Industria
FORVIA: FY 2024 RESULTS
NANTERRE (FRANCE)
(including non-consolidated award for Seating in North America for €1.8 billion).
The Group continued to reinforce its momentum in fast-growing segments, as reflected in the following figures:
The Group is fully on track to achieve the target that was revised upward late September 2024 to €400 million of cumulated net synergies at the end of 2025.
EU-FORWARD should impact up to 10,000 jobs over the five- year period (to be compared with c. 75,500 at end-2023) and expected savings should reach c. €500 million on an annual basis in 2028, thus strengthening profitability of the Group's operations in Europe.
Late September 2024, to face a further deterioration in the European market, it has been decided that EU-FORWARD will be accelerated, with targeted headcount reduction announced by the end of 2027 representing over 90% of the total five-year headcount reduction planned.
close to 2,900 headcount reduction was announced, representing P&L savings of c. €140m on an annualized basis. Operations were announced throughout the year on a case-by-case basis, and they are implemented locally in the most socially responsible way. The P&L impact in 2024 amounted to c. €15 million.
c. 5,700 cumulated headcount reduction should have been announced, representing P&L cumulated savings of c. €300m on an annualized basis.
It is confirmed that headcount reduction announced by the end of 2027 should already reach over 90% of the total five-year headcount reduction planned.
In 2024, FORVIA continued to strengthen its business with Chinese OEMs:
In 2024, out of the €5.6 billion of sales posted in China, 48% were recorded with Chinese OEMs. After having underperformed the local automotive production in 2024 due to strong comparable, unfavorable customer mix evolution and delayed SOPs,
In these markets, FORVIA recorded continued outperformance above 10 percentage points, driven by successes with Japanese OEMs and robust growth in India.
These two transactions together represent c. €250 million, i.e. one quarter of the second disposal program of €1 billion that was announced by FORVIA in October 2023.
FORVIA continues to be active on its disposal program designed to accelerate the Group's deleveraging, on top of organic deleveraging gaining momentum through increase in recurring cash generation. Based on a comprehensive review of its portfolio, the Group evaluates various disposal opportunities, including large size assets.
The proceeds were used to buy back 2025 and 2026 maturities, as well as refinance a 2024 bond, thus extending the Group average debt maturity.
Taking into consideration the interest rate pre-hedging arrangement executed in December 2023 and January 2024, the economic yield of the new notes amounts to 4.96% for the notes due 2029 and 5.37% for the notes due 2031.
This entirely cleared 2024 maturities and almost all 2025 maturities.
In 2024, FORVIA continued to make progress on its climate commitments, reinforcing its role in the transition to a low-carbon future. Back in 2022, the Group set a Net Zero trajectory for 2045, validated by SBTi. FORVIA is already ahead of its commitment on scopes 1 & 2, achieving a 67% reduction in emissions in 2024 versus 2019. This progress has been driven by a 30% reduction in energy intensity since 2019 and an increased share of renewable energy, now representing 57% of total consumption.
On scope 3, continuous progress remains a priority, with a 15% reduction in 2024 driven by deeper supply chain collaboration, greater use of sustainable materials, and the acceleration of the "designed for scope 3" strategy: developing products with lower emissions than industry standards. All the progress made on scopes 1, 2, and 3 leads to a 16% reduction in CO footprint in 2024 compared to 2019.
In March, the Sustainability & Supplier Days reinforced engagement with key stakeholders, where FORVIA shared both its achievements and a detailed roadmap for its scope 3 initiatives towards 2030. The launch of the Blue Effect program later in 2024 has also helped strengthen internal awareness and teams' engagement.
FORVIA's ESG progress gained further recognition, with improved ratings, including a 3-point increase from Moody's at 65, a 2-point evolution from Sustainalytics, positioning the Group at a Negligible ESG risk level, an A rating maintained on climate by CDP, and an upgrade from B to A- on water compared to 2023.
Celebrating five years of impact, the FORVIA Foundation remains a catalyst for employee-driven initiatives supporting local communities.
The worldwide automotive production stood at 89.5 million LVs in 2024, down 1.1% vs. 2023: it was broadly stable in H1 (-0.1%) and down 2.0% in H2.
It is worth mentioning that, between 2023 and 2024, the share of Europe excluding Russia out of worldwide automotive production lost one percentage point, while the share of China gained 1.5 percentage point.
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In 2024, the pace of electrification slowed down in Europe and North America, with EV production respectively down 7% (Europe excl. Russia) and up only 3% year-on-year, while in China EV production continued to grow in the double-digits (+16% year-on-year).
Organic growth was significantly impacted by an unfavorable customer mix, primarily as activity of Stellantis (FORVIA's second largest customer) was lower in 2024, impacting sales in Europe and North America. Between 2023 and 2024, FORVIA's sales to Stellantis dropped by 20% on an organic basis and the share of Stellantis within Group sales fell from 12% to 10%.
Organic growth included a significant increase of tooling sales, mostly related to the Interiors Business Group.
In 2024, the Group posted a resilient operating margin of 5.2% of sales, down 10bps vs. the 5.3% recorded in 2023.
