very much, and good morning also from my side. The reason for the call today is we'll talk about our transformation program in more detail. You know that we've been starting the discussions already not only in the individual meetings we had during our conferences, but also in our capital markets day for sure in terms of Stabilus SE. We want, will, and need to maintain our efficiency, profitability in the market, and that's why we started our basically second booster of our transformation program. This is what we'll talk about today. In the light of the presentation, I'd like to talk a bit about the economic environment we're in. I'd also like to talk about what the main content of the transformation program second step is.
You already know that we've been working on individual measures on the operational side because of the last 12 to 24 months, and we'll now give it another boost and get into the overhead-related portion of our business as a second step. This is something we need to talk about today. I would like to give you more information about that. Also, last but not least, we'll talk about our guidance for the rest of the year because you better remember that our guidance is €1.3 billion and the around 11% EBIT margin in conjunction with €105 million free cash flow. Just to tell you upfront, this guidance is for sure on. We are on track with our method in that term.
We will stick to the guidance we published lately about €1.3 billion, 11% EBIT margin, and also the free cash flow of €105 million because this program is something where we want to secure the competitiveness of the company in the future. Let's dig into these things. We see an ongoing softness in the market, right? This is something which we all see. That's something we see predominantly in the automotive side, but also on the industrial side. That's something which we need to consider, work on, and basically also drive in terms of our actions on the business to maintain the profitability, to expand the profitability, and to reach our long-term goals. That's why we're here. I want to give you some details on that. This is predominantly in the automotive side, as I said, but also on the industrial side. You all know that it's a global topic.
It's not affecting a region. It's not affecting Stabilus SE at all. You see the sentiment in the market. You see a consumer sentiment which is softer. You see all the impacts of the tariff situation around the globe. This is something which for sure also impacts our business. We have 11% EBIT margin. This is by far better than our peers. However, we as a company, we as a leadership team, it's our upper or at most highest target to maintain that, to stay competitive, to expand our business, and to prepare for growth, which is definitely coming. Here I'd like to point out that in terms of our business streams, we are on track. We will also talk about that in our year-end result presentation. We're winning business beyond our current market share. We're winning business in all regions.
We're winning business in Europe, North America, predominantly also in China, where we for sure see the most competitive environment. We're winning business. The pipelines are filled with business, and we have a solid and good forecast for the years to come. However, today, only 8% of 10 parts are ordered. It's not a loss of any contract. It's not a loss of any business we have. It's just the consumer sentiment which is low. We'll take the opportunity for sure to roll out our transformation program to ensure our profitability and also to ensure that we reach our global STAR targets, which we publish with an EBIT margin of 15%. Getting a little bit in detail in terms of what that means for our company, this is organizational transformation, right? There are structures in place which are structures made for more business, for higher sales these times.
This is what we want to tailor down. It's a reduction in terms of hierarchical levels at the end of the day. We also have and still have a very strong customer focus. We want to maintain this customer focus, fast decision-making. That's why we take out certain positions in that term. It's a true reorganization. That means also bringing both companies together, Stabilus SE and Stakeholder. This opens opportunities for us to use capabilities from both sides to streamline the organization, which is our highest target. We always mentioned that, right? We also have impacts in terms of locations and locations measured. Here, an interesting point kicks in for sure. We acquired Stakeholder. It's a wonderful business. It's strategically absolutely the right decision, and it's, at the end of the day, absolutely the vital case. We'll pursue also the integration.
In terms of the locations, this opens opportunities for us, right? Just to mention one opportunity. The Stakeholder organization has a plant in Thailand. We actually had a plant in Singapore. There are good benefits to integrate the Stabilus SE location of Singapore into Thailand. We are using now the footprint we got along with the Stakeholder. This is also something which we have numerous times talked about. We use the footprint of the Stakeholder to have this strength in this global reach. However, also to strive and execute economies of scale and gain synergies. That's what we do, for example, with this Singapore and Thailand organization, using the facilities of the Stakeholder in order to strengthen our business, but also the opportunities in Germany and in the U.S., which we don't want to leave aside, right? That's something we constantly are developing. We are constantly monitoring.
