Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second quarter 2025 credit holder call. I'm Sergean, the course call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and the one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Jürgen Rebel, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Europe. Good morning, U.S. This is Jürgen Rebel speaking. Welcome to today's call for credit investors and our second quarter results of fiscal 2025. Rainer , our CFO, will walk you through. We are referring to the slides from earlier today, the earnings call, and the full IR presentation that you can find on our website. Rainer, please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you, Jürgen, and hello to everyone. Another solid quarter. Profitability is improving. Reestablish the base savings have already reached the 2025 year-end target. Our balance sheet deleveraging is progressing as planned. All this is against the backdrop of high macroeconomic uncertainties despite some promising signs in the auto and industrial markets. We are on slide three, looking at the financial performance of the group. Revenues came in at EUR 775 million, exactly at the midpoint of the guidance. We saw a single-digit percentage improvement in our semiconductor business. In the automotive lens aftermarket business, we had a pretty steep inventory correction at our U.S. retailers on top of normal seasonal decline. The weaker U.S. dollar cost us EUR 35 million top line compared to Q2. Year-over-year revenues are down 5%.
This is due to the cyclical inventory correction in automotive LEDs, the auto aftermarket lens inventory correction, reestablish the base portfolio effects, and the weaker U.S. dollar. If we look truly at the like-for-like comparison based on today's core portfolio at constant currencies, we have grown by about 2% year-over-year, well within our midterm growth model. Profitability. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved quarter- over- quarter and year-over-year by more than two percentage points to 18.8%. Again, higher profitability with lower revenue clearly shows our improved earnings profile, thanks to the reestablish the base program. The continued non-refundable engineering payments also help. Various other effects were supportive as well. Amongst those were building up inventory for the ramp-up in Q3 and Q4, incentive products, and government funding catch-up payments. Now quickly on the segments. I'm on slide four, a snapshot of the segment performance that you find in our IR presentation.
All right, Opto Semis were 2% up quarter- over- quarter, EUR 344 million compared to EUR 336 million before. A moderate, more seasonal improvement in industrial, mainly driven by horticulture but also slightly improving auto business, drove this development. This more than balanced the negative impact from the weaker U.S. dollar. Adjusted EBITDA jumped by more than 60% quarter- over- quarter to EUR 79 million, coming in at 23%. If you back out some specific effects in Q1 and consider also the typical funding catch-up in Q2, it is pretty much in line with improved factory loading and slightly higher revenue. Sensors and ASICs. A slight sequential increase of 1% against normal seasonal trends. The majority of CSA business is in consumer applications. Pretty stable due to resilient demand for new products. To our surprise, already discontinued products still contributed. Slight improvement in demand for industrial and medical products.
Year-over-year, business grew by 7%, mainly driven by the new sensor products, which are more than compensating for the revenue loss from the phased-out non-core portfolio. Adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 43 million, resulting in an 18% adjusted EBITDA margin. Pre-production of sensors for the ramp-up in Q3 and Q4 hasn't. EBITDA is now twice as high compared to a year ago, showing the structural improvement in profitability thanks to the reestablish the base and better factory loading. Lastly, Lamps and Systems. The pretty steep, much more than the normal seasonal step down compared to Q1, is due to an inventory reduction at our U.S. retail chain customers. Our delivery performance has just been so good that they told us that they can live with less inventory. Adjusted EBITDA margin came in with 15%.
Actually, in line with fall-through, if you remember that we had positive one-off effects in Q1 that pushed EBITDA beyond the typical run rate. Compare the EUR 29 million with EUR 39 million a year ago, you see that we managed to fall through pretty well. Only EUR 10 million impact on EBITDA with approximately EUR 30 million less revenue. Now, looking at the semi-end markets in summary, we are on slide five. Sequentially, 2% up and year-over-year 2% down. If we exclude the non-core portfolio that we discontinued last year, the semi-core business grew year-on-year by approximately 7% at constant currencies. In line with our semiconductor growth model. First, automotive. The LED inventory correction seems to be coming to an end. We saw a solid book-to-bill ratio above one throughout the quarter. Consequently, we saw a slight sequential increase in revenue. However, there's still a lot of uncertainty in the supply chain.
