Dowlais Group plc (6O7.F) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So good morning, everybody. Many thanks for joining us today for our inaugural first half results. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Liam Butterworth, the CEO of Dowlais. And for those -- I've been in the automotive industry for over 30 years. Prior to being the CEO of Dowlais, I was the CEO of GKN Automotive from 2018 up until the demerger. It's great to be speaking to you today about what the group has achieved and the exciting future that we have ahead of us. And in terms of agenda for the morning, I'm going to start by taking you through the half year highlights. I'll then provide an overview of the key achievements for the group, including an update on our sustainability strategy. Roberto will then present the first half financial performance and modeling guidance. Following this, I'm going to take you through the performance of our two market-leading businesses, GK and Automotive and GKN Powder Metallurgy, and I'll then conclude after which we can take some of your questions. So let me start with the first half highlights. Dowlais has delivered very strong first half performance, making significant financial and strategic progress against the goals we outlined at the Capital Markets Day in January. Due to the impending UAW strike, which provides a certain level of uncertainty for the second half, we're not changing our expectations for the full year. Our focus is on three key areas: margin expansion, cash generation and portfolio transition, all of which are well ahead of expectations in the half. So first of all, margin expansion. Whilst our revenue in constant currency grew by 10% year-on-year, our operating profit in absolute pounds grew by 40%, which resulted in 140 basis points of margin expansion albeit from a softer first half '22 comparable. This is an outstanding achievement and once again, with fully offset inflation right across the group. Secondly, cash management, we're very pleased with our cash performance, whereby we generated GBP 33 million of adjusted free cash flow during the first half, again, ahead of our expectations. And this has improved our net debt and reduced the group's leverage to 1.4x from the 1.5x at the date of demerger. And finally, portfolio transition. We continue to make great progress as we transition our portfolio to capture profitable growth from the shift to electrification. And of note, automotive has secured record bookings and the knee drive program at target margins. And powder met has also grown bookings and secured its first commercial agreement for permanent magnets. On Slide 5, we reinforce the highlights from the first half starting with GKN Automotive. Operating margin increased by 270 basis points year-on-year with a 92% profit growth. Automotive has secured record bookings of over GBP 3 billion of lifetime revenue in the period, and this is a book bill of -- book-to-bill ratio greater than 1.3x. Significantly, these bookings, 78% of which are on EV platforms have been realized across its entire portfolio of products, customer groups and geographies. And this further reinforces our confidence about the future for the automotive business. Powder Metallurgy business is doing better in recent months as well after what was a challenging second half of 2022 and first quarter of 2023. This led to an 80 basis point improvement in the first half operating margins when compared to the second half of last year, and this was even better sequentially in the second quarter. This has been driven by improved operational performance following the resolution of some operating challenges it experiences in the U.S. It's also seen strong progress on new business bookings with a 36% increase in the first half compared to the prior year. As it works on transitioning its portfolio, it's now seeing momentum in bookings for EV applications, which continues to be heavily focused upon. And finally, as I've already mentioned, we're extremely excited that Powder Met team has secured its first commercial agreement for permanent magnets, well ahead of plan, and that's with a major global Tier 1 automotive supplier. As we outlined at our Capital Markets event in January, sustainability is very important to us. And our goal is to contribute to a cleaner, more sustainable world. With this in mind, we set out our sustainability commitments for the year, and we've made great progress against those. Based on core materiality, we're on track to develop our group sustainability strategy, and we'll also submit Net Zero science-based targets for validation by the end of 2023 for both automotive and powder met. We've established a group sustainability management committee, which I chair, and we will use this forum to drive progress throughout the group. And within the business, we continue to make progress. For example, this year, Powder Met achieved an Ecovadis silver rating. And automotive is currently evaluating a power purchase agreement for renewable electricity for its European operations. Finally, we're on course to publish a consolidated sustainability report alongside our 2023 annual report. This will contain significant new information, including new targets based on the materiality assessment that we're currently conducting. I'm now going to hand over to Roberto, who will take you through the financial highlights.

