Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the half-year 2023-2024 results of Novem Group, which will be presented by CEO Markus Wittmann and CFO Dr. Johannes Burtscher. Throughout today's presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Markus Wittmann. Please go ahead.
Thank you. So good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Novem's half year results presentation. I'm glad to present today, first time in my new role as Novem CEO. Let's go ahead and start with the key events. In Q2, we generated a revenue of EUR 171.9 million, which is a modest decline over the previous year. In percentage, it is -3.1%, compared to last year's Q2. As in previous quarters, the market and trading conditions remaining challenging across all regions, especially in Europe, which we've seen in reduced sales. Reasons for this are more customer call-offs, additional closing dates at the customer, as well as postponed launches. Under these trading conditions, we achieved an Adjusted EBIT of EUR 18 million, resulting in a margin of 10.4%.
This result was mainly Europe, affected by reduction in efficiencies and poor utilization due to relative customer call-offs. The free cash flow of EUR 22.3 million showed Novem's capability to achieve a strong cash conversion. One action to improve this situation will be the closure of plant Bergamo, that we announced already in September. The procedures are currently ongoing. We achieved, in the meantime, a socially acceptable agreement with the unions, and the relocations, which will be finished till end of this calendar year, will help to improve the cost structure and utilization of the current manufacturing footprint. We got an additional hit with the flood in Slovenia, what caused disruption in our operation. But thanks to the quick reaction of our colleagues in Slovenia, we could fast recover and did not disturb or even stop any of our customers.
Coming to an end with two new nominations. First one is, got to mention Tesla Model Y facelift, which will bring Novem back into Tesla's supplier portfolio. The second one is Jaguar Panthera platform. Overall, the order intake into Q3 2023-2024 looks promising. In summary, we must say the difficult market environment for six years makes it to a year of transition. Going ahead with page number four, to have a look into the financial highlights for quarter two. As already mentioned, revenue EUR 171.9 million. Adjusted EBIT EUR 18 million compared to last year's EUR 20.1 million, which ended in a EBIT margin percentage of 10.4%. Free cash flow EUR 22.3 million stays more or less in line with last year EUR 22.8 million.
And we see a positive impact in the net leverage coming from 1.5 last year to 1.4 in this quarter. Going ahead to the half year figures. Revenue, EUR 347.1 million. Adjusted EBIT, EUR 38 million, with a margin of 10.9%, compared to last year's 11.5%, which shows us a very good cash flow in this half year of EUR 73.52 million, compared with last year, EUR 20.4 million. And net leverage already that is 1.4. Yeah, so with this, I would like to hand over to my colleague, Dr. Johannes Burtscher, with the group results.
Thank you, Markus, and also from my side, a warm welcome to everyone. Let's look into the group numbers in more detail. As already mentioned, moved basically sideways from EUR 175.2 million in the previous quarter to EUR 171.9 million in revenue. As already mentioned in the previous quarter, we were negatively affected by foreign exchange due to the weaker US dollar and Chinese renminbi, in particular, compared to last year. All in all, we had a Forex effect of EUR 6.5 million. The largest part is attributable to Chinese renminbi, EUR 2.6 million in US dollar, two million. If one looks at the series developments only, then we have a reduction by 4.4% to a constant rate.
We actually look at a flat development of our series revenue. The decline, as already said before, was largely driven by Europe. From a production perspective, as already said, largely attributable to weak customer call-offs and volatile customer call-offs, but also model changes that had an impact in this particular quarter. With a view on the overall market, you know, we use LMC as an independent market source, we saw the light vehicle production being reported on a positive number, 5.6% year-on-year. And as we said last time, there is a clear overweight of lower-end non-premium brands driving this development of the overall automotive market.
If one looks at the different continents, in Europe, as an example, it is driven by Renault, by Peugeot, but also Nissan and Tesla Model Y. In Americas, largely by Honda on the Civic, Nissan, Ford and Subaru, and in Asia, not unexpectedly, by BYD, their top brands, Seagull, Song, and Dolphin. So although, you know, taking these brands, it is quite clear that there is the catch-up effect, as we mentioned previously, but also this overweight of non-premium brands and premium brands with a low CPV content. With a view on tooling, we had a strong tooling closure in this particular quarter, EUR 22.3 million.
So this is significantly higher than a year ago by EUR 1.4 million, again, driven by a number of important closures in this quarter, and from a local perspective, driven by Asia. On a month, on a 12 basis, we have now reported revenue top line of EUR 688.1 million, so there is also a slight decrease visible in this number from a rolling last 12 months perspective. This, once again, making this financial year as a period of transition. With regards to our Adjusted EBIT, as Markus already mentioned, we generated EUR 80 million of Adjusted EBIT, translating into 10.4% EBIT margin. This is the red line in our financial analysis.
