look at our overall Q2 sales performance. Our Q2 sales of EUR 2.8 billion were down 17.7% on a same-day basis and -19.1% on a reported basis. Organic same-day sales growth was impacted by negative copper impact of -0.7%. Even so, copper prices have recovered in the quarter.
Sales were also impacted by a scope effect as Gexpro Services was deconsolidated as of end of February. In the quarter, we benefited from the positive foreign exchange impact of +0.2%, and we now anticipate for the full year of 2020 currency impact to be circa -0.5%, assuming spot rates remain unchanged. On slide 15, we turn to our profitability by region. Overall, with adjusted EBITDA of EUR 199.3 million in the first half, our adjusted EBITDA margins stood at 3.3%, down 136 basis points compared to last year, with a negative contribution in every geography.
In Europe, adjusted EBITDA margin was down 193 basis points to 4%, with a gross margin contraction of 60 basis points, mainly due to negative country mix from France and Germany, negative customer mix, especially in the Nordics, and lower volumes leading to lower rebates. On the cost side, we have been reactive and agile in Q2 after having increased OpEx in Q1. I will come back more specifically on the measure initiative in every geography on salary and benefits when I will comment the evolution of the operating expense on slide 18.
In North America, adjusted EBITDA margin was resilient, down 73 basis points to 3.2%, thanks to gross margin stability, notably through good pricing management. On OpEx, salary and benefits dropped more than sales. In Asia-Pacific, adjusted EBITDA margin decreased by 89 basis points to 0.8%. The gross margin contraction came mainly from negative country mix due to stronger growth in China and negative product mix in the Pacific. Here, too, we have been very agile and reactive in OpEx management.
Lastly, our corporate costs stood at EUR 9.5 million, down by EUR 3.4 million compared to last year from lower project costs and partial unemployment measures. For the full year, we anticipate the corporate hosted cost to be close to EUR 25 million. On slide 16, we turn to our H1 adjusted EBITDA bridge. Adjusted EBITDA was down almost 37% to EUR 199 million, and margins stood at 3.3%, down 136 basis points. This can be explained by a negative volume and price contribution of 261 basis points resulting from the pandemic crisis.
This was partly offset by cost discipline, which had a positive impact of 128 basis points from partial unemployment and internal measures. Service cost inflation was limited to 60 basis points and more than offset by structural productivity gains, mainly from last year's restructuring that contribute for 26 basis points in the half. Lastly, our investment for growth initiatives were reduced to the most critical areas, representing only 12 basis points, and we now anticipate circa 20 basis points impact for the full year.
On slide 17, we focus on the different actions we took to manage our operating costs. Overall, we succeeded in limiting the increase in OpEx to 111 basis points as a percentage of sales, while our sales in the quarter were down 17.7%. By cost category. First, our fixed costs were stable as we managed to completely offset inflation through lease renegotiation, notably in the Pacific and in the south of Europe. Second, our flexible cost, mostly salary and benefits, decreased in Q2 more than sales, dropping by 20%.
This is a result of the combination of making use of governmental measures in Europe to support salaries of furloughed workers and internal measures to control costs. I will detail this on the next slide. Our variable costs were down 10%, impacted by bad debt provisioning and delivery costs that cannot be made fully variable in such a volatile environment. On the next slide 18, we illustrate how Rexel has demonstrated agility and reactivity in the face of this new environment, using all available measures to quickly adapt the workforce to protect profitability.
Overall, we have temporarily reduced workforce by the equivalent of 4,000 full-time employees, a 16% reduction. By geography, in Europe, we have largely used flexibility offered by various governments, especially in France, Belgium, the U.K. In France, partial employment has been negotiated until end of August and until end of October in the U.K. In North America, we have combined governmental and internal measures, which put in place temporary layoffs, mainly for logistic and transportation staff. We put in place absence, no pay, and furloughs for people working in our branch network.
We put also in place salary reduction of between 10%-20% for management and back office functions. In Asia-Pac , we put in place absence, no pay policies in Australia and froze salaries in China. We also implemented more structural measures in some countries or regions as illustrated in the Northeast region in the U.S., in the U.K., and also in Germany. Lastly, the 20% cut in CEO and in the board compensation was extended for three months. As a result, salary and benefits in Q2 have been cut by 19.7%, more than the 17.7% sales drop in actual days.
On slide 19, we look at the bottom line part of our P&L. Let's start with our adjusted EBITDA of EUR 199.3 million, down 36.6%. Reported EBITDA was slightly lower at EUR 192.3 million, down 39.9% year-on-year, reflecting the non-recurring swing in copper price. Other income and expense amount to a negative EUR 482.5 million, largely due to a goodwill impairment of EUR 486 million, on which I will come back on the next slide. It also includes limited restructuring costs of EUR 1.9 million as most of the workforce adaptation in H1 bore no cost.
For the full year 2020, it's arbitrary to provide a precise number, as it will largely depend on the economic situation, as well as the evolution of the pandemic and the level of government support. We will update you more precisely in our Q3 call, but at this stage, you can forecast restructuring costs of circa EUR 30 million on full year basis. Our net financial expense decreased by EUR 31.2 million, mainly due to the EUR 21.8 million one-off cost of the bonds refinancing that took place in H1 last year, as well as the reduction in our effective interest rate, which is now at 2.43% versus 2.82% in the first six months of 2019.
Excluding one-off ForEx and interest rate hedging impact, we now anticipate our financial costs to be close to EUR 87 million in the full year compared to EUR 96.6 million in 2019. Our income tax was up to EUR 79.9 million with a combination of two one-off effects, a EUR 29 million release of a tax provision in H1 2019, and a write-down of EUR 33 million deferred tax asset depreciation in H1 2020. As a result, net income was a negative EUR 439.8 million, and our recurring income stood at EUR 82.5 million, down 50.7%.
On the next slide, let's detail the charge of EUR 486 million coming from goodwill impairments, mainly reflecting lower volume related to the COVID-19 crisis and higher WACC as risk premium increased in the COVID-19 environment. Overall, despite this impairment, medium-term profitability at group level has not changed, showing that we will maintain our roadmap. This goodwill impairment comes from various countries, including the U.K., U.S., Canada, Germany, Australia, and Norway.
Those countries carried historical high level of goodwill, either from the LBO step-up in 2005 or from the Hagemeyer acquisition in 2008. On slide 21, we turn to our cash flow statement. We generate a very strong cash flow in the half, reaching EUR 176.8 million, reflecting in part the effort we made to manage working capital. This compare with a slightly negative flow last year in the period, which is traditionally negative, as you know, due to the seasonality of our business. This strong cash inflow translated into a high conversion rate of 77.7%.
Concerning working capital, which is a main factor behind the cash flow improvement, the bulk of the evolutions come from trade working capital, which I will detail on the next slide. There was a smaller but significant contribution from non-trade working capital, as the reduced level of activity led to lower tax and to lower rebate receivables. Let me share a few details on the evolution of CapEx. It is broadly stable in the half, but most was incurred in Q1. In Q2, we reduced CapEx by EUR 9 million .