Thank you, Liam, and good morning, everyone. For those of you that I haven't met yet, I'm Roberto Fioroni, Dowlais CFO. Today, I'll be walking you through the financial performance of Dowlais for the first half of the year. On Slide 8, we showcased the headline results for the group and for the avoidance of doubt, these results are for the whole 6-month period, January to June 2023. As you can see, revenue grew 10% on a constant currency basis, while operating profit grew 40% in absolute pounds. This clearly demonstrates the effective execution of our financial model. Incremental revenue in the period dropped through at 35%, excluding central costs. This impressive operating leverage is the consequence of the group fully offsetting inflation, improved operational performance and the continued benefits of our restructuring programs. The drop-through rate in the period was higher than our medium-term guide of 30%, also because of softer prior period comparables. As such, and in line with our plans, we expect drop-through margins to be lower in the second half of the year as comparatives strengthen. The 140 basis points margin improvement on the prior year includes incremental stand-alone PLC costs for the first half of 2023. Excluding these costs, in order to get a better reflection of the underlying operational improvement, margins expanded 190 basis points and operating profit grew by 52% in absolute pounds. As highlighted earlier by Liam, the group's relentless focus on cash delivered an adjusted free cash flow of GBP 33 million. Finally, on this slide, I want to highlight our inaugural dividend of GBP 1.4p per share, which is in line with our stated capital allocation policy. The Board approved an appropriate dividend that we believe provides the right balance between returning cash to shareholders and delevering our debt and reinvesting in the group for future growth. Moving to Slide 9, we show our revenue growth by key driver and relative revenue share by geography. Starting with the key drivers of revenue. Volume was the major contributor driving GBP 183 million of year-over-year revenue increase. This is the result of the strong growth in the global light vehicle production market. Price drove an increase of GBP 62 million in the period. This is the net of contractual annual price reductions standard in our industry and the customer inflation recoveries. Similar to prior year, we continue to recover more than 70% of inflation via customer pricing. Together, volume and price resulted in a 10% growth versus H1 2022. Finally, foreign exchange provided a benefit versus prior year. Geographically, the group's revenues continue to be well balanced, mitigating any risk deriving from overexposure to a country or region. Lastly, we continue to serve a broad customer base that includes pure EV manufacturers and Chinese OEMs. On Slide 10, we show the year-over-year bridge that explains the GBP 50 million operating profit growth versus prior period. As this is the first time we showed this chart, I will carefully explain the key drivers. Volume, this is the operating income generated from volume growth at prior year contribution margins. Volume drove GBP 53 million increase in profit versus first half of prior year. Secondly, price, this column is the sum of three factors: the standard annual contractual price reductions, direct and indirect material year-over-year inflation impact and customer price recoveries to offset inflation. This translated into a slight headwind of GBP 4 million versus prior period. The third column, performance, represents the benefits that are delivered via continued operational efficiencies and prior year restructuring. Labor inflation is also accounted for in this column. Performance in the period provided a GBP 17 million benefit versus same period last year. As we execute our financial model, you would expect the sum of price and performance to be positive when added together. This is the case for the first half of the year with a GBP 13 million improvement versus prior year. Finally, we incurred GBP 15 million of central costs in the period. These incremental PLC costs are in line with previous guidance. Slide 11 provides more detail by business unit. As a reminder, the year-over-year comparisons are at constant currencies. In automotive, revenues grew by 12% and margins expanded by an impressive 270 basis points as a result of higher volumes, operational performance and fully offsetting inflation in the period. In Powder Met, revenues grew by 2%, including the impact of customer recoveries to offset inflation. Margins contracted by 110 basis points as a result of a one-off issue in Q1 this year and some operational performance challenges in North America. I will talk more about this on the next page. Finally, we continue to make progress in the Hydrogen business. We currently have 17 operational systems with a further 2 that are in the process of being commissioned. The prospects for this business are promising, and we believe that could be accelerated through a strategic partnership. Therefore, we have initiated a process to assess opportunities, and we'll update you in due course. On Slide 12, we take a deeper dive on Powder Met's recent margin performance. Powder Met is a great business with exciting prospects, which has not performed to its full potential over the recent periods due to operational efficiencies driven by one-off events. These events impacted margins negatively in the second half of 2022 and in H1 2023, as can be seen on the chart. Despite these challenges, we have many reasons to be optimistic about the business. Firstly, our H1 margins expanded by 90 basis points on a reported basis versus H2 of last year. Secondly, in the first half of this year, the business has managed a further step up in performance as Q2 margins were sequentially higher than Q1 by 170 basis points. Finally, this Q2 margin was higher than full year 2022, also as a result of healthy volumes. As such, Powder Met is back on track to flow incremental volume to operating profit at the expected drop-through margins of approximately 30%. Moving to Slide 13. I want to discuss cash. As you know, we are relentlessly focused on cash and Dowlais is cash generative. The table on the left of the page splits the GBP 313 million of cash flow we generated into the two main sources: EBITDA and dividends from our JVs. The chart in the middle shows a relative view of the uses of cash that amount to GBP 280 million for the period. The key highlight is that we have generated adjusted free cash flow of GBP 33 million, while absorbing the seasonal buildup of working capital as well as the significant levels of investment in CapEx and restructuring to support future growth and productivity. A major part of which is a result of Automotive's footprint expansion in best cost countries. Improving profitability and rigorous cash management has enabled the group to delever since demerger. We remain focused on cash generation, which is a strategic priority for us. We are very satisfied with the strength of our balance sheet, at the same time, remain mindful of the macroeconomic environment and sector dynamics. Simply said, we are balancing our commitment to maintain a solid balance sheet whilst returning value to our shareholders. The dividend announced today is a good example of our thoughtful capital allocation strategy. Finally, on Slide 14, we are giving you some technical guidance to help with your modeling. I'm not going to go through each point as it largely reflects what we commit -- what we communicated to you in January during the Capital Markets Day. One of the items I do want to highlight is the effective tax rate. In 2023, we expect this to be between 25% and 26% as we work through finalizing positions post demerger. I expect this to reduce in future years. Thank you, and I will now hand over back to Liam.