There is a pronounced weakness of Europe also visible in our profitability, and this is clearly driven by the low performance, by the underutilization of our plants in Europe, mainly Klášterec and Charlotte, and also Bergamo, in particular, which is currently in the closing procedure, as mentioned before. And because of this overall situation, we have taken a number of actions, most importantly, the closure of the Bergamo production and the relocation into our bigger volume plants in Europe, Klášterec and Charlotte, but also in addition, reducing the heads, the personnel costs in our location, which is largely driven by the reduction of leased and temporary workers to adjust to the lower top line. So Europe is, to a large extent, responsible for the performance in terms of our profitability.
To the contrast, Americas is performing very well, and this is the huge difference between the different segments, and we see this later also when we look into the segments in, in more detail. In this quarter, we could also post certain price compensation for higher material and also labor costs that we agreed with our OEMs, and this is a low single-digit number that we could also post in this particular quarter. If one looks at the lower chart on the left, we are relatively stable. If one looks across the last four quarters ... in terms of profit and profit margin development.
On the next page, we see our free cash flow, you know, showing EUR 22.3 million, so it's more or less the same number than a year ago, and here the cash flow is also largely determined by working capital movements in the operating period. The cash flow largely driven by tooling payments that came in very positively in the last three months of revenue. And so far, very good performance. Basically, all the different components moved favorably except of payables, and this is largely driven by the lower top line that also shows an impact in the level of the payables. But other than that, strong performance in free cash flow visible in the last quarter.
Then it is on the operating activities, we see that later when we talk about CapEx, cash flow from investing activities, minus EUR 2.4 million, so lower than a year ago, also contributing to, the free cash flow, in total. On a last twelve-month basis, still almost 100 million, EUR 97.7 million, and this is also, well above prior year level, although due to the, good performance of our previous quarter, Q1, compared to, a year ago. While capital expenditure, we, we make EUR 4.6 million, so this is, almost 20% higher than with the, comparison a year ago. In terms of the investments undertaken, actually, this is, located in our larger plants in Mexico and China, and also here in Europe, in Charlotte, in Slovenia.
We have a CapEx ratio of 2.7% in terms of revenue, and this is exactly the number that we also have for the last 12 months at this 2.7% level. In the context of Bergamo and the relocation of those platforms from Italy to the Czech Republic and Slovenia, there is no CapEx involved. So this is basically a transfer of the equipment and the platforms accordingly, and also, obviously, further utilizing the available production capacity in the target destinations in Charlotte and Klášterec. So no impact there from the closure of Italy. And other than that, also in view of the current utilization, there is obviously no need to further increase the footprint.
To the contrary, we are in the current status, sort of consolidating and optimizing the available capacities. So that's on capital expenditure. For the year, we think it will also stay in a similar range, and be around the 2.5% of total revenue. Total working capital decreased significantly, 12.8% in this relevant quarter over last year. So here, once again, almost all components moved favorably, in particular, tooling net, that came down very well, as said before, largely driven by payments from our customers regarding the closure of projects and the equivalent cash inflow from those projects.
But obviously, also, as we have this negative trajectory on the top line, we see also the same situation here with receivables, inventories, and also contract assets. So that's the reason why total working capital came down quite nicely now to a level of, you know, 20%, so from 23 to 19.8% in terms of revenue. That's a pretty low number, also historically, for Novem. In terms of days outstanding, the DIO still recording at 38 days, similar levels compared to last year, and yet there is still a certain impact of safety stock levels in there. Given the current situation, this is also an area that we will further optimize in the following months to come.
Other than that, we are pretty satisfied with the working capital development, making also this relevant contribution into our free cash flow. With regards to the capital structure. As already mentioned by Markus, we have a net leverage of 1.4 times LTM EBITDA. So this is more than a year ago, and also driven by a higher cash balance, EUR 136 million, 136.6, to be precise. And it is an extraordinarily robust cash liquidity position even after the exceptional dividends that we paid in August this year, following the Annual General Meeting.
So here once again, and this is also what we outlined last time, that we should have a good and robust leverage capital structure with 1.4 times. This is basically in line with what we expected, also three months ago. We paid optimized attention to this, and once again, mainly by optimizing our working capital and free cash flow performance. So that's on the group numbers overall. On the next, and in the next chapter, I'd like to take you through the segmental figures in more detail. We have already mentioned the big headlines in terms of our three regions, Europe being under pressure, Americas doing actually very well, and Asia being also in a traditional situation.
If you look at Europe, we were EUR 2.2 million lower than a year ago. It was, and is mainly driven by the sluggish trading conditions. As we see this in the weak call off, as already said before, we see customers taking off days, reducing the number of working days. And in addition to this, and this makes steering the plants very challenging in Europe, also changing the call off quite frequently and also at short notice. So all of these adds to a mediocre utilization of our capacities, including why we make these efforts in consolidating our footprint in Europe.