Our strong cash flow performance, combined with the proceeds from the disposal of Check4Service and, to a lower extent, our Spanish export business, allowed us to significantly reduce net debt, which was down by nearly EUR 500 million - EUR 1.69 billion , the lowest level since 2008. This led to a leverage ratio of 2.59 x, better than last year's ratio despite the crisis. Let me focus specifically on our cash generation on slide 22. As we already mentioned in Q1, we have focused relentlessly on cash collection, as shown on the graph.
We made strong effort to manage inventories to adapt to the abrupt drop in demands. Between March and June, inventories were down by about EUR 190 million, while trade payables were down by about EUR 130 million, which also contributed to the strong cash generation. We focus strongly, of course, on trade receivables, with particular emphasis on receivable monitoring, credit management and cash collection. As shown on the graph, our trade receivables were reduced by circa EUR 230 million between March and June.
On slide 23, we turn to our liquidity picture, which shows that we have no short-term issues. As of June 30, we have EUR 1.27 billion of liquidity, including the available cash and the undrawn facilities on the Senior Credit Agreement. As you remember, at the start of the crisis, we drew down EUR 550 million from our EUR 850 million Senior Credit Agreement as a precautionary step. Thanks to our efforts to preserve strong cash generation, we were able to more than offset the expected drop of our securitization receivable, which were down by a limited EUR 230 million.
Given our debt maturities and debt reduction, we were able to quickly pay back this facility that was paid back end of June. As you know, we also decided to suspend the dividend payment this year. This will result in a cash saving of EUR 145 million in H2. Our deleveraging efforts over the past few years have strengthened our balance sheet. This is really an asset in the current environment. Let me conclude on slide 24 by reiterating our capital allocation priorities, which we are maintaining unchanged despite the crisis.
First, we will re-accelerate our digital journey and finance it through organic growth in order to continue our transformation. We anticipate CapEx to sales of around 0.9% of sales this year, and a normative rate of around 1% in the medium term. Second, after an exceptional dividend cancellation this year due to the crisis, our dividend policy will resume in 2021 with a minimum payout of at least 40% of adjusted net income. The objective is to maintain a good balance between shareholder return and investment. Third, our priority is to focus on the deleveraging of the company, thanks to our free cash flow generation.
Fourth, we will also consider targeted bolt-on acquisitions with a priority on the digital space to acquire competencies and speed up our development and on some geographies, notably the U.S. Any acquisition, of course, will have to respect strict criteria to be completed. With this, let me hand back to Patrick for his concluding remarks.
Thank you, Laurent. Let's now look at our priorities going forward in an environment that remains obviously uncertain and volatile. There's one thing which we will not compromise on is our fundamentals with clear five priorities here. First and foremost, continue to preserve the health and safety of our employees and customers. We have done every day, we will continue to do every day. Second, continue to ensure business continuity. We have been able to adapt fast. We have learned a lot how to continue to do so even better, therefore preserve business continuity under any circumstances.
Third, focus on liquidity as our key performance indicator. All the company is really engaged behind that, and we will continue to do so every day. Fourth, protect the company and prepare it for the resumption of, let's say, more normal activity by focusing on gross margin, OpEx, and cash management. Gross margin, OpEx, cash management. Three pillars by which all our country, BUs, entities, are all driving the business every day. This is the main focus to adapt to all these volatile situations. Fifth, continue the digital transformation through the systematic rollout of our digital capability.
Even more through the crisis, we found reasons to do so, to accelerate, to get the fundamentals in place if they were not everywhere, so that there is absolutely no delay in this transformation. As such, we will continue to act as one company. We realized through the crisis that we were able to act, to behave, and to have one way of facing the issue. For a company made of so many acquisitions, it's a real company. It's a one company with sharing best practices and like we never had before. On page 27. Well-positioned because we want to capture, and we are well-positioned for, the new growth opportunities.
There will be different plans after the COVID pandemic. Some are financed by big governmental helps, some are financed by the EU level, some come from different angles. We want to be definitely part of the green recovery plans, the social responsibility and health and wellbeing plans, which will structurally increase, in any case, the electrical usage. Electrical usage will be more and more demanded in most of these plans.
As an illustration, the emergence, obviously, of electrical vehicles, but also of many other adoption like heat pumps, alternative energy increase, and so on, in order to electrical product solving also a portion of the CO2 reduction emission. I should not forget intelligent building solutions. Pandemic raised the need for social distancing, for making sure of lower propagation. Intelligent building solutions can be a major contributor to it, as well as a recovery of the economy. In parallel, we will see a greater use of automation. It's also a way to social distancing and partial lockdown risks.
We see that in the lips of many people having to make that decision soon, and we will see this greater use, and we will be part of it. Our broad value proposition in product and solution position us well to seize these growth opportunities, and we are working closely with several suppliers to push innovation into the market around IoT, building automation, and more. To better seize these opportunities, we have revamped our organization. Our organization will be more and more aligned with customer needs.
We are increasing customer touchpoints, without adding staffing and manning, but through lockers, for example, through automation in logistics too. Other solution and services to bring us faster and closer to our customer contacts and needs. We are also enhancing the competencies of our employees to increase their ability and prescriptive capacity while building up the sales force of tomorrow. The sales force of tomorrow will be extremely important to influence on all these new choices. On page 28, we will re-accelerate.
There was a little bit of a put on hold in term of mid-March when things came out, put on hold a few developments while seeing how is it going? We zoom forward, how and how fast, the amount of money involved and kind of stuff. It's clear now that even more than before, we will accelerate this digital transformation roadmap. We will not compromise on the three levels. The data and the uniformization of customer segmentation across Europe is almost finished. The uniformization of product segmentation to better address customer needs and optimize pricing is actively being done.
All the transactional tools, web, EDI platform, track and trace, email to EDI, digital customer invoicing, they have proven so valid, so needed, so accurate, so powerful. There is absolutely no doubt that this has been part of the solution throughout the crisis. It will be the solution for during and after the crisis. Therefore, Rexel Easy, how to make sure that our processes vis-à-vis the customer, totally facilitated by data handling, is allowing to have a much better coverage of their needs at a much lower cost. All the predictive modules.
Even if historical data series were interrupted, we realized how important these predictive modules were and are now, once we get out of the crisis, even more. Making rollout of branch assortment readjusted right now, rather than doing one by one, having a tool in order to get it done and adjusted. We had to retrain the machine. We are retraining the machine. We have to improve. Yes, we are adjusting. We have the skills, we have the people, we have the capability, we have the tool. They are all valid. Same for customer churn, same for the next best offer ready to be deployed, and we will deploy.
There was a short interruption. Nobody could make the test. There was nobody outside. We weren't even allowed to do so. We have not forgotten how to get it even better. Therefore, all these modules are ready to be part of the solution for being more efficient, more agile, more customer-driven, even much more, let's say, lower cost for after the COVID. On page 29, how do we see the situation? Nobody has a clear view on where it was, how it could be. Allow me to be quite a little bit advanced in trying to make a shape of potential curve. You remember the pre-crisis level, the group at -27.7%.