Thanks, Roberto. I'm now going to talk in a bit more detail about the first half performance of our two core businesses. The Automotive business made excellent progress against all its strategic objectives with revenue growth of 12% to GBP 2.3 billion, driven by volume and pricing recoveries. Importantly, this led to a significant margin growth of 92% versus the prior year, which is an expansion of 270 basis points to 6.5%. I should clarify that H1 2022 didn't have the benefit of the pricing recoveries that we realized from the second half of 2022. The business, as previously continues to fully offset the impact of inflation through multiple levers, including commercial recoveries, procurement efficiency and plant productivity. I'll cover this in more detail on the next slide. It's also made outstanding progress in securing new business in the period, where it secured new contracts with a value of more than GBP 3 billion of forecast lifetime revenue. And this is another strong period with orders running well ahead of revenue and therefore, giving us confidence in its long-term growth prospects. Margin expansion is a critical element in its strategy. Therefore, I wanted to break down the drivers of margin improvement for Automotive in the first half of the year. As you'd expect, higher volumes have resulted in an improved margin given the drop-through. And this will be continue to be a key driver for future margin expansion. Direct and indirect material inflation have all successfully been offset thanks to their ability to recover price from the customers as well as procurement productivity. And labor cost inflation has also been more than offset, thanks to continuous improvement programs as well as the incremental benefits they're seeing as a result of the ongoing restructuring programs. So overall, this has seen the margins rise by 270 basis points year-on-year. The financial model for the automotive business is extremely resilient, and this is what gives us absolute confidence in their ability to achieve double-digit operating margins. On Slide 19, we wanted to give you an update of the ongoing work to optimize the automotive manufacturing footprint. It's got three major footprint programs, two of which are in Mexico and one greenfield site in Hungary and all progressing in line to plan and budget. And these programs will add a further 57,000 square meters of best cost country manufacturing capacity, starting with the opening of Hungary this month. And these programs will then enable the automotive business to reach 60% of its operational headcount in best-cost countries over the medium term. On Slide 20, I wanted to highlight the tremendous half of the automotive team has had in terms of new business wins, where they booked over GBP 3 billion in lifetime revenue, which results in a book-to-bill ratio of 1.3. Of the GBP 3 billion of bookings, more than GBP 2.3 billion have been awarded on EV programs, all of which are at or above target operating margins. And this booking performance also confirms that the business is achieving at least the same market share on EV platforms as the way it has on ICE platforms. So this is further evidence of how the business continues to benefit from the shift to electric vehicles. Slide 21 shows the breadth of new business wins the Automotive achieved across the portfolio. New business bookings have been secured at target margins across multiple customer groups in all regions and the entire portfolio. And we're pleased to announce the major eDrive system win in the period, launched in 2026. And this is a program that supports our margin expansion objectives and is fully aligned with our business strategy. This is a further demonstration of the market-leading position automotive has and a reflection of the breadth of technology, quality, operational excellence and competitiveness it has across the entire portfolio. In summary, automotive has had a fantastic start to the year and continues to reinforce our confidence in the outstanding quality of this business. Powder Met revenues were up 2% versus the prior year, which reflects 1% lower year-on-year volumes more than offset by price increases. The operating margin achieved for the period was 9.2%, and Roberto has already explained the dynamics behind this and how we're very optimistic about the future performance. In the period, inflation-related impacts were fully offset by customer recoveries and operational efficiencies. And from a commercial perspective, it was a successful first half with a 36% year-on-year growth in new business wins. And importantly, 75% of the value of these wins were from propulsion-agnostic product groups. Also, as I mentioned earlier, a notable development was the confirmation of its first Magnets commercial agreement secured with a leading global Tier 1 automotive supplier. This agreement is an extremely promising milestone for the business as it seeks to establish itself in the rapidly growing permanent magnet market. Slide 24 looks at Powder Met bookings in the first half in more detail. It's clear that Powder Met's portfolio strategy is progressing extremely well with 3/4 of new business bookings dedicated to propulsion-agnostic components in areas such as differential gears for eDrive systems, steering polis and park brake gears. And in line with its commercial strategy, all of these new business wins are consistent with its target operating margins to support long-term profitable growth. On this slide, we've separated the Powder Met portfolio into its various product segments and show how they will be impacted by the transition to EV. As expected, some of the more traditional ICE-specific products in the engine and transmission space will gradually decline. We're confident this will be more than offset by profitable growth in several product groups where Powder Met is seeing increased momentum for applications on BEV platforms such as differential gears, suspension steering components, all of which are performance requirements extremely well suited to centering technology. And additionally, it's also secured 2 exciting new product areas: Ionpowder for LFP batteries and permanent magnets where there's significant future growth potential. On Slide 26, we demonstrate concrete examples of recent wins on BEV platforms; across non-ICE-specific product groups. And as you can see, Powder Met is securing programs on a wide range of applications such as differential gears, thermal management, x by wire and batteries. The differential gear program secured for a large U.S. OEM is actually the single largest contract that Powder Met has ever secured. The content per vehicle can be up to GBP 40 across the product group. And this is a great example of how the benefit of centering technology can be applied for BEV platforms. And another example, outside of magnets, this I am powder for LFP batteries. Powder Met is already supplying substantial quantity of this material to a leading Chinese battery manufacturer and is now seeing a significant volume of inquiries as the market looks to increase the share of LFP battery technology on smaller sized, lower-cost vehicles. On Slide 27, I wanted to provide more detail on the magnet market and how Powder Met is gaining momentum. The market for rare earth magnets specific to passenger cars is forecast to grow from 17,000 tonnes in 2023 to 42,000 tonnes in 2030. And it's become an increasingly apparent demand for regionalized manufacturing sources in Europe and North America is growing, and we're seeing a significant increase in customer interest, both from Tier 1s and OEMs. Powder Met has been actively defining the implement its strategy to participate in this growing market and has successfully secured a commercial agreement with a leading Tier 1 auto supplier. The next stage of its development in this market is to ramp up production over the next 18 months or so as well as securing the right relationships throughout the entire supply chain from mine to Magna. So we're extremely excited about the future opportunity this presents for us. So to sum up. Dowlais has had a very strong first half, beating our expectations and demonstrating that we're successfully executing our strategy. Significant margin improvement, cash generation and managing the EV transition with record bookings at target margins. Clearly, the impending UAW strike provides a certain level of uncertainty for the second half, which we will navigate successfully given our operational and financial track record. So as such, we're not changing our expectations for the full year. With that, we'd be happy to take any questions you have. So please state your name and affiliation for the call that's been now being broadcast. Thank you very much.

