Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Vantiva's first half 2024 results conference call, shared by Luis Martínez-Amago, our CEO, and Lars Ihlen, our CFO. At this time, all participants are in listen mode only. Later, we'll conduct a Q&A session. If you'd like to register a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Just to remind you all, this conference is being recorded. We'd like to inform you that this event is also available live on our Vantiva's website, which is synchronized slide show.
During this conference, statements could be made that constitute forward-looking statements based on management's current expectations and beliefs, and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed, forecasted, or implied by such forward-looking statements. For a more complete list and description of such risks and uncertainties, refer to Vantiva's filing with the French authority, the Autorité des marchés financiers. I would like now to hand over the call to Luis. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Thierry. And hello, everyone. And thank you for joining us today for this first half result presentation. But before going to the results, I would like to communicate that after nine years of service to this company, I have decided to retire and therefore step down from my position as Chief Executive Officer and Director of Vantiva, with effective date of August 15, 2024. The board has decided to nominate Lars Ihlen, our current CFO, who has agreed to step as an interim CEO while remaining Chief Financial Officer of Vantiva until the board's Governance and Social Responsibility Committee and the Remuneration and Nomination Committee finalize the appointment of Vantiva's next Chief Executive Officer.
Lars brings extensive experience and a deep understanding of Vantiva's operations, having served as CFO of the Connected Home division for the last 11 years, and after having served in various financial positions in Alcatel-Lucent in Norway, France, and China for more than 10 years. A smooth transition plan is in place, and I will continue to work closely with Lars over the coming weeks to ensure continuity and stability of Vantiva's business operations and the realization of the synergies plan. It has been a tremendous honor to lead Vantiva over the past years. I'm incredibly proud of what we have achieved together and grateful for the dedication and hard work of Vantiva's talented team. I'm confident that Vantiva will continue to thrive and succeed in the years to come. Okay, and with this, let's go to the presentation of the results of the first half.
As you can see in this slide four, I'm pleased to report that our performance in the first half has met all our plans and expectations. As we anticipated and as we communicated to you back in April, the Connected Home business is still facing a low-demand period where service providers are very cautious and try to minimize their spending as much as possible. Regarding supply chain services, the DVD business continues its natural decline, but it is stabilizing compared to previous years. The decrease rate is slowing down, and we expect this decrease to remain lower than expected. Diversification activities in this division are growing well and have offset part of the impact of the DVD decline. I will explain more in the following slides about it.
Our EBITDA margin reflects the lower volumes and the temporary duplication of our structural costs in the first half due to the Home Networks integration. But you will see shortly that this is no longer an issue. As a positive sign, quarter two has shown some improvements compared to quarter one, and we anticipate this trend to persist and even intensify in the second half. But the most important achievement in the first half is the speed and the efficiency of the Home Networks integration process in Vantiva. Now, I want to share with you some details on how we are integrating Home Networks into Vantiva. I am proud to say that our team has been working with competence and excellence to make this integration as fast and as smooth as possible. We are ahead of schedule on many fronts. We have almost finished the transition service agreements.
The migration of our ERP systems is completely done, and the consolidation of the size and headcount reductions would be achieved by the end of the year. Putting this into perspective and comparing this performance to the usual industrial metrics, these results are simply outstanding. In addition, the acquisition and the integration process received very positive feedback from our customers, and we have no commercial disinterest. What does it mean for us? It means that we are able to deliver stronger benefits from this integration and sooner than what we were expecting initially. Thus, despite this slow start of the year, I'm happy to share with you that we are confirming with confidence our full guidance for the year. Let me give you a quick overview on the key figures for the first half. Revenues decreased by 3.4% and reached about EUR 1 billion.
Connected Home had a stable revenue performance, while SCS revenues dropped 10.6% to EUR 206 million. These lower revenues, along with the highest cost structure due to the Home Networks on cost, had a negative impact on the EBITDA. It was EUR 23 million in first half 2024, down from EUR 49 million a year ago. Connected Home's margin was 4.3% compared to the 7% a year ago. SCS EBITDA margin also suffered and was EUR 2 million, down from EUR 7 million at the end of June 2023. Of the decline is due to lower volumes, and part of it is due to the provision reversal that has boosted last year's results. However, we are confident that the division will achieve the budgeted performance on the full year.
Corporate and others' contribution to group results improved by EUR 3 million in the semester at - EUR 11 million, thanks to our strict cost management. Operational free cash flow before interest and tax was positive of EUR 30 million, a significant improvement from -EUR 74 million in the first half of 2023. Lars will explain this in more detail shortly. Sum up, this first half was weak, but in line with our expectations, and we anticipate a strong recovery of our performance in the second half. Let's move now to the business updates. Let me talk about connected home activity. We faced some challenges as our customers were very careful in their demand. They wanted to reduce their excess inventories in a competitive market with lower CapEx. The Americas region suffered the most, while Eurasia did slightly better.