It's a fact. It went down, boom. On the way up, you have seen the curves before. They are not of the same shape, same speed, same kind of. Right now, where are we? We are about to recovering at a -10% compared to where we were. Okay. How is it going to happen? I don't know. One thing I know, we are ready to take both a bumpy road or any pockets of growth that would offset pocket of depression. We are ready to be more agile. Therefore, the question is: When do we cross the next line level in activity? Yes, everybody would like to know, but in fact, it's not the target.
The target is continue to be more effective, even if it does not come back to the level of activity of before, because we don't know, but we have to be prepared for lower. Recognizing that automotive, aerospace, oil and gas will remain under pressure and should not be opportunistic solution short-term. It's only fundamental structural solutions that will help us making it happen. Therefore, where are we going to be in H2? We are re-accelerating the medium-term digital transformation roadmap. It's on its way, making digital multi-channel and the backbone of the organization.
We see an increase in number of customers that during the COVID became mono channel. They want to become multi-channel. They were digital channel, they want to come back to multi-channel. Fine. Here we are, and we know how to get it done right. Continuous rigorous management of gross margin. Gross margin and gross margin. There is no volume price sensitivity to low margin. Therefore, gross margin, there is an OpEx. Let's chase any OpEx that is not directly needed in order to get the leverage on whatever the sales level could be.
Free cash flow and liquidity, we have demonstrated we can generate free cash flow, and we will continue to demonstrate we can increase this generation of free cash flow throughout the quarters. Also, we have our own KPIs and objectives. We don't manage by budget anymore. We manage by the next six months phases, because the budget for this year obviously was shaken up heavily, and therefore, we have set targets for the end of first half. We have demonstrated, and they were shown to you. Now we have our targets for second half, so that people reach their maximum.
At least you can count on us for managing the different components of the P&L in order to provide the max result that we can get out of this industry and our market positions. I hope we have provided you with certainty on how we have responded to the unprecedented situation that we were facing, but also how we look at the future that we are facing. As of now, Laurent and myself will be very happy to take your questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question over the phone today, please press star then one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. You can cancel the request by pressing the hash key. The first question we have today comes from the line of Daniela Costa.
Sorry, there was plenty of noise. We didn't get anything.
Okay. I do apologize. The first question we have today comes from the line of Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Hope you're all well. I actually have three questions. I'll ask them one at a time. The first one is regarding, you mentioned you've started some first structural measures. I think you mentioned the Americas and Asia. I was wondering if you could talk about the opportunity to turn more of the temporary savings into more structural savings as you walk into the second half in 2021, namely with the things that you talked about in automation, sort of what shall we expect there?
You want to put the three or should I answer this one?
One by one.
One by one. Okay. On the measures. First of all, the measures are of different nature. You have in the adaptation. You have the measure that we are looking at everything that we could Put on hold, knowing we would have to restart depending on volume. They are the ones that we decided that we could do differently and never restart. The use of certain partners outside to do certain things that we could re-internalize, the reduction, few things that we decided, okay, we don't need to do anymore. Don't do it, and so on.
Meaning, you have a lot of management measures that when we thought it was suspending, it becomes suspendable, and now it becomes non-indispensable, and to the point that it become a structural change. It's true in logistic, it's true in making everything more simpler, more shorter. This is what we call Rexel Easy in a much more active way. In such, it has to do with spending outside of the company with partners, or it could be internally. So that we can reduce, for example, the temps and use our people.
We can reduce overtime and run very differently by a new shift system and a different way of using the time available and optimization. All of these things we went through, which already lower some of the cost base. Complementary to it, obviously, due to volume, there was a lot of temporary measures of people benefiting from furlough, partial unemployment, Kurzarbeit, name it the way you want. We all use in different places where they were.
The question is, how much is only to face, let's say a fall, and how much will come back, and how much will become structural at the end, depending upon the level of the comeback. Obviously a portion due to the volume came back because there is a minimum to be done professionally. By the way, in doing so, we have new productivity targets. We have the targets that we have increased so that, even in this phase, we maintain the pressure on how to be efficient. It is obvious that part of it will not come back and it becomes structural. We already done several of them.
We have done a portion of them. Depending on the market, they are more or less severe. We are still uncertain exactly how much depending on the market. For example, I can tell you without naming it in detail, that one region in the U.S. has already done, even if people are on furlough, a portion will never come back, as been told. It becomes structural measures. We are doing this, and we look at it every week, everywhere in order to come to new structural level compared to before. In that period, that's why we have around EUR 30 million of restructuring costs allocated for H2.
Got it. Thank you. In terms of the gross margin, as you said, you had a negative mix in the gross margin, some of your best margin countries falling down sharply on your slide. It looks like some of them have recovered quite nicely towards the end of the quarter. Could we go back to prior gross margin levels in the second half? Do you expect like a reversal of the mix?
What we say is that on the gross margin down 36 basis points, one third is linked to the country mix. That obviously will come back. Two third is what we call the trading margin. The trading margin is done of three blocks. The front margin where you have the customer mix, for example, we have more DIY customer in the U.S. than the one coming to the branch, driving a lower margin. We have also a product mix where we sell less of, for example, own brand toolings and things which are carrying high margin. Part of that will come back in the second half.
We have the global relationship with our supplier with less volume. It's not a major part of our rebate, but we have a conditional rebates to volume. On the other side, during this period, we create a stronger stickiness with our suppliers who are a lot of analytics. There will be some discussion around that part, but that could decrease to some point.
The third, because of the sharp drop, we are a bit mechanically hit by the upswell on our inventory, and we are pushing up to make sure that we can get rid of that second half of the year. I would say that, probably a good half should come back quite quickly and in H2. The second part, we have to really to work strong on that.
Understood. My final question relates to, I guess, sort of this point on working capital and on cash into the second half. Can we assume that you can continue to destock in the second half, or would you have to get sort of working capital back? How should we think about the second half free cash flow, basically, compared to normal seasonality?
First, I was rather conservative in April around the cash flow of the half. We push a lot. Patrick put a strict rule on replenishment, simply called two to one. You can only replenish one when you sell two products. As such, we managed to drive inventory down, of course, helped by the better momentum on the top line than what we had first on -27% in the month of April, we were anticipating for Q2. Then the good part of it is while having a better top line, we get a very good cash collection from our customer. A lot of them helped by also this temporary measure of government subsidies, postponement of payments.
Having even more receivable, we managed to cash a lot. This give us a strong free cash flow generation in H1. All the measures we have taken will continue, and we will be very cautious also going into H2 on the inventory side. We believe on the customer side, probably the months of summer will be a tough one, so we are very, very cautious on that. We expect today that our full-year cash conversion should be probably very close to what we achieve at the end of H1.
We will also have the help of our digital tools in order to optimize the assortment, which we will use more in the future than in the past. This assortment should bring us to really be even more closer to our pure exact needs. At the same time, yes, to your question, there is potential to go to a little bit lower level, better optimization and better adjustments and better turnaround. It was a first adjustment, which was really brutal.