Vanessa Jeffriess from Jefferies. And congratulations on some great results. I know it's really hard to comment on UAW strike. Is there any kind of range that you could give us like impact per month of shutdown. Secondly, could see really strong AAV bookings in the auto business. Are you expecting a kind of even first second half weighting like last year for total bookings? And thirdly, on the eDrive Systems award. Maybe you could just give us a little bit detail on how -- what kind of profile of award you're looking for in eDrive systems and how you're achieving those target margins on that one?

Okay. It was one question that was three. If I take the eDrive and you take the -- a difficult one. So on eDrive, we've said we have an extremely strong and deep technical capability in all-wheel drive systems and eDrive. And we've demonstrated that in a number of programs that we have in the market, we've been supplying over 2 million of these units. We are not going to chase volume in this space because we want to make sure that we recognize the value of the technology and engineering capability that we have across gearboxes, inverters and motors. As such, the eDrive program that was secured is for a niche high-performance SUV program. It's got a significant amount of additional content in terms of eDrive technologies. And it's been secured at target margins and the customer has made a significant contribution to the capital and the engineering cost to develop it. So it fits exactly in current times of the portfolio of product that we want to develop and take to market. And I think we've said in previous conversations that we actually walked away from a couple of eDrive programs last year. And if I look and hear what's in the market, I am extremely grateful we did walk away from them because I think I'll be struggling to deal with that the financial situation of those programs. Sorry, there was two other questions. The UAW one...

Bookings and UAW.

So bookings tend to be lumpy. We had a big eDrive program that was a significant portion of the $3 billion in the first half, although it was across the entire portfolio. So second half, we'll see, but we've already making -- we have a very good start to the second half -- and we're confident that we will exceed our book-to-bill ratio for the full year.

Exceed prior year bookings.

Sorry, yes.

So setting a new record, I guess, on bookings. On the UAW an SME, you tried this morning as well. we're going to go round and round on this one. Look, we don't have a crystal ball, right? So obviously, the strike, if there is a strike is going to depend on how broad it is, meaning 1 OEM or 3 OEMs. Some people say they might even be targeted suppliers -- and then the duration. All I will say is from our perspective, our exposure to the D3 sales on an annual basis is in North America is about 15% of the group's revenues. Obviously, the majority of that is very easy to link for automotive as we supply OEMs directly, not so clear from a Powder Met perspective as we're a Tier 2 supplier. So we don't necessarily know where the Tier 1 eventually sells into. But that's approximately our exposure is 15%.