Yes, not to forget to mention, we have, in addition to this, also the phase out of the BMW 5 Series, that is also visible in the numbers, and as already expected. Americas, to the contrary, and this is really in sharp contrast to Europe, is performing very well. And this, despite we have a negative foreign exchange effect of EUR 2 million. And once again, it's the same explanation as in previous quarters. It's driven by also very stable, but also very strong call-off of 48 SUVs. And here once again, these are the larger, the big SUVs that are clearly more influential than any of the other platforms that we have in our portfolio.
And yes, also here, once again, driven by BMW, the big X5 platform, but also X3, X4, but also GM, Denali Yukon, making contributions here and leading to this strong top line performance. And yes, this makes it also different to Europe, easy or easier to run our operations. And here, basically, our largest facility in Mexico, in Querétaro, and also in Honduras, in Tegucigalpa, are much more efficient than the other plants. With a view on Asia, well, this is EUR 4.4 million lower than last year, driven by currency. As I said, the Chinese renminbi is particularly weak these times. We had a EUR 3.6 million impact there, a constant rate, so this is one impact.
But on the other hand, also a change in the product mix, in our portfolio. Here with the new platforms, or the new platforms with our new customers, the Chinese customers, like the Lotus Lambda, not ramping up as quickly as we and the customer expected. And on the other hand, also the model changes, being not as positive as also here, the customer expected. Most importantly, to mention, here, the switch over from the old Mercedes-Benz E-Class to the new E-Class, which is slower than expected. On the other hand, we had a good tooling business in this quarter, as I said before, with some of the larger closures, like the Chinese BMW X5, also the FAW platform, the Hongqi, which we reported....
Previously, or the new, the new Avatr that we also closed in this particular quarter. Last but not least, Adjusted EBIT by segment, and here this is sort of a reflection of what we already heard. So, which in Europe, exceptionally strong in Americas and transitional in Asia. I said before, Europe, the top line makes here the big difference. And it's not only the top line in terms of volume, but also in terms of stability. So we still have these inefficiencies that resulted from volatile changing call-offs at short notice. Yes, as Markus mentioned, we also had the impact in Slovenia, where the flooding caused a few days off in terms of production and restoring operation.
But basically, it's still volume-driven top line in terms of volume and quality. And that brings the European quality level of the margin also down to 3.7%. So the EUR 2.8 million of EBIT, adjusted EBIT translates in 3.7%, which is obviously, mediocre. To the sharp contrast, Americas making a very strong contribution to the overall group results, EUR 12.6 million, and did translate in a really strong margin of 17.4% EBIT margin. So we see that major change between the continents and also what volume does and the quality of the call off, the stability that we have and that we do see in Americas, and we also see that going forward.
So we, we remain very, bullish on, on Americas, also backed by, obviously, a very positive, strong portfolio that we have there in place. And last but not least, Asia, I think, I said already the, the key headlines here, model changes, you know, was, was one of, the biggest, topics here. And to a certain extent, also the dilution from tooling. I said before, we closed a number of tooling projects, and yes, tooling is relatively, comparatively speaking, to, the series business, lower. And therefore, we had an EBIT of EUR 2.6 million, only in Asia, compared to previous year, which was very violent at EUR 5.1 million. And making the adjusted EBIT margin at 11%, compared to last year of 18%.
So that's also on the segment revenue and bottom line. Now we would open the Q&A session and appreciate your questions you may have.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you are using speaker equipment today, please press the handset before making your selections. Anyone with a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Brandon Keel from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. I was wondering if what are you anticipating for H2 in terms of growth and profitability by region?
Thank you, Brandon. So if I heard your question correctly, you asked about the profitability for Asia, right?
No, no, I was wondering, what are you expecting for H2 in terms of growth and profitability by region?
Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Well, you know, regarding our forecast, you know, we are not guiding, so we are not preparing and giving a forecast. But as we already said last quarter, and I think that was a good guidance also for our Q3 and therefore for the half year. And given the current circumstances, we see a similar development regarding the next quarters to come. We don't see a market difference in terms of trading conditions in overall. But yes, there is clearly more pressure in Europe. So, here we should expect that trading conditions might even get worse.
We see stability in Americas, as I said already before, and in China, regarding our performance. We are still in the situation of model changes, and therefore, these headlines remain valid also for the quarters to come. So in a nutshell, we see a similar development in terms of top line and bottom line.
All right. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one at this time. Seems like there are no further questions at this time, and I hand back to Markus Wittmann and Dr. Johannes Burtscher for closing comments.
Well, thank you for attending today's conference call, and we wish you all only the best, already a wonderful Christmas holiday season and a prosperous new year, and looking forward to seeing and speaking to you next year.
Yeah. So thank you very much for joining this meeting, and the same from my side. Thank you. See you next time. Thank you.
Bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect. Thank you for joining and have a great day. Goodbye.