When it's brutal, we reacted brutally, and obviously, there is a lot of fine-tuning that has to be done after. I would like to add that in Europe, we don't face that, but in the U.S., the industry, it's not just Rexel and probably Rexel due to the complementary supplier that they do have, we suffer less than others. There are supply chain issues in the U.S. that make everybody try to keep on inventory certain special components which cannot be easily supplied out of the Mexican factories of the key vendors.
Therefore, there is a limit to how far we can go out as long as people try to keep a minimum level of inventory should there be some more serious supply chain issue in the U.S., which is an unknown depending on the COVID in Mexico.
Clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Daniela.
Thank you very much. The next question today comes from the line of Lucie Carrier from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my question. I have three questions. I will also go one at a time. The first one is more maybe a shorter-term question. Your exit rates or your starting rates in the third quarter are significantly better than what we've seen in a lot of other companies in the sector. I was particularly looking at France, where I know you tend to have sometimes a bit more market intelligence.
This is almost going back to flat now at the beginning of July. How much visibility do you have in terms of the sustainability of the momentum in France? Are we talking just about a rebound post the lockdown, or you are seeing genuine activity resuming? That's my first question.
The French market, which has been really severe and disciplined in the lockdown, didn't find an easy way out in the way our customers could operate. The exit went slow. Because how to cross on a job site, how to be without being more than two in a car to go to a job site. These were the conditions to operate until 10th of July. A little bit earlier than this for most of them, but mid-June. Right now, what do we experience? There is, first of all, a catch-up effect of what has been delayed, slow, or not done, and this effect is bringing us through the summer for sure.
What we see is close to normal on the construction dimension. I leave the production, the industrial side. On the construction side, and you see lots of job sites just catching up because they need to be finished, need to be done. This could bring us through the summer. Some company may work in August, some others not. We know some will, limited so far, but it will be probably keeping the pace, the momentum through into September. There is a second effect in France. Even if the industry is not a very strong one, they stop like everybody else.
They restarted, that they will have to run through maintenance and kind of stuff, which I consider will be needed in the second half of the year. Therefore, we should go back to slightly lower but no catastrophic level in industrial demand for us. It's different than an output of the industry to the world. Industrial product demand to Rexel. Which we are less dependent upon how many cars will be produced, but we are really dependent upon how efficient the automotive lines are working, because they need electrical maintenance. That's where we are.
There is a third uncertainty, which should be a help to the market. The mayor election happened the day of the lockdown, meaning no community could really elect the mayor, per se, and no mayor were really in charge of anything before early July when the second tour happened. They could regroup their conseil municipal, then they could be elected, and meaning everything which the money and the spending and the budget that should have been voted in March couldn't be now voted until now.
This now means how much will we spend for schools, for the swimming pool, for whatever, which is public buildings of communities. This is still to come. Meaning we suffered very low, and we are still suffering very low demand on that side. There is money for. However, there are grants, there is money floating around. The decision-making process, we are not free at. This I expect to come, let's say, for September 1st choices, and I expect some demand to come by the end of the year, which will for sure help into next year. The uncertainty for me, what could it be in October, November, Jan, Feb?
These are the four months where I don't know. Some of it is inevitably needed and will come out. When it comes to the construction, obviously there is a contraction of demand in the buildings for new buildings, commercial buildings. There is a high need for residential buildings, even more after than before the COVID, people realize how uncomfortable it could be, how much they need to change in the housing, the way to be able to do remote working and kind of stuff. It's not just a long-term horizon. There is already a short-term demand for. I don't see a depression.
There could be up and downs, but nothing severe in the next 18 months in the residential. The big uncertainty is on the commercial building, because the old ones, people didn't even came back to work in the old ways. We have to wait for the second half of the year to see how they will run and what kind of a new demand.
So far, there is not a lot of project going on, except outside of Paris, Grand Paris, Olympic Games, and the rest, which so far is a driver for demand, and we are focusing on like many other people. The market is not the worst market. The rest of Europe is probably I was surprised how residential building resisted in Germany. We may have a few surprise, positive and negative, but we are adjusting to it.
Thank you very much. To some extent, this is bringing me to my second question a bit more long-term. We've heard a lot of rumors, and then there has been some preliminary information about the EU Green Recovery Plan and renovation in buildings. I was hoping you can maybe give us some color in terms of how that could be possibly applicable to what you're doing in terms of product, but also in terms of type of buildings that you think could be applicable to this program.
Let's see whether it's in France or outside of France, I will speak for Europe, but France I know by heart. There is a huge demand for making existing buildings, commercial buildings, let's say, I could even say COVID compatible. Allow me to say that it's a little bit, who wants to be compatible to the COVID? Because you need to reorganize differently, manage the lighting, manage the airflow, manage the access, manage differently.
There will be a lot of, it could be automatized, it could be a lot of controls, data control buildings, intelligent buildings without being too smart, but just making life possible, and so that they can have a better use of. We know it's feasible. We work on it. We have solutions. We work with suppliers during the COVID, after the COVID, we have intensified which solution could apply toward, for whom and what.
Meaning if there is a real support, financial support, so that people go and invest in this, there should be a push for more, let's say, intelligent, data-driven, capturing information in order to work with these constraints of the COVID to become COVID compatible. There is a business of making buildings COVID compatible. This is emerging. We work on it, and it's needed. The economy needs it. That's what we work on. It's long-term, but it's also, it start next year. It start tomorrow.
The vast majority of buildings, thousands, medium-sized building, 2,000 sq m to 8,000 sq m buildings, they are all underequipped for that. In the moment there is a demand for energy efficiency, COVID compatible and kind of stuff, this is becoming a demand. We work on it. We will be there.
Right. Maybe just my last question on digital. I appreciate maybe you cannot give quantitative comments on that, but if you think about your digital initiatives and how they helped during the COVID crisis, can you maybe highlight a couple that were of particular help? Also, as I was looking in your CapEx or even the EBIT bridge, it seems that even though you might have reduced a little bit some of the investment, you have continued to invest for growth during this crisis, especially on the digital. Is that correct?
The one thing first, nothing of what we invested got lost. It could have been. Let's put it this way, when a crisis like this comes, you don't know how much you have spent in the past that go to the garbage, okay? Nothing is a wrong investment. Everything is valid. When I say valid, it means everything is being restarted. Everything will be reused 100%, slightly modified. As I said before, for example, we have to retrain the machine when you do predictive stories like customer churn. Customer churn, last week in March, every customer was churnable at -70%.
You don't need an algo. I was really thinking, Jesus, maybe you have done all of this for nothing, Patrick, because if at 70%, you don't need an algo. Guess what? A churn today, my sales force is asking, I cannot go to customer more easily. I cannot go and share a coffee. I cannot go and say hello like this, it's me, and shake the hand. I need to know who is fragile, who I should give a call, who I should do things differently. Opposite to the past, my own sales force now is asking for, "Hey, when do we have a churn?" The machine retrained so that we can work with it.
It's a total shift in the way we will behave vis-à-vis also, you know it. It's a fact. It's what has happened last week. Meaning we will continue to maintain this, and therefore, I'm able to tell you nothing got lost, first of all. Second, right now, the investments we are making, as I say, it's to retrain the machine, retrain the algo, work on the fundamentals, and the things which has happened during the last four, five months, we have used a lot of time to unify the basis, customer segmentation, product segmentation, data streams, so that everything could be put on one platform at European scale and leverage our initial investments.