We still see a lot of short-term ordering, which is regularly below normal lead times. Fulfillment channel inventories are in check, actually a bit down compared to last quarter. Year-over-year, you still see the impact of the LED inventory correction cycle with revenue down 9%. Second, industrial and medical. Up sequentially by 21%. A lot of seasonality, but it also seems that the cycle is stabilizing. As always, the picture is much more granular in detail as the verticals we are serving are often completely uncorrelated. Horticulture revenues went up seasonally. Professional lighting saw good traction. On top, we are winning share from competitors that are stepping out. A clear sign that consolidation in the LED market is gradually happening and we are benefiting from this trend. The demand in industrial automation is still muted.
It takes some time in view of the inventories at our customers until the green shields in the end demand are reaching our order book. In medical, orders picked up. When we look at the channel, Europe and U.S. did better than before. China was rather muted. Third, consumer. The main business is sensors for smartphones and wearables. We saw the typical seasonal decline. However, year-over-year, we saw a 15% increase in revenues. Again, our new sensor products more than compensated for the phased-out of the non-core portfolio, but we also had still noteworthy orders for discontinued legacy products. Now let's talk about new business. I'm on slide six. Winning new business is essential for underpinning our mid-term growth model in ams OSRAM. I'm actually very happy with the market traction during the first half of this year.
We could win again designs with a cumulated lifetime value of EUR 2.5 billion. A similar run like in the past two years. This number is a cumulated figure of more than 2,000 individual designs that our passionate teams have won. Let me comment on a few ones. In automotive, we strengthened our bread-and-butter business in classic forward lighting and signaling. The total value in the first half came in with more than EUR 800 million. We landed further design wins of our prized device, 25,000 pixel forward light at Chinese and Korean car makers. We also win continuously new in-cabin sensing designs. Two examples from IonM. Our image sensors will be deployed in night vision applications, and we also won share in North America when it comes to professional lighting.
When it comes to consumer devices, I would like to mention a design win for our extremely precise temperature sensors that will be used for glucose monitoring. Let's flip to slide seven. Isn't that a beautiful car? It is Nio's latest flagship model, the ET9. It comes with all the bells and whistles you expect from the state-of-the-art Chinese premium EV. What distinguishes it even more is the integration of our 25,000 pixel available matrix headlamp as an active communication interface between vehicle, driver, and surroundings. This advanced functionality was realized together with our partner Meredi. The high beam extends the maximum projection distance by more than 100 m- 500 m. What impresses me most is the real-time adaptive beam shaping capabilities that are gradually emerging. It features a tracking light carpet that predicts the vehicle's trajectory, allows for customizable light signatures or branding of projection of symbols.
This is future-proof as a software-defined lighting system. I believe the true potential of this technology is just emerging. Now, on to consumer. I'm on slide eight. Strong customer relationships are at the core of our business. As a globally leading supplier of optical sensors, we are naturally supplying to all Chinese smartphone vendors as well. We feel very honored by the best delivery award that we received from OPPO for our exceptional product quality and impeccable delivery performance. Moving from sensors to LEDs, I am on slide nine. It has taken us many years, but finally, we closed in on our long-standing competitor Nichia, and you can consider us now a shared number one in the LED market when looking at the market share rankings from TrendForce.
Admittedly, the currency development helped a bit, but nevertheless, it is a testimonial of our relentless efforts to bring new products to the market and expand our position with customers worldwide. Our leading position in the most attractive part of the LED market, automotive, is instrumental in driving our global share. Switching to new products in our traditional business, let's look at slide 10. As part of our last man standing strategy in the traditional automotive lens business, we are also working on new products for the aftermarket channel. In Spain, it will be legally required to have connected warning lights on board every registered vehicle starting January 1, 2026. We are providing these emergency lights and will be capturing a sizable chunk of this emerging market through our product and brand strengths.