As the volume on the global scale is shifting, as the tariffs kick in in all regions, there's also a shift in terms of volumes. This is another opportunity where we, on a constant basis, revisit our production capacities, our overhead capacities, and try to optimize those points into our layout, those points into our hierarchical layers, and also overhead structure to constantly streamline it. As I said, one example is the Thailand facility of the Stakeholder. It captures a good space for us. That means that the Stabilus SE group could close the Singapore office. We put it into there. There are other synergies which you see on the IT side, for example. You see them on the HR side. You see them in all different functions. You see them in all different businesses.
We are just, and this is what we also said at the beginning of this whole journey, that we will combine the two organizations. This is delivering us cost savings. If you remember our cost savings we are striving for, this year we're in the range of $1 million. These were the low-hanging fruits of integrating the Stakeholder further, of bringing both organizations together. Predominantly in this $1 million, not only that we've been saving on the side of insurances, but also other costs. We also have been able to combine some headcount functions, to combine some overhead functions. This is truly also something which is extremely relevant in our business case of the Stakeholder-related business case to make it a viable case, the whole M&A and the whole acquisition we have on hand.
As we said since the beginning, there are targets out there for sure which harvest the fruits of the synergies amounting up to $10 million over the course of the next years, purely on the cost side of the joint activities with the Stakeholder. That's nothing new, right? We always talked about that we streamline the organization. We always talked about that we integrate or bring both companies closer together and that there are synergies in terms of all overhead functions, all business-related functions, all sales-related functions to bring the two companies closer together. That's why we said in the first place there will be not only sales synergies, there will be also cost synergies. This is another driving factor aside of currently low volumes out there, which at the end of the day give the requirement to reorganize us another boost.
As I said, the guidance for the year is still on with the $1.3 billion. The EBIT margin is also in terms of the guidance at 11%. Yeah. Also the free cash flow is in the range of $105 million. No change there. The current business environment is basically giving us a boost and on the other side this opportunity to streamline down our organization. This is what we definitely take as an opportunity to further improve our cost structure to stick with our STAR 2030 targets of an EBIT margin of 15%. Yes, the organization is impacted. The locations are impacted. There will be personal-related measures out there because whenever you bring two organizations closer and on the side, the consumer sentiment and thereby the orders are getting softer, then for sure we can combine workforces.
This will, at the end of the day, affect 450 people out of our 8,200 people around the globe, which is in a nutshell 6% of our global workforce. This will affect predominantly EMEA and Americas. Why is that? EMEA and Americas are both the hubs of Stabilus SE and the Stakeholder. In Asia, the growth trajectory is still different, right? We know there are ASEAN countries. There are also the opportunities we still see in China. Over the course of the last years, we've been growing as a company from a single-digit % sales in that region, Asia, up to 25% of our business in Asia. For us, there's good growth opportunities out there.
This is why, at the end of the day, despite currently also Asia being impacted by the global tariff battle, we concentrate with our activities on EMEA and Americas because this is where the predominant portion of our headcount, of our overhead structure lies. This is where originally the Stabilus SE and the Stakeholder organization have the main headcount. This is where we see the biggest opportunity to work on the efficiency of our organization. On the next page, we also go a little more in detail in terms of the costs. There will be a one-off expense of €18 million. This is predominantly severance costs, as you can imagine, because we're bringing a different turn and spin into this whole discussion with, at the end of the day, our efficiency program. We're restructuring costs on the other hand. This will basically hit us in 2025.
We'll accrue for this money, which, yes, has an impact on our net profits for this year. The cash flow will be out in flowing in terms of a cash out in 2026. This amount of money of €18 million is basically tailored to the needs we have in terms of streamlining our organization. All measures are actually done very duly over the course of the last weeks. You can imagine there is a lot of brainpower which we put into that because we are, as I said, reaching out to all regions, all functions, predominantly Europe and North America, to make sure that we tailor our organization to a point where we are most effective on the way forward. Cost savings, on the other hand, and this is the nice thing about it.