And sorry, so I just want to add to that. So clearly, it's a very volatile situation at the moment, and there's lots of moving parts every day we're seeing different levels of communication coming out. All I can say is we have a fantastic operational team in the Automotive and the Powder Met businesses. And if you look at what the teams have navigated over the last 4 years, whether it be COVID, semiconductors, barges blocking the Suez Canal. It's just -- it's another challenge that we'll deal. We've gone a very strong muscle in dealing with operational challenges, and we'll work our way through it.

Mark Davies Jones at Stifel. Two, please. One very broad one, rather more specific. The specific one is around your Chinese business and how well you're positioned if those Chinese OEMs move aggressively into Europe, which seems to be scaling the Germans rather badly at the moment. Would you be a net beneficiary of that is your scope of business with them as broad as it is with the Western vendors?

Yes. So we have a fantastic relationship with our JV partner, Hasco. We've been with them. In fact, I think it's the 30th anniversary next week, we've been with them for a very long period of time, great relationship with them and very well balanced across the globals and the domestics. Where about 40% of our revenue in China is with the local OEMs. 60% is with the globals. We are -- and we spend a lot of time with the commercial team in terms of what's the commercial strategy going forward to make sure that we, again, profitably grow with the Chinese OEMs. And we are winning with the successful OEMs at margins that are in accordance with the target margins for the group. We have a very clear strategy in terms of how we'll support those OEMs as they come out of China and expand globally their footprint into Europe and South America. So we feel that we are well positioned. And we have a very good relationship with our JV partner, and we're fully aligned in terms of it's about profitable growth, not just taking market share for the sake of it.

And how does it work? If Chinese suppliers come out of China, is that still served by the JV? Or is that direct then?

So we -- everything that's supplied in China from the [Dowlais] -- or sorry, from the automotive business is through the JV. So it's our products and it's our technology. And that will go with them as they come out of China. We think it's -- clearly, we need to be competitive, but we clearly, based on the breadth of portfolio we have, the quality, the productivity, the cost competitiveness, we're confident that we'll be able to support them wherever they go with their manufacturing footprint.

The broad one was what you think is going on in the broader quartomarket in terms of production volumes overall. I mean I take the strike out of it. We've obviously had a very strong first half. There's been some catch-up and some deferred spending there. Some of the leading indicators. I mean, the German iPhone for the auto sector is worse than it was at the GFC. People are expecting a pretty drastic slowdown, but that's not the tone you're getting out of the OEMs. So what's your take?

We -- I can't forecast auto volumes, but we use S&P as our forecasting house. And to be honest, I can't give a better forecast than what they say. We think next year, there will be some growth. But although it will be relatively moderate. I can't really say much beyond that. We're continuing to look at what's happening with underlying demand versus inventory. Inventory levels are a key proxy for us to see what's going on as well as discounting in the North American market. And we see there's still a lot of discipline in the market as a result of that. So we're well positioned globally, and we're going to make sure that we keep a close eye on it. But for the time being, we see that demand is relatively stable.

Mark Fielding from RBC. A couple of questions, please. Firstly, just following up a little bit on the eDrive system win. Could you maybe talk a little bit more about what you think specifically differentiated you to win that? And then what's the pipeline like in terms of other similar opportunities? Or is this something we can be expecting 1 or 2 a year? Or is it going to be more intermittent? And then in that context, the final bit, there's a lot of one questions in it. Obviously, at present you buy in parts of that, and you said you think about that in the future, what's the tipping point when you think about more make versus buy in that business?

Yes. So in terms of what differentiated us on that program. So an eDrive system is -- it's not just a case of screwing a few parts together. It's a very complicated system when you bring the motor, the inverter and the gearbox together. And then all the software associated to make the system function as a very high-performing unit. The OEM that we're working with has been burned actually working on another product with another supplier. And they wanted a supplier that could basically take responsibility for designing and developing the full system. And they could be assured that when it goes to production, they're not going to have any issues. I think that's one of the strengths that GKN has is just our extensive knowledge and expertise across the whole systems integration piece of a knee drive unit. So -- and we've demonstrated that with the VW program that we're launching next year and over 2 million units in the market. And another problem with the Fiat 500e, which is continuously growing and being successful with that customer. Now in terms of our strategy, we've been very clear that our core business is around -- is the hard parts, the gears and the integration of all those -- that system. For motors and inverters, we have a very clear make -- sorry, buy strategy. With motors, we're buying sub assemblies and actually doing that assembly ourselves. Do we intend to further vertically integrating motors? At this point in time, probably not, because we believe that there's so much capacity being installed globally for motors. We can probably source them at a very competitive price. And for inverters and electronics, we will never go into electronics manufacturing. There are contract manufacturers out there that will build to our design and our print and that's our strategy going forward.