With this, let me give you an update of the reestablish the base program, which has been so instrumental in improving and structurally stabilizing our bottom line. We are on slide 11. The implementation works very well. End of June, we already passed the mark that we set ourselves for the end of 2025. We have approximately EUR 160 million of implemented run-rate savings by now. The effects are clearly visible in our bottom line. The latest until the end of 2026, we want to reach EUR 225 million of run-rate savings. All necessary measures and actions to realize are identified. Now slide 12. Last time, we shared our plan to deleverage our balance sheet and get to a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio below two. We talked about the five steps you see on this slide. We are progressing well.
First, we are continuously improving our profitability and free cash flow yields through reestablish the base and growth in the core business. We are ahead of plan with our cost savings. Aldo just explained it. Profitability is improving as well, as you can see when you look at our Q3 guidance. Second, no specific news yet when it comes to selling the empty factory in Kulen. We continue to have strong interests of parties, but the process needs patience. Third, as promised, we extended the revolving EUR 800 million credit facility with our banks, so having a temporary financing means when large portions of the outstanding OSRAM minority shares might be tendered in conjunction with the final verdict in the appraisal proceeding. In the meantime, we have also secured a long-term financing until 2029 with tapping into the high-yield bonds. I will come to that in more detail later.
Fourth, just two days ago, we announced the sale of our entertainment and industrial lighting segment as the first element when it comes to divestments to generate well above EUR 500 million proceeds. To reemphasize, this is just the first step. The proceeds from this transaction are just a small portion of the entire amount of disposal proceeds that we are targeting. Without being able to go into further detail, the other processes are progressing as planned. After the first four steps are done, we will refinance the 2029 maturities at better conditions, bringing us to our goal of interest payments below EUR 100 million a year. Now, I want to spend a few words on the business that we sold to Oshio. Take a look at slide 13. We sold our entertainment and industry lamps business to Oshio for EUR 140 million.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, subject to the usual closing procedures. We hold strong positions in this traditional business. The products range from specialty lamps for infrastructure and cinema applications to extremely sophisticated light sources for semiconductor vapor fabrication equipment. Last year, the business contributed approximately EUR 170 million to the top line of Lamps and Systems. About 500 employees will transition to the new owner. We are very glad that we have found such a good new home for our employees, as Oshio is a global leader in the field of optical technologies with a complementary portfolio and a long-term commitment to this business. Oshio is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. With this, it is the right moment to look at the maturity table on slide 14. End of March, we had EUR 511 million cash on hand.
We had a slightly negative cash flow in Q2 due to inventory pre-production and regular payouts, such as the annual bonus to employees. We had EUR 57 million minority shares tendered in the last six months. We drew EUR 50 million of the revolver to cover this, more a cosmetic measure, to keep the cash on hand balance at around EUR 500 million. Technically, we could run the business with less cash. By now, we already paid back the revolver with the proceeds of the taps. Now, let me explain why we tapped in the 2029 high-yield bonds last week. Take a brief look at the maturity table on the right. In 2026, we need to refinance the 2027 convert, in addition to the bulk of the outstanding Osram minority shares that will in all likelihood be tendered after the final verdict in the appraisal proceedings, which might happen later this year.
Together, there are EUR 1.3 billion-EUR 1.4 billion to be refinanced. We plan to reap well above EUR 500 million of proceeds from the asset disposals, which will cover a bigger chunk of that refinancing needs. Nobody can give us a firm indication how the credit market will look in a year from now, given the persisting uncertainties in the global economy. For this, we decided to use this exceptionally good market window and live with a temporary higher interest burden as a kind of insurance premium for making good use of the current market conditions. About EUR 150 million from the tap is earmarked for the repurchasing 2027 converts, subject to market conditions. You can call me conservative for that. That is fine, and that is exactly the way we want to approach our financials. Proactive and conservative.