When it comes to the payback, our initial investment will have a broader base. It's not France, it's not Belgium. This is 80% of Europe will be able, by the end of the year, to use 100% of all the tools that we have already spent money for. Obviously, branch assortment, branch assortment algorithm, which were in the early stage of become now even more needed. Which branch in Toulouse, in the region of Airbus, when there is no demand, is the assortment the same as a branch in Paris when the Grand Paris will create a total shift in demand?
You take yesterday, they were close by, tomorrow, they will be quite different. Here we have all the tools so that we can adapt immediately. We can adjust on the job without creating over-inventory, without creating obsolescence, without creating all this pollution that we hate in our accounts all the time. This is where digital, we have a high leverage. Now, yes, we will spend time, money, effort. We have maintained 100% of our digital teams. We have not reduced anything as part of the structural changes. They are not the one to be the negative in the structural changes.
We are making other efforts on other fronts in order to maintain that. I'm really glad. Customer churn is great. Branch assortment is great. All the predictive things or track and trace of the workshop, such functionalities by which you know 100% where every packet is where and how during the crisis. You can tell the guy exactly by the minute where he should get the goods received. These were elements quite decisive. We continue.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. The next question today comes from line of Supriya Subramanian from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Yes. Thank you for taking my questions. Again, three from my end, as well, and I'll stick to the pattern of going one at a time. Just a question on working capital management and with the good sort of results in the second quarter. I remember back in the first quarter results, you had mentioned that the nature of products being sold was different, with more products, et cetera, being sold to healthcare end market, for example, versus the traditional product. How were you able to navigate your inventory levels? Do you think you see sort of sales going back to the more normal product mix?
The inventory level in term of normality, so to speak, of the mix. We'll be more regional adaptations. Where we were heavily dependent, I will take the example again, Airbus in Toulouse or if you say automotive in certain region in Germany and so on, there is a mix which is no longer the same in term of proportion to serve the local markets. We are adjusting to it. The normal mix of before in term of value, number of SKU and the width and the depth of the inventory will not be the same. We are driven by Net Promoter Score in order to make sure that the customer gets this.
This is our number one function. We need to adjust all of this. It's a permanent effort. Sometime it creates a little bit of obsolescence in the moment you change the mix. This obsolescence will exist, some of it. Obviously, we are supported sometimes for some product by the suppliers who understand and help us in the adjustments. Sometimes we face, and we have to take our own hit on this, so to speak. Okay? The hit could be it takes longer to get rid of, and the hit could be that some product keep on shelf and at the end, there is no demand for. We try to reduce this to the max.
The size of the group allows this to be minimized. It could happen. It's part, by the way, of the margin erosion at the end of the day, when it comes. Nevertheless, when I look at the number of days today, where we are compared to where we were the year before, we will continue to drive down our inventories in order to come to more normative numbers. The huge portion has been done. There are still four, five, six days to go, depending on the countries. It all depend about how fast the recovery come.
In the U.S. right now, it's a bit slower, because when you are at - 20 for three weeks in a region, then it goes up to - 10, and then it goes down backwards to - 25, it's quite delicate to what is the pro forma normative that we should have. In Europe, it's time to normalized in 80% of the countries. We still have days to go, and we will use it, and we work on it. The digital branch assortment type of thing will help also. The more accurate it is and less normative and the more fine-tuned down towards the assortment is, the better we can even reduce further.
Meaning there is still ways to go. On the other end, fine-tuning takes longer than getting the big bulk as we got. We don't give up. By the way, I'm not sure there will not be another pandemic, regional crisis here and there. At the same time, I don't want to be overloaded by inventories. We all remember that when it happened mid-March, Europe was doing so fine that we were building inventories for significant growth.
When you get all the orders being delivered, and that suddenly falls down, it's not just vis-à-vis the previous year, it's vis-à-vis the one that we wanted to get to capture the growth. This correction was huge to make. Let's say this is gone, but I don't want to reenter into another kind of, let's say, too enthusiastic inventory build up before the sale. We have enough to take an enthusiastic bump if it would come in the market without having to add inventories, too.
Right. Got it. Thank you. Second one is on the digital sales, and you also again reported a growth, in fact, in sales through digital channels in this period. Do you think that the current environment has potentially, of course, accelerated the shift into digital channels for sure, but do you see a permanent shift in the change of customer behaviors more acceptable to use digital channels versus physical channels? How much of this do you expect to continue maybe on a long-term basis, and also eventually impact on profitability as well?
I was quite happy to see the 30% digital sales line, floating line that we crossed in Europe, in the last months. COVID has accelerated, without having done all the tools before, it would have been impossible. Let's put it like this. What we saw is everywhere, we saw eight-10 points increase at the worst moment of the lockdowns, whether it was in Switzerland, in France, or in other countries. We saw between eight and 10 points of an increase, and we saw an increase in the number of existing customers becoming digital customers. We saw also new customers coming for digital.
The vast majority was existing customers becoming digital customers. When everything restarted in a more normal way, they became multi-channel customer, meaning they didn't stay as pure digital, but they remained, meaning a little bit less digital and a little bit more branch-driven, recognizing the branch is more probably for different function than before. This is what we are looking in detail now, because when it comes to the cost base of the future, depending upon what is the role of the branch, obviously, will depend certain of the cost structure elements. It's too early to say.
There is a shift, but there is not a big bang. There is an optimization. It becomes really multi-channel. The big bang, we will have to produce ourselves by changing the right OpEx and cost allocated to get this multi-channel mix being run. On the long term, there is no customer, not a single customer, which now is not interested. They are all interested by being a multi-channel.
Great. Thank you.
Allow me to say-
Yeah, sorry.
We gained probably two or three years of cultural adoption by three months of crisis.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Lastly, on the restructuring and cost savings. You did mention that the EUR 30 million in H2. Could you quantify potentially how much of savings you expect from this? Or even subjectively, do you see savings from the restructuring program enough or even more than offsetting the partial reversal of the short-term savings that you had taken in the second quarter?
We have no visibility, so it's even that we don't want. Is that today we know already in some places that we need to adjust, and we have implemented that. It started end of last year when we reorganized the Northeast region in the U.S., and to a lesser extent, the U.K. This is structural and out of the 4,000 people that were reduced at the end of H1, we've got around 600 that were structurally down. We need by pocket, by country, adapting.
What we wanted to show you is the agility by which we are monitoring the short term with very low visibility. We have couple of plans that are or could be activated depending on the outcome of the coming weeks. It's too early to guide on what could be a full-year impact on H2.
The one thing to support Laurent's point, the one thing that we are running with our managers is what if there would be 10% less in the U.S.? What if there would be X% less in certain regions, market segment and all? We are running all these what-ifs, looking at ourselves. They're not what-ifs in theory, what-ifs when we look at ourselves and what could happen here and there.