Here, you see only 2027 and 2028 in terms of the years when it's mentioned which cost savings would be attached to it. If you look onto the headline, this is probably the predominant and most striking information. The payback is less than a year. That means we are targeting a reorganization of our business, which is really highly effective. Many organizations do reorganizations, and then, at the end of the day, it takes longer than a year to get the money back. Here, we are targeting low-hanging fruits predominantly, but also the difficult cases to organize, reorganize ourselves in the departments, business units, and regions, predominantly Europe and North America, as I said, investing €18 million, and the payback is less than a year. Very well, you also can imagine that these two numbers already lay out which margin improving that means.
We always talked about it also very openly in our capital markets today because if you take this one-year payback on the $17 million, you'll increase the margin about 1% by this factor. Let's see how the economy next year goes. The effect of this is easy to calculate, right? With $18 million as a one-off, which we invest, if the investment is in a year roundabout, then we improve our margin also in line with what we said in our capital markets today, which is around about one percentage point. It's important information to know. The $19 million cost savings will be indeed in the year 2027, and the full-blown impacts we see by $32 million recurring annual cost savings from year 2028 onwards, right? Why is that a steep increase?
Also because then the economy will basically support us in the outer years as businesses are developing in a different way, in a better way, then we see the $32 million of annual recurring cost savings in the year 2028. That's about the cost side. I don't want to miss on talking a little bit on the next page about our guidance. As I said at the beginning of this whole kind of presentation, our forecast for the year is still on in terms of the EBIT margin, 11%, the sales of $1.3 billion roundabout, and also the free cash flow of $105 million because this program is, and this is just in the nature of such a reorganization program, something we prepared for a number of weeks and months now. It's something which is rolled out over the course of a year.
It's not something which you just like put it on, turn the lever, and it's up and running. It's not affecting us in this year in terms of these KPIs where we give a guidance. It's basically impacting us next year in terms of margin improvement on our guidance. However, and you see that on the bottom of the chart, one thing which I very clearly like to point out for sure, the profits are impacted, the net profit is impacted by that, and it will be in the range of $25 million plus or minus. You all know that $25 million plus or minus is, it's a plus or minus number because there is a lot of tax-related points which we typically kick in because if you just like can't calculate it very sharp, you could also come up with $27 million even, right?
As a basic number then, finally. We started in a consensus of $47 million. If you take out the $18 million, basically you will be ending up slightly below the $30 million. It's in the range of $25 million to $27 million. There are some tax impacts which are always difficult to calculate. Here you see that $25 million could also be in the range of $26 million, $27 million, whatsoever. It will definitely be impacted because we are accruing then this $18 million, and this goes directly onto the net profit line. I would like to put it in a nutshell. The reason for this reorganization and the organizational tailoring is that we want to maintain the strengths of the Stabilus SE group in the future.
We want to have a company on hand which is not gradually jammed in by side effects, and we don't want to massage it from here and there. We want to tailor our organization to the needs of the outside world. We are at 11% EBIT margin. If you consider that this is one of the most difficult economic years ever, it's an outstanding result because it's probably twice as much as our peers do. However, we want to secure that we are on a profitable level in that range and beyond, also hitting our 2030 number. This is extremely important for us to invest this in the long run because from the actual environment, we see us very well impacted than everybody else in the same way by the softness in the automotive industry in all regions and the increasing pressure from the tariff situation.
This is something which we, in the same way as the whole industry, just like we cannot ignore that, we take it as an opportunity to, at the end of the day, tailor our organization, tailor our cost structure to be successful in the future. You very well can imagine that this is a big step for the company. It's vital. It's extremely important. We'll execute that in the weeks to come to have this full benefit with a year payback in next year. With that, I would open for questions, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question at this point, please press nine followed by the star key on your telephone keypad. If you wish to answer your question, please press three followed by the star key. Please press nine and start now to state your question. There is the first question coming from Yasmin Stein in Bergenburg. Please go ahead.
Perfect. Thank you very much. I had three questions if I may, and I'll take them one by one. The first one, just to clarify, I'm not quite sure whether I got it right. For the full cost saving effects of the $32 million by tailwinds from economic recovery, if my understanding is correct, what level of economic recovery is reflected in your cost savings outside?