Our broadband activities were driven by fiber, and our video business performed well, especially in the APAC region. We kept innovating and investing in our technology to support our offer. As a result, we won new contracts with our Wi-Fi 7 technology and for Android TV with devices that include AI chips. We also maintain our focus on sustainability policy and received a platinum rating by EcoVadis for the second year in a row. Moreover, we made a strong commitment to SBTi targets. Let's have a look now to the financial performance of Connected Home. Revenue was almost flat, with a significant decline in broadband business offset by the strong growth in the video area. Note that our new contributor to revenues has shown up with diversification units that groups our own activities.
We are pleased to show that our initiatives in the IoT for verticals, added value services, and retail are now representing several tens of millions of euros in revenues. This is only the beginning. We expect this part to continue to grow at a significant pace to get some materiality in the coming years. EBITDA decreased from EUR 56 million to EUR 33 million. This is due to the additional cost structure coming from Home Networks before the implementation of the synergies. But as I already mentioned, we forecast a significant improvement in the second half based on higher revenues and a better cost structure from the transformation plans that are being executed. Optical disc activity has continued to decline, but at a lower rate than in the previous year. This normalization led to a 15% decrease in volume production. Revenue resisted better thanks to price actions.
Distribution and fulfillment, non-related to optical disc, continued to expand quickly besides the freight brokerage, still suffering from overcapacity. Vinyl records demand is very solid, and the production continued to increase significantly thanks to additional capacity in place. We have now 38 presses in operation compared to 22 a year ago. The division continues to implement efficiency measures and to expand its business outside of the optical disc activity to improve its growth perspective and consequently the margin. Revenues of the division fell 10.9%, showing a better resistance than the disc production, down 15%. This came from price actions and diversification activities performance. EBITDA came in at EUR 2 million versus EUR 7 million in first half 2023, which had benefited from a positive one-off impact of a provision reversal not repeated this year. This performance is in line with our expectations, and we expect an improvement in the second part of the year. I now leave the floor to Lars for explaining the results.
Thank you very much, Luis. So if we move to page 14, we will explain how some of our main financial indicators compared to H1 last year. As Luis just mentioned, our EBITDA was down by EUR 26 million due to low activity and duplications in our cost structure following the Home Networks acquisition. The D&A and reserves increased by EUR 6 million versus last year, mainly driven by higher depreciations from a larger asset base and some additional warranty costs. This gives an EBITA of a -EUR 23 million versus a +EUR 9 million last year. The PPA amortization increased by EUR 1 million, with the additional assets activated by the Home Networks acquisition and a following one-time write-off of EUR 5 million.
This offsets the decrease we normally would have seen as we reached the end of most of the amortizations of the 2015 acquisitions of CWU and Cinram in H2 last year. On a going forward basis, these numbers should be lower. The non-recurring costs decreased by EUR 85 million to -EUR 61 million, despite the setup of restructuring costs to cover for the integration activity in Connected Home. Last year was, as you may remember, impacted by EUR 135 million depreciations of the goodwill in Supply Chain Solutions. This gives an EBIT for the semester of -EUR 98 million versus -EUR 150 million for the same period last year. The net result of the group was -EUR 167 million versus -EUR 229 million last year. We will explain how we go from EBIT to the net result on a later page.
The bottom of this table shows how we go from EBITDA to free cash flow. The CapEx at EUR 26 million is EUR 18 million lower than last year, and this amount is impacted by the sale of a manufacturing building in Poland and tight control of CapEx in general. The non-recurring items reach minus EUR 58 million, which is EUR 32 million higher than last year, and this is mainly driven by the cash-out for the restructuring activities in Connected Home. The working capital variance this semester was an improvement of EUR 91 million versus a reduction of EUR 54 million last year. This improvement is driven by our efforts to renegotiate terms for both customers and suppliers after the integration of Home Networks. This resulted in a free cash flow before interest and tax of a +EUR 30 million versus a -EUR 74 million last year.
After financials and tax, the free cash flow was +EUR 19 million versus a +EUR 104 million last year. The net debt without leases stands at EUR 424 million, according to IFRS, versus EUR 368 million in 2023. On page 15, you can find the move from adjusted EBITDA to EBIT, and we explained all of these items on the previous slide. However, this gives a bit more detailed breakdown of the non-recurring items. So the impairments and write-offs improved by EUR 131 million following the write-off of Goodwill last year in Supply Chain Solutions. The restructuring cost is the cost of all the restructuring plans approved so far for the Connected Home integration, and this amounts to EUR 969 million. The other non-current items of a + EUR 12 million is impacted by a badwill posting of EUR 24 million booked following the Home Networks acquisition.