It's only one month that we have a minimum of visibility of how it's getting operating. We are ready, and therefore we are able, by all the simulations we do, ready to do the structural adjustments. Therefore, we're able to say, with restructuring costs, as we have said before, we have enough to face the structural reorganization that may be of different shape, different nature, different timing in different parts of the world, but it's already going on. As you say, the 600 of the 4,000 are done. Every day there are some of it being done here and there. We cannot wait. It's a permanent adjustment, structural adjustments.
The first hit was support, and now we know we will be alone. We will be alone one day, and therefore, we face our own destiny and reality, and therefore, we do daily adjustments where it's needed. Vis-à-vis you, it's normal that we try to quantify, and therefore, we have been able to quantify the what-ifs of different scenario, and therefore, we can tell you the EUR 30 million we should be able to do what's needed to do.
Okay. Great. That's it from my end. Thank you very much, and hope everyone stays safe. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question today comes from the line of Andreas Willi from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, everybody. I have two questions, please. The first one, to follow up on the market share discussion earlier. You quantified that for France, but I assume it also means you think you've gained share in some other regions, if that was possible to already measure. Was there a benefit in the U.S. in terms of others having bigger supply issues in terms of Mexico, and that could be temporary?
Maybe if you could comment a bit on the market share gains as well in France. What is due to having the digital capabilities during the lockdown and what do you think is actual underlying momentum, if that's possible to comment on already? The second question I have in terms of the U.S. trends, which are quite volatile from if you look at your chart also by regions, and some of the regions that have improved lately are also the ones who have seen a pickup in virus. Is that just some restocking ahead of feared lockdowns, or how do you assess that?
In the U.S., there are regions which face fundamental structural issues, the Gulf region, due to the oil and gas activity, or related industries. Plus the pandemic, which is quite severe, where all the entertainment business is closed. We never speak as the entertainment business as a segment, but we should speak as the entertainment business, whether it's bar, hotels, real entertainment, or even sports stadiums and the rest, which are driving force of the demand. This is the first time we really measure that it could be ±20 points up and down depending if this is open or this is closed.
Such a, let's say, service economy where people live partially outside may vary by $1 out of four, will be related depending upon if it goes. Now, there is another issue which now starts to be visible. At the beginning, people lockdown, furlough, partial unemployment. Now, some regions face a real issue of no employment to come until many other things really come back. It's the Midwest or the automotive industry and all these heavy industries where the internal demand is low and so on. Therefore, for certain regions, coming back to previous levels is not on the horizon for me.
It's how do we adjust our own cost base in order to cope with what will be available? There are other regions where it's much more volatile. It can go fast, quite fast and up. All the West Coast, for example, whether it's California or whether it's the northern parts, it's ready to go up again at any time. In many industries from the nuts industry in the north to the other industry in the south, even if you have pockets like Boeing and Seattle creating a hole, at the end of the day, the total cost is ready to gap again if there is a little bit of a demand and the visibility.
I think, by the way, the political situation of uncertainty, it's adding uncertainty. Right now, immediately when one or two would be relieved, there is plenty of money available to go and get a boost. We will adjust according to between these two. This is for the U.S., and I wish I would be more intelligent in telling you more what is behind each of the curves, but it is not easy, even for ourselves. We have weekly calls, weekly watch, weekly analytical things. There are customers ready to go forward. There were projects completely abandoned, many in Vegas, for example.
Many projects were abandoned, they could, I should say, put on hold because they could restart if there would be some visibility and trust in something. That's probably an additional layer of demand missing right now. This is the demand of having trust in something, which needs to be reestablished somewhere in the U.S. Because de facto, they operate with the virus more than in Europe. In Europe, the virus brings real lockdown. It brings real stop to the economy, unhappily, because they deal with the risk, the life, the health, the death.
They live with it in a different way, and it impacts less the economy than the global demand, which is psychologically hurt, not just by the pandemic, but the way of life. In the moment where our life is disturbed, the spending is disturbed. In Europe, by the way, market share in the U.S., to continue on it. If there is market share gains, it's because we deal with suppliers that could have been probably less hurt by. Okay, we have our own difficulties, more limited than others. It's true. They are badly hurt on projects, and projects are down also. Meaning, you don't know what is what in this vicious circle, too.
On the other end, we don't lose market share, I'm sure of it. We probably gained some in certain places where we were low. I know that in Florida, we have gained. In the Northeast, we have stopped losing. We are regaining the first because we see old customers coming back, even for limited amounts of wood, but they are coming back.
I know that in the Northwest and California, we gain continuously, and in Denver region too. The branch opening of the past made that happen. In fact, we never mentioned that. The investment of the past, you remember, branch opening, it takes 24 months up to 36 months to get the full effect before. Therefore, yes, we do gain market share. In Europe, it's more contrasted. One thing is clear, you remember this discussion that were on the table during the last two years, that if there would be a crisis, all the digital platforms would whip away conventional distribution, they couldn't face it.
The fact that we transformed ourselves quite severely, the fact that we have this digital link to every customer, the fact that we have this physical link, the fact that we got the mobile links and the mobile push, the fact that we have all kind of features with such powerful CRMs being used everywhere in Europe, probably has avoided something of that kind, and probably kept every customer through the crisis, every day in a direct link, digital, verbal link with us. We didn't lost any of them. Therefore, I think, yes, the digital investment made us getting out of the crisis in the shape we are today. Yes, I can answer firmly yes.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
Thank you very much. The next question today comes from one of Martin Wilkie from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Yes, Martin from Citi. The first question is about projects, and obviously you have limited visibility in the best of times. Now, are you beginning to see any signs of new tendering activity for projects? When we look at the rebound in sales or the less negative sales, in June, July, is that really a reflection of projects that had stopped and restart? Just to get some sort of sense if in any part of the world you are seeing any signs of activity in new projects. Thanks.
Well, there are the new project that needs to be new project. In the Paris area, around the Grand Paris and around the Olympic Games, the tenders were out. The tenders were a bit suspended during four months. This has to happen. This has to accelerate. Yes, we are working on such structural project, we are working on it and to be part of. It is only a little bit of a shift in time. The flow project, if this exists like in the U.S., that comes regularly on, they are down. They are down. Either suspended, no news, or they are simply canceled.
Now, again, canceled in Miami, canceled in Vegas, canceled in L.A. We know also the U.S. In six months time, it could be contradict because there will be another search of different project, different nature. The one abandoned will be taken over by somebody else. For the time being, there is decrease in projects. For example, lighting project in all the malls. In the moment, the malls, for social distancing in certain region, you can't bring people into it. It's all suspended.
It may come differently, because the malls, one day, if they want to e xit, they will have to refurbish differently, whether this is the lighting, the social distancing, the way it will be set up. All of this, we wait for clarification. A conventional project I also expect from the health world, hospitals, elderly people houses.
This will be a demand that, there is a tendency not to talk about it, but there will be huge, there are billions available for this. This is probably a demand because it calls for electrical solution, it call for detection solution, it calls for sophisticated solution, from cabling to lighting, from panels and power to reception desks, and all of this raises a demand waiting for translation. This should come as projects quite soon, and we wait for.