And just in terms of the possible pipeline for similar types of business?

Yes. So again, we're not chasing kind of 3 or 4 a month of these programs. They take a significant amount of engineering resource and effort to secure a program. So I would say 1 to 2 a year is kind of where our target would be. But if it's not, then again, we will be only focusing on programs that are profitable. We're not going to be booking these for the sake of it.

And then my second question for the very long one question was hopefully a short one. How do we think about price cost outlook as we move into 2024 now has obviously been a bit exceptional over the last year or so. Just what do you think is more normal-ish?

We've -- and I'm maybe speaking a little bit on your guidance for [indiscernible] so maybe you go...

Our financial model is very clear, right? We were going to fully offset inflation in a I don't know what a normal year is anymore because I don't think we've had a normal year for the last 5. But the -- if you go into a year where there is no hyperinflation, which I think is what you're indicating. We still have those annual industry standard price reductions -- contractual price reductions, which are quite modest in our case, and we're committed to offsetting those with direct material productivity, right? So that would be our standard model. In a year of inflation, we obviously go back to the customer base and ask for support and then we ratchet up on the self-help. But expect cost price to be neutral on the long run.

But we've had very sensible conversations with all of our customers over the last 2 years as we've gone through the inflationary challenges. And I think I've said this before, is one of the strengths of this business is just the market share that we have and the breadth of capability we have the OEMs listen to us because they need us. And the way we've supported them through COVID and all the different operational challenges the industry has been through, we've had no customer disruptions at all. So we have very, very good intelligent open conversations with our customers. And they've been fair with us, and we've been fair with them.

Michael Jacks from Bank of America. First one, you gave us some great granularity pre-demerger on the subcomponent systems within the automotive business. Could you perhaps give us some sort of sense of what proportion of the order intake came in eDrives and related stand-alone components in the first half? And related to that, how do we think about growth in the subsegment relative to global EV penetration? That's the first part of my question. And then secondly, I appreciate the high drop-through rate guidance that you've given us midterm. But could you give us a sense for what proportion of that comes from incremental cost savings, which, I guess, stem from the restructuring that you've been implementing?

So I'll take the portfolio. We don't break down bookings by product line or category within our new business wins. All I can say is it's across the entire portfolio. It'll be very successful inside shafts, in eDrive systems and eDrive components, and we're very happy with how that's spreading across. And we're also mindful in terms of when we're pursuing -- we look at the commercial strategy for the business and when we're pursuing programs that we've got the right allocation of engineering resource across the portfolio. So all I can say is it's very well balanced across the group. Secondly, in terms of growth, we've clearly said that #1 priority for Dowlais is margin expansion not growth. We've said high level that this business will grow at or slightly above light vehicle production. Now if there are opportunities to accelerate that growth, profitably, then that's exactly what we'll do. But we will not be chasing volume for the sake of it.

And sorry, just to be clear, is that in relation to the EV powertrain component? Or is that automotive as a whole?

Automotive and Powder Met as a whole.

On the drop-through margins, I guess, let's look at them by business. Overall, the group had 35% in the first half. And as I said, you got to keep in mind, there was some softer comparables in automotive. So automotive was actually higher than that. And I wouldn't expect that in the second half to be sustainable just because prior year comparables were softer as we hadn't recovered inflation yet, but we had the inflationary cost pressures. We've always said that in both businesses, Powder Met and Auto, we will drop through at 30%. I would expect that to be maintained on a full year basis. So Powder Met is actually the other way around. They had tougher comparables in H1 prior year. So the drop-throughs were not -- and plus the operational issues, the drop-throughs were not -- were dilutive to that 35% group level. And we're seeing those now coming through. So Q2 was a good testament to that when the drop-throughs were actually coming in closer to that 30%.

Super. And perhaps just if I could ask one follow-up on that. The 30% drop-through rate, does that include an element of restructuring derived cost savings? What I'm trying to get to here is whether or not 2, 3 years down the line, that drop-through rate might fall to 20% once all the restructuring benefits have come through?

So the way I look at it is that 30% is now based on what we've defined as a -- as our lean footprint. So it is driven by restructuring, but it's not -- we're not seeing incremental restructuring savings, if you're flowing through if you see what I mean. So as we grow in North America and in Europe and as we take advantage of our expansion to Mexico and Hungary. We secure those 30%, but those are sustained. We see those as being sustainable, not being helped by restructuring tailwinds.

Any more questions in the room? So turning to questions from the broadcast. I will try not to duplicate questions that have already been asked. I do bear with me. So the first question from William at Exane. A question around the exposure to the D3 in terms of revenues.