Page 16 explains the walk from EBIT to the group net result. Interest expense increased by EUR 12 million this semester, mainly driven by the interest on the bridge loan. This loan was almost fully paid back during March and June, and the remaining EUR 10 million will be paid by the end of Q3. Other financials decreased by EUR 8 million versus last year to a -EUR 17 million. This gives a net financial result of a -EUR 58 million and a profit before tax of -EUR 157 million versus a -EUR 205 million last year. The tax charges reached EUR 9 million this semester, linked to additional taxes in the U.S. following the Home Networks integration versus a +EUR 3 million last year that was driven by a positive adjustment in Brazil.
The gain from associates improved by EUR 25 million this semester as we last year brought down most of the remaining values of the Technicolor C reative Studios. This gives a net result at group level of a -EUR 167 million, which is an improvement of EUR 62 million versus this time last year. On page 17, we explain how we improved the free cash flow this year. Last year, the cash burn was EUR 74 million, which was further negatively impacted by the negative change in EBITDA of EUR 26 million. This was partly offset by the lower CapEx of EUR 18 million, and the cash out for restructuring increased by EUR 23 million, mostly from the cost of realizing the synergies in Home Networks.
The working capital improvement was an impressive EUR 144 million, and as earlier explained, this is measured as the change in working capital in H123 versus the change in working capital in H1 2024. This year, we had a positive impact of EUR 91 million, while we had a negative impact of EUR 54 million for the same period last year, and this is how we get to the improvement of EUR 144 million. Finally, we had a negative impact of EUR 9 million in pensions and others, which was mainly driven by one-time cost following the acquisition. All in all, this gives us a positive free cash flow before interest or tax of EUR 30 million. Finally, on page 18, we can see our liquidity position at the end of H1. We landed with cash on hand at EUR 39 million and an unused credit line with Wells Fargo for EUR 66 million.
Combined, this gives us a liquidity of EUR 105 million compared to EUR 66 million for the same period last year. Including operational leases, our total debt reached EUR 516 million, while the cash on hand reduced to a net debt of EUR 477 million. Before we conclude this session and open up the floor for questions and answers, I think I would like to thank Luis for his contribution to Vantiva for the past nine years. I mean, we had seven years together in Connected Home before we did Vantiva at the group level the last two years. Thanks a lot for everything you have taught. It has been amazing to work with you for this period. I'm sure I'm speaking for not just me, but for the whole management team as well. I feel that you will be greatly missed after the 15th of August.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Lars. Thank you. So with this, Thierry, maybe we can move to the Q&A?
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, both of you. Now I propose that we open the Q&A session. Please press star one on the telephone keypad if you want to ask a question. Operator, do we have questions in the list?
We have Mr. Antoine Le Bourgeois from Bryan Garnier, who has the first question. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. First, Luis, I wish you all the best in this new chapter of your life. I have three questions for today. Firstly, could you provide an update on the restructuring cash cost related to the integration of Home Networks? Secondly, I would just like to have your views on the timing of the recovery for Connected Home. Do you still expect a significant recovery starting as soon as H2 2024, or will most of the recovery be in 2025 in your view? Last question, do you also expect Working Cap to contribute positively to free cash flow in H2, like in H1?
Okay, I will take the second question, and I will let Lars take the other two. So timing of recovery, we are seeing signs of market recovery already in the second half and into next year. But as you know, Antoine, this is our business takes long lead times of execution. So we have still long lead time of components. And even if customers are asking us to deliver more this year, we need to buy components, we need to produce, and we need to deliver. So we will have some effect in the second half, but most of the recovery, even if the market may be recovering in the second half, we will see this in revenues late in the year and maybe the last months of the year and into 2025. Okay? But the good thing is that we are starting to see the market recovering. And by the way, thank you, Antoine, for your nice words. And with this, Lars, can you cover the other two?
Yeah, so I think we can cover the two at the same time, more or less. So okay. So as you know, Antoine, we have guided the year that we will be positive in working capital after interest and tax, but before restructuring charges. So as you can see from the press release, what we are saying for H1 is that, yes, despite the fact that we are reporting a net or a free cash flow after interest and tax at -EUR 19 million, when you correct for the restructuring cost, we are at +EUR 14 million. So there is roughly EUR 35 million of restructuring costs that has burdened the group result in the first quarter. This means that we are ahead of our target for this parameter. Even if we cannot expect to see the same level of positive improvements on the working capital going forward, we maintain our guidance, which means that we are not expecting to see this materially worse either for the second half.
Okay, thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time.
Okay, thank you very much to all of you, and thank you for Thierry and Lars as well. Thank you very much.
Okay, thank you, everybody. Good evening.
Thank you, everybody. Have a nice summer. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call and webcast. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect. Thank you.