What we can see overall in the U.S., where we have backlogs. Backlog compared to a year ago are down around 8% and are stable since May and in the crisis, they didn't decrease as much as the top line. They are steady. We have no big pickup, but it is rather stable, probably a bit of edging into this pipeline of project, because the start have been postponed.
You know, 8% decrease year-on-year.
It's not that much.
It's surprisingly resilient. You would have asked me before the crisis, I would have said 25, it's only 8%. Now, maybe it will become 10, maybe it will be delayed by three months, they are not gone. It's still going on. Therefore, yes, it's impressive, the pandemic, the way in the U.S., its impact, it's never resolved. It's heavy. It's pressure, mental pressure. It's blocking certain industries. Gathering, gone. A lot is based on gathering on other aspects like projects right now, quite low impact.
Thank you.
We give you the best. It's an inside visibility. We share with you quite, let's say, intimacy numbers in such numbers, but it's the best we can give you as a benchmark of the market.
Yeah, no, thanks. That was actually very helpful. If I just also just ask a follow-up, just coming back to the market share, it sounds like some of that market share gain should be quite sticky, whether it's to do with your digital investment or new branch openings. Are you expecting some of it to be transient? If some of it was to do with perhaps a turmoil at some of your smaller competitors, would you expect to give a little bit of that market share back as the pandemic eases? Do you think that all the market share gains should be somewhat sticky?
I always said that in this industry, nobody dies. I'm now 18 years. It would be the first time that I would see a recession putting some people out of business in the distribution. It could be that people give up because it's too complex, because succession, because many issues. Will this one create a wave of people giving up and disappearing? It could be small guys not having digitalized because they realize that it's too late. They realize that the effort will be too big. If you have not done it before, I think it will be quite complex, heavy to catch up.
The one which are multi-channel today, I don't know if some bouncing back to the people who have not done so well during the crisis, I doubt. Customer behavior, if they feel there is no longer, the loyalty is to efficiency. Through such a crisis, the loyalty, it will be an amazing moment. Yes, it's personalized, but it's less to the sales rep than it was before because they cannot even come together.
They cannot talk together. The sales rep role is key, but is now selling the company capabilities and less of a one-to-one person relationship. Through his credibility, he sells the multi-channel digital capabilities of a company. In the moment he sells these capabilities, he create new links. This is what's going on. Therefore, I don't think a lot will bounce back.
Okay. Thank you. That was very helpful.
Thank you very much. The next question today comes from line of Alfred Glaser from ODDO. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I had two questions. One is on the demand side. How do you view demand evolving in the next few months between residential, commercial, and office? I'll detail my question on costs and margins afterwards.
If I would know. If I would know. If I would know, I would be rich. In full fairness, industry you can derive from you watch them better than me, as much as I do, would we be the automotive world, the airline world, the aircraft world, this part of the industry, which is key. Because they drive a lot of OEMs, a lot of sub-scale companies complementary. They drive even logistics. They are key industries to the rest of the economy. The food and beverage industry, the water treatment industry, all these things that we do fine. The fundamental heavy industries, I would like to know. I watch every index and kind of.
They have a disrupting issues for some of them, and they have a fundamental demand for others. They have a survival issue. The big names will survive, but the medium name behind. How much of this, for example, in our cash, I can tell you that the credit in our company are watching each of them every day. We have not seen yet the consequences of this on this front. We didn't talk about it because so far there was enough liquidity in the market. If long-term demand is not there, it's not just a matter of liquidity to pay the bill of today. It's a matter of activity to exist tomorrow.
This question is on the table nobody wants to touch on. Believe me, it's part of what I watch very carefully. It's more volatile and easy on the construction side. The residential, we will watch carefully in the coming months is the new housing starts, the new permits, how much the permits will be released by different administration in different countries. As long as interest rates do not go up in the U.S. severely, not half a point, but more severely, the trends, I think we can consider it will continue to be rather stable.
If you neutralize the four months of down or even six months of down, we may go back to similar pattern. That's what I see coming. The commercial building, I see a real issue. I don't know if there is an overstock, an understock, if there is a need for refurbishing, which would be great for us, but just average for the market. There will be new condition of who will change and relocate a headquarter today. There is a reconfiguration of how things should be done. There could be a six-12 months delay until the market find the ways to go, what to do, the kind of building they need, and for whom and for what.
The fundamental question behind, would 20% of the workforce now work from home compared to working in an office? 20%. If in Europe, 20% of the blue collar disappeared a couple of years ago, what if 20% of the white collar would not come to an office tomorrow? Same revolution, in term of demand, square footage, type of nature of the building, operational conditions, all of this. We watch. I'm not better than others to try to figure out. It's a more complex subject. I don't see an easy demand in this particular one, except few places. Zurich is a place where it's a lot is being done.
Again, maybe we will see something we already share more actively on that front. There will be the city, 50 driving cities in Europe and the rest. There will be two type of demands. I feel it, I cannot substantiate it yet. There are other players who could answer this better than me, probably. You are following Nexity or Eiffage Group and so on. They probably have a more precise view on the short term in any way.
Thank you. That was very interesting. I wanted to ask you about costs and margin outlook. You mentioned before that some of the cost reductions will not be permanent. You also described the challenges you're facing in terms of gross margin. Where does it leave the margin outlook, going forward this year and maybe next year? When do you think you could actually get back to the margins you had in 2019? You mentioned you're looking at different scenarios together with your local managers. What would be the bandwidth of margin you could imagine going forward, in terms of operating margin?
With a sense of humor, why don't you send me your Excel spreadsheet? If I could fill it up, I would answer. I will tell you one thing on the margin. We run scenarios. What if it's - 5, - 10, - 15 in a country A, B, C, D? What if it's only residential and industry maintained and the rest collapsing? What if then? Obviously, we have margins targets in our mind, okay? I have EBITDA percentage as percentage of sales in my head. It's obvious that as a management team, going to last year and going back to our future numbers is on our key list. We are working backwards. What does it take to do it?
It's very different if it's 5% or 10% lower demand, and depending on the mix. Yes, we are on it. Yes, we are watching how to get there. Yes, this is a target to be above previous years. Yes, because we want to liberate our investment, and there should be a payback for. Now, it's more or less tough depending on the volume. Therefore, we run these scenarios.
My best answer is we have not forgotten to get there. Is it next quarter, in three quarters or in five quarters? I cannot answer today. This is, otherwise, I would guide. If there is no guidance, it's because there are too many balls in the air, so they can fix one way of getting there. There are too many subjects around.
All the cost saving has been done at no cost in H1. We have guide on what we could expect in H2 at restructuring cost. It shows you the intensity we want to put into the performance of the second part. As pointed out by Patrick, we have different scenarios, and it's too early to say on which one we will be in.
To have a 3.3% in H1, allow me to say, it's like having erased years of effort from the pure numbers standpoint. Nobody can be happy with this. On the other end, we are happy that it is 3.3% because it showed we have been able, in very difficult time, to reduce it, yes, to constrain and make it at 3.3%. It's not, hey, the target is go back as fast as we can to where we were, and partially through cost, partially through margin pricing, partially through model evolution and capitalizing on digital.