By the way, we sold the EUR 500 million at 104%, and we aim to buy back the convertible bond well below par. The demand for our new paper was just overwhelming, which was the reason for upsizing the tap from EUR 300 million-EUR 500 million. It clearly shows the trust of the market in our conservative approach and our turnaround plan overall. Again, we want to thank all investors who supported us so well. This also means that we have the revolver even on top, which should settle any liquidity concerns that may still persist in some corners of the market once and for all. Moving further down in the maturity table to 2029, we have the U.S. dollar and euro high-yield bonds. Now, after the tap, we have EUR 1.25 billion in the euro bond and approximately EUR 640 million equivalent in the U.S. dollar bond.
The upsizing of the U.S. dollar bond was particularly attractive as it increases the liquidity in the bond and makes it a reasonably sized tranche for the bigger U.S. market. The value of the Malaysia sale leaseback transaction stood at EUR 120 million at the end of Q2. This reduction of EUR 9 million compared to the end of March is again due to a devaluation of the Malaysian ringgit during the quarter, despite the regular quarterly accrual of part of the lease payment. This brings us to a slightly increased net debt position of just short of EUR 2 billion compared to the end of March. The outstanding minority put options amount stood at EUR 528 million or 12% of outstanding shares. Minority shares with a value of EUR 42 million were tendered during Q2. Taking cash, RCF, and bilateral lines into account, our available liquidity stood at approximately EUR 1.1 billion.
Now, including the tap into the high-yield bonds, we look at a very comfortable overall liquidity of EUR 1.6 billion. Now, switch to slide 15, cash flows. Second quarter operating cash flow came in at EUR 25 million. Inventories went up due to pre-production for Q3 and Q4 project ramp-ups. We paid out annual bonuses in Q2 as every year. Just for the avoidance of doubt, net interest paid is always included in the definition of operating cash flow and free cash flow. CapEx went down again, only EUR 40 million in the second quarter. Q3 and Q4 will each be a bit higher, and for the full year, we will land maybe between 6% and 7% of revenues, well below our long-term average ratio of 8%. The 6%- 7% excludes subsidy catch-up effects from previous years. Summing it all up, we finished the quarter with EUR - 14 million free cash flow.
Some of you might ask how we can stick to our full-year free cash flow guidance of above EUR 100 million, especially with higher interest payments from the tap. Firstly, we certainly had a reasonable buffer at the beginning of the year when we introduced the above EUR 100 million guidance. Secondly, as with all other semiconductor companies, CHIPS Act funding is an important element of the free cash flow. We are still waiting on a significant cash-in for the factory extension in Austria. We have received the notification from the European Union already a while ago, and the subsidies will be provided by the Austrian government. With those subsidies, including catch-ups, our CapEx in 2025 will be more like 4% of revenue, plus minus.
Thirdly, we had a kind of windfall from the closure of that decades-long lawsuit regarding misappropriation of trade secrets by a counterparty, which will contribute about EUR 37 million of cash in 2025. Now, let me summarize the key developments of the second quarter. I'm on slide 16. Looking at the business, in a difficult market, we delivered revenues and profitability at the midpoint of the guidance. We secured EUR 2.5 billion of future semiconductor business in H1. Execution of the reestablish the base program is six months ahead of plan with EUR 160 million run-rate savings implemented. Now, looking at the deleveraging plan and refinancing, the revolver was extended by another year. We sold our entertainment and industry lamps business to Oshio as the first step in asset disposals. We also secured long-term financing of the outstanding Osram shares that might be tendered after the final verdict in the appraisal proceeding.
The tap into the high-yield bond also enabled us a partial repurchase of the 2027 convert. With that, let us look at Q3 and fiscal year 2025 outlook on slide 17. For the third quarter, we expect revenues to come in between EUR 790 million and EUR 890 million. This assumes a U.S. dollar exchange rate of 1.16. Compared to the beginning of the year, the weak dollar costs us a mid-double-digit million figure in the top line and EUR 50 million quarter- over- quarter. Automotive lamps will be preparing for the annual lighting season, meaning that many auto lamps are replaced in the dark months. Automotive LED seems to be getting out of the inventory correction. Together with the scheduled project ramp-ups, we expect a quarter-over-quarter improvement. Industry and medical is stabilizing.