William, the -- so as I mentioned, the annual exposure, our annual sale to the D3s in the North America geography is roughly for the group 15% -- as I said, it's very clear to get a number for automotive a bit less clear for Powder Met just because of the tiering level, but 15%.

Thanks, Roberto. Second question also from William is around Powder Metallurgy. The question is around the split between automotive and industrial customers in the first half and how you expect this to evolve over time is 20% for industrial. But how do you expect it to evolve?

Maybe I could answer it. So it's around it's 80-20. It's around 80-20 in the first half. We saw a slight softening actually of the industrial market in the first half of the year. But we see longer term, it will stay at that kind of level. We see a significant amount of opportunities in the portfolio for Powder Met that we've been -- or the team have been spending a lot of time developing the right product, the right go-to-market strategy. And I could give you just some examples of what the team are doing in terms of LFP batteries, magnets, differential gears. So there's a lot of opportunity to proliferate centering technology in a broader area across the auto industry. So we see probably longer term staying around the 80-20 split.

Maybe just to add a bit more context on that where we see the EV transition really accelerating in the first half order intake is not so much in the shift between auto and industrial. But within auto, that auto was about -- the 80% was roughly half of that went into the combustion engine. We're seeing significant order intake for engine-agnostic products.

Thanks. Turning to a question now from JPMorgan and Jose, two parts to this. What are the key margin drivers for the auto division to deliver the margin target of 10% plus?

So the key -- hello, Jose, again. The key one there is really volume as we -- as volume dropped through at 30%, that's margin accretive. And that will drive the expansion. I mean the -- if I look at the first half drop through and what I expect for the full year, it is essentially volume dropping through at a high operational leverage. Having said that, because volume is an uncertainty, just like we said in January, we're not standing still. So the expansion in Hungary -- sorry, the greenfield in Hungary and the expansion in Mexico will give us some one-offs, some restructuring tailwinds starting next year.

And the second part of his question, in the short term, so in the second half, how should we think about those two buckets of performance and central costs?

In the second half?

In the second half.

The -- of performance in central costs?

Central costs and then performance within auto, I suppose, doesn't clarify.

Okay. So on central cost, I mean, we're not deviating from previous guidance, which is expect those to be on an incremental basis, full year about GBP 30 million. And on underperformance, as I said, I would expect the full year volume to be dropping through at 30%. So we saw a higher than in the first half, as I said, also driven by the comparables of prior year. We're now going into an environment. If I look at year-over-year second half of tougher comparables as I'll just remind everyone, last year we had skewed customer recovery that came into the second half versus the first half. So I would expect the -- just mathematically, the second half dropped through to be slightly below 30% to get to a full year of 30.

Sure. Next question is from a shareholder. I'll read it verbatim. Great results. First, could you talk to price levels in side shafts and where the competitors have been able to reduce costs similarly to GKN. And secondly, could you please elaborate on the restructuring costs incurred this year. And for how many years, we should continue to expect chunky restructuring costs?

So I'll take the site [shafts] pricing used to the restructuring costs?

Okay.

Or we can do it vice versa, if you want.

I was going to take both. So you're taking one off me.

Well, I'm just going to give some example of some recent new business pursuits on side shafts where lot of the sourcing that we see sometimes goes through e-options so we see very transparently what's happening in the market. And we've been very successful even recently with a large European OEM, where we've booked all of their side shaft business, which was a very competitive process. And we bought that business, that volume at slightly above our top operating margins for the company. Why is that? It's because we've got when you've got such a strong position in the market and such a economies of scale that we've got across all of our footprint in terms of manufacturing efficiencies procurement spend, operational progress. So we can be extremely competitive and we know that where necessary, we can book the right programs or the right business for us. So pricing is relatively disciplined in the space, and we're confident that we can continue to be competitive going forward.

On the restructuring question, I'll approach it from a cash perspective. So sometimes there's a bit of a delay between P&L and cash. But cash, we've always said that this year, we were expecting to spend about GBP 100 million of restructuring, and we're -- that's still valid. So previous guidance still holds. And then I said that on a more of a status quo because in the automotive industry, there's always something to be done. We'd be expecting about 20 to 40 on an annual basis. As of next year, the expectation is to start tapering down towards that steady state.

Thanks, Roberto. Possibly our final question, but it's in multiple parts. I'll kind of go one at a time, and it's from our friend Sanjay at Citi. First question on organic growth. Can you confirm that full year -- this year's full year, organic growth guidance is to perform at least in line with auto production? And then I read the bit around it, which says this implies 3% outperformance in the second half. Can you please provide some color on key drivers?

That's for you.

Okay. So Sanjay is following up from this morning's conversation. Hello again, Sanjay. The -- so -- the -- first of all, it depends what forecast you take. But if we all agree to use S&P that changes monthly and tends to be a retroactive change. But the -- we are -- and UAW strike aside, as we agreed this morning, we are expecting to grow revenues in line with production. And I will trust your maths on what it implies for H2.