Thank you very much. Yeah, so we answered them, as you said, step by step, right? We kick in with the first question. Thank you very much, Yasmin. The first question is, you know, our guidance, also the long-term guidance, is basically in alignment with S&P in terms of light vehicle production and global GDP growth. Those two criteria are basically what we see as an underlying assumption for the years 2027 and beyond. If you take these numbers, which is in the automotive industry nowadays less than 2% growth, and on the side of global GDP growth in the range of 3%, this is basically what we for sure calculate with to achieve these numbers. Why did I mention that? For sure, nobody wants to hear that and nobody hopes for it.
In case numbers go down and there would be negative global GDP growth or volumes of car production would be going very slow, this would be a different number. The underlying assumption for us is that if you take the S&P numbers for global GDP growth and light vehicle production growth, that this counts. That's the underlying assumption.
Perfect. That's very clear. You already indicated, as you said, that during the Capital Markets in June, that we targeted leaner SG&A structures as well to improve the profitability. Could you please clarify what proportion of the headcount reduction is SG&A related and what is related to production footprint optimization?
If I talk about it in terms of the impact on the organization, the footprint-related portion is probably a quarter, so 25%. The vast majority, which is three quarters, is then the overhead-related points. When we look back on the capital markets day, I said we started the activities and we talk about it whenever we meet also in our individual discussions. We started the activities predominantly in our bigger areas like the coolant plant, but also in North America with automation projects over the course of the last two years already. This actually is in progress. This is something which we continue to strive for. It touches in terms of the desired savings about a quarter, but three quarters of this whole thing is then SG&A, so overhead-related cost assumptions. SG&A, marketing sales, and whatever is on the overhead side. Three quarters. One quarter completely.
Has your incoming CFO been involved in the cost measure exercise?
Absolutely. This is something which we are extremely proud of. Our CFO, who will come on board, is already in contact with us. Why is that? We know that basically our business world is turning very fast, right? We didn't want to wait with the activities until Andreas Schröder is on board. That's why we involved him upfront. We had several sessions on a good level of granularity. You know that we are in the midst of the budget planning, which will reach out beyond November, but also in an early stage, we always involve him and he's spot on.
When you meet him first after the 1st of November and we have our first discussions, he will confirm to you he was 100% on board, is in agreement and supports all his activities and also has been sure that the individual portions which are impacted and departments which are impacted are evaluated during.
Okay, perfect. Maybe a final question. Could you provide us an update on the pricing in automotive Powerise and what are your expectations for the next year?
Yeah, for sure. When we talk about the next year, for sure we're touching at the end of the day an area when towards the end of the year, we will at the end of December publish our guidance for next year. This is a very specific question. I'll answer it. In this year, we saw a price situation in the range of globally 5% to 6%, driven predominantly by the impact of price deterioration in China, which was in some customer service region, but particularly with the Chinese local ones. There was a price reduction in North America of about 3% to 4% and a little lower than 3% in Europe. All this together mixes to 5% to 6% price deterioration in the Powerise sector. We only can deal with half of it, right?
That means some of this is left over, which is a burden on our P&L, as you know. This is something which we already also talked about. It was predominantly in China. What does this mean for next year? We see that this is basically fading out. Why is that? Because purely, you know, we are a company in the same way our competition is. We're selling innovations. We're selling technical products. Whenever you talk about such products, price deteriorations typically come to an end over the course of the years because it's something kind of beating each other on the pricing. It's never the right way to go forward. We see next year's budget for the time being a price deterioration in the range of 3.5% to 4% for Powerise and a little less than 1%, even only half a percent on the gas spring side.
This is something which hits us. It's aside, this is what I would like to mention. I appreciate the question, Yasmin. It's aside of this whole restructuring program. This was just an information where we are currently when it comes to pricing for our products. I would consider this question as non-related to the topic today, but I'm happy to for sure answer you with that question.