Consumer with strong ramp into Q3 due to the smartphone season preparing for the Exmo sales and a wider use of our rewind socket that already ramped last year. We expect adjusted EBITDA margin coming in 19.5% ± 1.5%. For 2025, looking at revenues, the second half will be stronger than the first half, although there are still uncertainties surrounding the first quarter when it comes to end demand impacted from tariffs and headwinds from the weaker U.S. dollar. In terms of tariffs, we are mitigating most of the primary impact by renegotiating terms with customers such that they pay the additional levies. Surprisingly, so far, global car production seems to be unaffected. If we are to believe the latest IGS forecast, roughly at the same level as a year ago.
When it comes to smartphone sales globally, so far, they also seem not to be affected too much. Looking at profitability, we are six months ahead in realizing our run-rate savings from reestablish the base. This will help stabilizing gross margin improvement and the bottom line. The impact from tariffs has to be watched, especially indirect ones like the fact that volatility has driven gold prices to unprecedented heights. In total, we continue to assume that we will end up better than last year. Looking at cash flow, I mentioned that we still expect significant inflows in H2 from subsidies under the CHIPS Act. In conjunction with very disciplined CapEx spending and stronger revenues in the second half, we continue to expect free cash flow to come in above EUR 100 million, of course, including net interest paid. This concludes our remarks, and we are ready for your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and then one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking your question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. We have the first question coming from the line of Laura Holmsy from MFS. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got a few, if I may. First, just on the convertible bonds. Should I assume that you plan to do open market purchases because you mentioned that you want to buy them below par and this is subject to market conditions? Secondly, on the lamps business disposal, can you share any margin details or EBITDA multiple, if this is above or at least the margins maybe is in line with the average of the group, above or below? Any kind of indication would be really helpful. Thirdly, with regards to the free cash flow guidance, I understand this obviously includes the EUR 37 million settlement. Can I confirm that this has already been received in Q2 and is in those numbers?
With regards to the government grant that is, I think, also included in this, how much of this do you expect to come through this year? I believe the total is EUR 227 million, and I think it will be received over this year and next year, but again, please confirm. Lastly, with regards to the Osram put options, do you expect the full amount to be likely to come due this year? Thank you.
Okay. I noticed five questions, Laura. The first question was on the convertible bond. Yeah, not exactly defined how we will do it, probably a tender offer. EBITDA multiple for any business we just dispose, we're not giving you the exact number, but as we said before, we would only dispose of businesses if we achieve at least 6x EBITDA multiple. I can tell you that we well achieved that goal. Now, the settlement of the IP was, yeah, that was reached in Q2 and booked as again in Q2. We received half of the payment, and the other half is still outstanding in the second half of the year. Now, the government grant, I think what we said so far was that on the EUR 500 million of CapEx, the majority is already behind us.
We would get a good EUR 200 million of grant that will be distributed over several years. However, this year, we will receive a catch-up payment from the last two years. It will be more than usual, so a significant amount in the second half.
Put options.
Put options. Oh, put options. Yeah, yeah. Okay. The court hasn't set the date yet, but we somehow expect that to happen in the second half of the year. Two months after the verdict will be published, the offer expires. That could be late this year, could also be early next year. We expect that the majority of the outstanding amount will be tendered. It is kind of that 80% or so of the outstanding amount is in the hands of professional investors, institutionals, and 20% roughly in the hand of retail. We kind of think retail maybe half of that, don't know exactly, but overall, maybe 90% or so of the outstanding amount might be tendered. We don't really know, but that is our assumption.
Great. Thank you so much. If I may, one follow-up. You mentioned a sort of a significant amount given the catch-up from the government grant. Can I assume sort of close to half of the total should come to you in the second half of this year?
Yeah, Laura, that is a bit, I cannot give you that exact number, right, because that's a complex procedure for the reimbursement of the money. I don't know exactly. Again, it will be a significant amount.
Okay. Understood. Appreciate the color. Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Jürgen Rebel for any closing remarks.
Thank you, everyone, for dialing in. Thank you, Laura, for the questions. If there are further questions that come up in the aftermath, please reach out to us on the investor relations email. With that, thank you so much, and we're looking forward to speaking to you next quarter.