Then second part of the question is around which year do we expect to start performing ahead of the market?

We've always said coming back to what I said earlier on, our strategy is to grow slightly at or above market, but our #1 priority is margin expansion. And we're going to stick to that mantle rigorously as we go forward as a business. Now we are seeing opportunities to grow above market. Now is that going to be in '24, '25. I'm not prepared to put a nail to -- to pin that down. But I think we'll -- we are confident that we will grow at or slightly above market, but the main priority is margin expansion.

The next question is around the strikes. We've already asked -- had the answer for the first part. So the second part would be around what kind of levers do we have to pull if the strike is elongated?

I mean the -- as Liam said earlier, we've been through a lot of disruption in the last 4, 5 years. And fortunately or unfortunately, we've learned how to flex that muscle. We've -- I'll just remind people that automotive -- the automotive business in 2020 during COVID where volumes were down 20% year-over-year, still ended the year profitably and cash generative. So the levers there -- I'm not going to go into extensive details, but it's essentially managing costs and managing -- sorry, working capital, so cost and cash.

And the final two parts of the question. So on the new order, the new eDrive unit order, could you please comment on the magnitude of the order and when it will start to be reflected in sales?

So it will start to reflect it in sales -- I think it launches early 2026, back into 2025. In terms of magnitude of sales, it's probably -- it's 1.5% to 2% of group revenue.

And then the final question and any more detail you can provide on magnets?

Well, as I said, first of all, at the Capital Markets Day, we said our #1 -- we said there was three priorities for the Powder Met business. One is margin expansion. Second one is portfolio transition and the third one was to secure technical validation of magnets because we saw that as a great opportunity. Checkmark against all three and ahead of plan, especially on magnets. Now we have a technical validation with a leading Tier 1 automotive supplier in Europe. It's a relatively small contract, but it will be -- it's the fact that, that product has now been designed into an electric motor, and we will industrialize it in one of our pilot plants in Europe, gives us a level of confidence that we've got the right supply chain in place and the right technology. Now we are looking with the Powder Met team right upstream in the supply chain from say, from mine to magnet and working on all the various pieces to make sure we have a supply chain that our customers in Europe and North America are looking for. So we're confident that we can be very successful.

Thanks, Liam. There are no further questions online. Oh, we have one in the room.

Mark Fielding from RBC again. Just can I have a quick follow-up on Powder Met actually. And obviously, probably a really helpful slide of the potential content per vehicle from new wins. But do you have some sort of sense of the current content per vehicle? Or maybe -- I mean, specifically, I suppose I was wondering what the content per vehicle is for things like the engine and transmission bit, which is a bit that is being negatively impact, just so we get a sense of how these...

Yes, I wouldn't want to get -- I couldn't give you a figure off the top of my because I'd be guessing, to be honest. But what we do know is around 40% to 50% of the portfolio today for Powder Met on engine transmission. We're seeing significant opportunities outside of that. I wouldn't be able to give a work around, maybe follow up with a more accurate number.

And then a really exciting final question. Just on tax rate. Obviously, you talked about this year, but how are you thinking about the medium term as you get more sell into the business now? And what's the potential tax rate a few years out?

So again, I'm not going to tied down to a specific tax rate. All I would say is the strategy quite openly has changed, right? Because with -- under the Melrose ownership with the -- just the model of buy, improve, sell and so holding an asset temporarily and potentially not getting value for a different tax rate. Depending on what they do, this just wasn't a focus in previous years. I see it as if I benchmark peers, where we're probably -- we're not the highest, but we're on the higher end. So we're just looking at what opportunities we might have there. And we'll update you.

Yes. Are we happy with the current tax rate. Now we believe there's work to optimize it. Roberto has established a very strong tax team around it now. And one of the things that they're doing post interims is to work diligently on looking at tax opportunities to be more efficient with our tax rate going forward.

And then finally, actually, just central costs as well. You're happy that's now like the right number. Are there any impacts this year, for example, related to the demerger or anything odd?

Just -- so the ones you see are -- no, they're not related. -- adjusted profit, there's nothing related. There has been some demerger costs that have gone as exceptional items. Are we happy with it? I mean, the real answer is any cost is too high. But the -- we are keeping it as tight as possible. As I said, there's extra cost to be incurred as being a stand-alone Plc that before were incurred by Melrose, the incremental is about EUR 30 million. That's what we've committed to, and we're keeping to that number.

So maybe just to conclude, as the CEO of the business and we off me and the entire team, I don't think we could be happier in terms of our first set of interim results and what we've delivered. And we've exceeded expectations across the 3 areas that we said we're going to perform on. And I'm looking forward to bringing another great set of results to you when we speak again at the end of the year. So thanks for your time and your questions.