Okay, perfect. Thank you. I'll set it back into the line.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Mark and John Varbo for Research. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I appreciate that this is probably not the call for the 2025-2026 guidance, but I think there's a bit of a concern that the additional restructuring needs may indicate that overall profitability, let's say, may be derived further before it gets better again. I think there's a little bit of a question what we're doing on the capital markets with investors. I appreciate that you mentioned already pricing and the first positive steps from the restructuring program and having you already in next year after this year's decision. Perhaps you could give me some more flavor on how we should think about the next business year in terms of, let's say, generally talking about challenges and opportunities, just to get kind of a bit more confident in how the company should proceed in 2025 and 2026.
Absolutely. If you see our business, in the second keynote, it's basically also impacted by the outside world for sure, like other businesses. If you see over the course of the years how the business was developing, and this is the same for everybody who's in the industry on motive and industrial applications, the first half year of our business, so that means October till March, went okay. It went according to our assumptions, basically. In the second half of the year, with the change in the U.S. governments and administration, in conjunction with tariff situations, there were direct and indirect impacts on our business. The direct impacts were in terms of tariffs. We could basically get almost a waiver for it because we are local for local. We ensure that we clawed money back from our customers, and the impact for this year is little.
The secondary impact was big, and it started, as I said, with March, April, when first tariffs kicked in and the consumer sentiment went down. We are in a quarterly sales area, also subsequently for the year to come, where we say we see absolutely this whole thing bottoming out. That means we see, and this is basically in line also with global GDP growth and S&P, light vehicle production, that we see that kind of flat progressing to next year. You mentioned also basically the impacting factors to the EBIT margin, right? The first thing is on the sales side, we see it basically bottoming out, and we see it flat year over year, very much in alignment with what all other companies see out there.
It's too early to talk about the guidance for sure for next year because we are still in the midst of the budgeting planning process, and we don't have a firm number, but this is basically in an overall sentiment. Talk about EBIT a bit. We are in an 11% EBIT margin. That's our guidance for the year. As I said, we stick to it, and $1.3 billion. If you assume that sales basically will go plus minus in the same, in a similar range, our assumption is that at the end of the day, and this is something which we laid out on the page before, if you talk about 11% EBIT margin and we see a payback of the investment of $18 million in a year, that there is no big deterioration on the profitability for the year to come on the base business. Why is that?
Also, if you remember what just Yasmin said, Yasmin Stein also said, how is the price situation developing year over year for next year, right? Typically in the automotive industry, and that's what I said, you have 3 to 4% price reductions, and you always can deal with it because on top of this organizational structural change we do, we have our base year, and we offset the price reduction by technical changes. Last year, it was difficult because we had this impact by China because there were disproportionately high price reductions driven by the local competition. Next year, we see that coming back to normal, 3 to 4% global scale. This is something we can deal with in a nutshell with our business on hand and technical changes. At the end of the day, no worries in terms of the base business and base profitability.
There is no impact from our side seen that this would go or would lose. It's, as I said, on a long run with a guidance of 11% EBIT margin. It's not my personal, and it's not the company's vision. Despite having a margin with 11% EBIT margin, this is twice as high than our competition. We are not happy with it. We want to achieve more. This is why we take the opportunity to improve it further. This is why we take the opportunity over the course of the next months to streamline down our organization. This is the case why we are confident that there is a payback of one year, which then, if you put it in your calculation, results in a healthy EBIT margin, which we're striving for. That's the reason why we do these activities.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Any further questions?
At the moment of note, there are no further questions. Just as a quick reminder, if you would still like to ask a question at this point, please press nine followed by the star key.
If there are no further questions, then just again, the Stabilus SE group with 11% EBIT margin is on an extremely healthy path. This is what we want to maintain, whatever it takes. This time around, we wanted to talk to you about this impact on, yes, the net profit because we need to accrue this $18 million, but with a payback of less than a year and with a very vital impact in the year, not only 2026, but also 2027 and moreover 2028. We want to prepare as a company for the next step. We want to streamline down our organization, and it's the right time to do so. That's why we'll execute over the course of the next weeks and months this plan to basically secure our stability in the market. If there are no further questions, I would wish you a good rest of the week. Thank you very much. The record.