The 2024 operating margin included a €47 million negative impact from Interiors North American operations that was already flagged in our H1 2024 performance. As announced in July 2024, Interiors North American operations were back to profit in H2 2024, even if not yet fully recovering to 2023 levels.
The net €39 million year-on-year decrease in operating income, from €1,439 million in 2023 to €1,400 million in 2024, mainly reflected:
(before amortization of acquired intangible assets)
(vs. €3,328 million and 12.2% of sales in 2023).
(vs. €649 million in 2023) (stable vs. 2023)
As of December 31, 2024, the Group available cash amounted to €4.5 billion.
The Group has two fully undrawn facilities for c. €2 billion: €1.5 billion from a FORVIA Senior Credit Facility and €450 million from a FORVIA HELLA Senior Credit Facility.
At its last meeting held on February 27, 2025, the Board of Directors decided to propose no dividend to be paid in 2025, in order to accelerate the Group's top priority of deleveraging.
As regards operating margin, supported by initiatives for operational excellence and fixed costs reduction.
In addition, (€655m), through margin expansion and continued actions to reduce capex and inventories.
As regards financial leverage,
A webcasted conference call will be held today at 10:30am (CET).
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FORVIA, global automotive technology supplier, comprises the complementary technology and industrial strengths of Faurecia and HELLA. With over 290 industrial sites and 78 R&D centers, 150,000 people, including more than 15,000 R&D engineers across 40+ countries, FORVIA provides a unique and comprehensive approach to the automotive challenges of today and tomorrow. Composed of 6 business groups and a strong IP portfolio of c. 13,000 patents, FORVIA is focused on becoming the preferred innovation and integration partner for OEMS worldwide. In 2024, the Group achieved a consolidated revenue of 27 billion euros. FORVIA SE is listed on the Euronext Paris market under the FRVIA mnemonic code and is a component of the CAC SBT 1.5° index. FORVIA aims to be a change maker committed to foreseeing and making the mobility transformation happen.
This presentation contains certain forward-looking statements concerning FORVIA. Such forward-looking statements represent trends or objectives and cannot be construed as constituting forecasts regarding the future FORVIA's results or any other performance indicator. In some cases, you can identify these forward-looking statements by forward-looking words, such as "estimate," "expect," "anticipate," "project," "plan," "intend," "objective", "believe," "forecast," "foresee," "likely," "may," "should," "goal," "target," "might," "would,", “will”, "could,", "predict," "continue," "convinced," and "confident," the negative or plural of these words and other comparable terminology. Forward looking statements in this document include, but are not limited to, financial projections and estimates and their underlying assumptions including, without limitation, assumptions regarding present and future business strategies (including the successful integration of HELLA within the FORVIA Group), expectations and statements regarding FORVIA's operation of its business, and the future operation, direction and success of FORVIA's business. Although FORVIA believes its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, investors are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are subject to numerous various risks, whether known or unknown, and uncertainties and other factors, all of which may be beyond the control of FORVIA and could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. For a detailed description of these risks and uncertainties and other factors, please refer to public filings made with the (“AMF”), press releases, presentations and, in particular, to those described in the section 2."Risk factors & Risk management” of FORVIA's 2023 Universal Registration Document filed by FORVIA with the AMF on February 27, 2024 under number D. 24-0070 (a version of which is available on www.forvia.com). Subject to regulatory requirements, FORVIA does not undertake to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Any information relating to past performance contained herein is not a guarantee of future performance. Nothing herein should be construed as an investment recommendation or as legal, tax, investment or accounting advice. The historical figures related to HELLA included in this presentation have been provided to FORVIA by HELLA within the context of the acquisition process. These historical figures have not been audited or subject to a limited review by the auditors of FORVIA. FORVIA HELLA remains a listed company. For more information on FORVIA HELLA, more information is available on www.hella.com. This presentation does not constitute and should not be construed as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy FORVIA securities.
FORVIA's year-on-year sales evolution is made of three components:
As “Scope effect”, FORVIA presents all acquisitions/divestments, whose sales on an annual basis amount to more than €250 million.
Other acquisitions below this threshold are considered as “bolt-on acquisitions” and are included in “Growth at constant currencies”.
In 2021, there was no effect from “bolt-on acquisitions”; as a result, “Growth at constant currencies” is equivalent to sales growth at constant scope and currencies also presented as organic growth.
Operating income is the FORVIA group's principal performance indicator. It corresponds to net income of fully consolidated companies before:
Adjusted EBITDA is Operating income as defined above + depreciation and amortization of assets; to be fully compliant with the ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority) regulation, this term of “Adjusted EBITDA” will be used by the Group as of January 1, 2022, instead of the term “EBITDA” that was previously used (this means that “EBITDA” aggregates until 2021 are comparable with 'Adjusted EBITDA” aggregates as from 2022).
Net cash flow is defined as follow: Net cash from (used in) operating and investing activities less (acquisitions)/disposal of equity interests and businesses (net of cash and cash equivalents), other changes and proceeds from disposal of financial assets. Repayment of IFRS 16 debt is not included.
Net financial debt is defined as follow: Gross financial debt less cash and cash equivalents and derivatives classified under non-current and current assets. It includes the lease liabilities (IFRS 16 debt).
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