How much of the above? We have not done all of this to stay there either. I don't want to speak about it right now because we have to readjust. Is it EUR 1 billion less? Is it EUR 1.5 billion? Is it EUR 600 million less? I don't know. If I would know, then it would be easier. We are prepared for it. Okay?
All right. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question today comes from the line of Iris Ling from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Good morning. It's actually Andre Kukhnin with Iris here. I'm sorry, I had an issue with my line. As conscious of time, we're limited to just one question. I guess the main one I have is on your digital transformation. I'm looking at your roadmap. How would you assess your current status in terms of that digital transformation versus your traditional peers? Maybe if we drop off the kind of small mom and pops that haven't been investing, but more kind of really traditional peers, other large distribution players. How would you assess the current state?
Then where would that next step take you with all the priorities you very helpfully outlined? Where would that place you? Also, if I can then extend that on, how would that compare to a broader distribution industry, not maybe specifically in electrical, industrial, and kind of state-of-the-art, best-in-class players, specifically on digital?
On the roadmap, you could consider that we have put things on hold for three, four months, but with probably an impact on six months, because some side effect, as I say, you need to retrain the data, retrain the machine, six months. Nothing has changed. The difficulty to roll out was also a difficulty to be in the countries with the people and when you cannot travel. We are relearning how to do it. Reorganizing how to do it because we will not be able to travel easily either in order to make sure the rollout is fast enough.
On the other hand, every country has such a desire to capture everything that I know we have done in the group that I think there will be an easier, from the management standpoint, an easier penetration of our digital solutions. This is level 1. Level 2 is that by customer behavior changes, some of the developments will be more urgent than others on the one that we had in view. We are making some of them right now, which probably by the end of the year, we will be able to make it more visible that is highly demanded by customers in the way they are changing their habits.
It has to do with supply chain too, because supply chain could be also digitally information in order to make the product available to people in different ways than ever before. That's what we work on. We talked about lockers, they are different systems. Some of them in the industry, some of them for the residential, some of them for special accounts, one-to-one with accounts. Full digital integration of key accounts, for example, is very high on the list.
It is on product portfolio, product management, inventory management for them. They know exactly what they have with us for which job. This is an increasing interpenetration of the relationship, both on the customer digital interference and relationship, both with customer and with suppliers. These are new things that we work through even, and we define and work through the difficult time because we do not give up. We do not stop. It is not a reason to stop this. The rest we adjust, this is unconditional. I think it is part of the answer, but I forgot some element. Sorry for that.
Patrick, sorry, I think I misled you a little bit. I was just thinking more in terms of your current digital capability. How does that compare to digital capability of your competitors from what you can see? In terms of customer segmentation, track and trace, churn assessment, et cetera. If we go forward on your roadmap in terms of things that you're targeting to do, once those are done, where would that place you versus your traditional competition? I was just thinking more broadly in terms of other distributors outside of your traditional space. If we take the best in class of those, how would that benchmark?
I understand better. Thank you.
Sorry.
No, no. On our journey, we are 80%. On the future, there is a second wave of different sets of developments to be made. We have the resources to do, we have the resources internally, both in digital and in non-digital, meaning application people roll out. If we need to allocate more people to it, we will allocate more people to it. Today, we capitalize on what we have. By the way, remember we have 50 and so people in the U.S. around Portland. We have an equivalent of 40 - 50 in Europe. They are absolutely untouched by any measures. Not that they can do what they want, but in terms of numbering.
It's not part of the adjustments by no means. We also add to them good digital marketing candidates. We also add new categories of complementary products to them. Because developing is one thing, running is another thing. Leveraging requires certain capabilities like digital marketing. This is, for example, a place where there might be an increase, just to give you a sense for it. How do we benchmark vis-à-vis the best in class? If I take Grainger as being a real benchmark for me, if they are on the level of, on the digital multi-channel, if they are at 10, we are probably at six, and we still have ways to go.
Not just functionalities, but the large use and the agility and the certain use, how they can leverage it. They are probably, in our world, a very good benchmark. The pure players are always a different lot. Pure players, they have their own competition between themselves on level of sophistication, and they do not apply to our needs anyway, this sophistication.
It's more the people coming from, let's say, à la Grainger, who really developed over time a real digital strategy, where every customer is a multi-channel customer, where they have two banners, the Zoro banner, which is more very open to different contributor, and they have the Grainger banner. This is a digital, well-maintained, and evolving benchmark for me. We are catching up.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you very much. The final question today comes from the line of Pierre Bosset from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I'm conscious of time, very two quick question. First of all, on pricing, what has been the contribution of pricing in the 10.6% decline on the like-for-like basis? What is the policy of your supplier? The second question is on COVID-19. COVID-19 has driven you to review the value of some of your assets. Does it change also the way you look at disposal? Do you review some of the assets, and could you do some more disposal in the future after Gexpro? Thank you.
The last point is deferral into the future of?
If you, in the future, because of COVID-19, a lot of things has changed in your market, would you consider to do more disposal of subsidiaries in the future? Gexpro being not the last one, for instance.
Well, first of all, on Gexpro, we sold Gexpro Services, by the way, before the COVID, thank you. We sold Gexpro Services because it was a non-strategic item. That's one piece. We have no other Gexpro Services in the pipeline. Gexpro as a banner in the U.S. remain a banner in the U.S. The second thing is we don't have a plan for disposal right now. We were focused heavily on managing the situation. We will see at the end of all of this, if we go back to the way we were looking at what is core, what is less core, what is to be adjusted, where to grow.
There are always a few evolutions that we keep alive. I give you an example. The Rockwell APR in the U.S. We buy and sell Rockwell APR throughout the year. We could sell one, we could buy one. There is always discussion. In the world of reorganization of Rockwell, we participate to sell and buy of components. Therefore, the disposal and is not on the agenda, but acquiring and dispose of an APR, I don't consider it being part of it, because it's part of the footprint. Now, to the rest of the question on the pricing, I will hand over to Laurent, if you don't mind, Laurent.
Yeah. The pricing impact in Q2 is around 2% at group level, excluding cable. Around 1.7% in Europe with a positive pricing in the Nordics, mostly to compensate the negative currency, especially in Norway. North America is at plus 2.8%, APAC at 0.9%. That's excluding cable, and we have seen that copper is going up and is back now to the $ 6,500 per tons. We have not seen major supplier increase today, probably with all the distanciation, the productivity will be lower and may drive in the future some price increase, it's not yet factored in our figure at the end of June.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much. There are no further questions. Please continue.
Well, first of all, I would like to thank you for all your questions. I would have loved to be sometime a little bit more precise on the outlook. I think it's not a matter of prudence, it's a matter of transparency not to speak about things where I have no visibility. We will keep the line open with you, obviously, whether on a one-to-one or whatever you would like to get. I thank you for your time. Thank you working on our case and helping us going through the crisis. I wish individually, in case we don't see each other, I would like to wish you, all of you, good vacation. As I tell my own people, protect yourself a lot. Thank you.
Thank you very much. That does conclude the conference for today. Thanks for participating. You may all disconnect.