Leonardo SpA

MIL:LDO

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q2

[Operator]

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Leonardo First Half 2021 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Valeria Ricciotti, Head of Investor Relations and Credit Rating Agencies of Leonardo. Please go ahead, madam.

[Valeria Ricciotti, executive]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our first half 2021 results conference call. I'm Valeria Ricciotti, Head of Investor Relations and Credit rating agencies. Today, our CEO, Alessandro Profumo; and our CFO, Alessandra Genco, will take you through our progress during the first half of this year, the first half financial results and the outlook for 2021, and we will then welcome your questions.

I will now hand you over to our CEO.

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

Many thanks, Valeria. Good evening, everybody. And first off, first of all, I hope that everyone on the call is well, and thank you all for taking the time to join us today on this call. Hopefully soon, we will be able to see you in person again. There are some important themes you can see in our presentation today. First of all, we have had a very solid first half, back on the growth path, and we are on track with defense electronics, helicopters and aircraft, all performing strongly.

The first half 2021, the full year, sorry, 2021 guidance is confirmed as well businesses are on track to deliver targets. The civil aerospace side remains challenging. Also, we are seeing some more positive signs. Our strong foundation and core fundamentals give us confidence in the short, medium and long-term outlook. We are also seeing more long-term growth opportunities post COVID, leveraging our competitive advanced technologies and innovation capabilities all across the globe.

We are demonstrating our commitment to ESG with a number of successful achievements. So let's look at the first half results. Our commercial activity has continued strongly, actually even higher than pre-COVID. We are continuing to achieve strong order intake, besides the pandemic with new orders of EUR 6.7 billion. We have been delivering well on our strong backlog, and we have driven very good top line growth.

Our revenues in first half stood at EUR 6.3 billion and book-to-bill above 1 . Our operational performance has been further improving. Our main military governmental business remains very strong and robust. While we continue to remain cautious about the timing of recovery of the civil business, also, we are beginning to see some positive signs, mainly in narrow-body and the regional segments.

We have successfully improved cash flow, and we are on track to meet our full year targets, and we are targeting net debt at year-end of EUR 3.3 billion. All this amounts to a good first half performance, in the context of an external environment that is still volatile and affected by the global pandemic. And this performance is due to the quality of our businesses and their core fundamentals and strengths, and I have to say to our people as well.

Strong confidence in medium long-term potentials of our main businesses. We have been executing well and driving volumes to deliver growth for the medium term in our main businesses, and you can see this at business level. First of all, helicopters. Here, we delivered well and are on track. Again, commercial activity remain good and remain underpinned by key factors. Robust military/governmental business, attractive customer support and training, a strong backlog of more than 80% military and governmental and a book-to-bill above 1 for the fourth year in a row. Our exposure to military/governmental is providing resiliency, flexibility, solidity and longer term visibility to our results. And we have been able to cash harbor many good opportunities.

We remain cautious on when the civil side will recover, but we are encouraged by a growing number of discussions with customers, with good signs in the EMS and VIP market. We feel positive looking forward, and certainly, our recent performance proves the importance of our strategy, like [indiscernible]. And we have a clear technology road map looking forward to leverage on and build for the future. For example, the AW09 (sic) [ AW609 ] to enhance our product range and open new markets.

Then defense electronics has significantly improved its performance on the European side. And in the U.S., we have continued the positive trajectory of Leonardo DRS. Electronics Europe has a much stronger first half, very solid in all areas. Defense electronics has recovered well from last year. We have been doing the right things to make our electronics activities more robust and predictable. We have demonstrated our ability to deliver as we have built a strategic long-term partnership with customers, built on trust and close cooperation and understanding customer needs. And delivering on them and leading the long term repeatedly.

Here, commercial activity has also been very strong, winning good business as well to our backlog, despite ongoing travel restrictions. We are well positioned on attractive long-term opportunities like EFA, Tempest and EuroMALE. And we are seeing attractive long-term opportunities across avionics, land and naval programs. We are seeing an evolution in the order mix, with an increasing number of long-term domestic orders based on solid customer relationships, while there are less short-term export contract because COVID is limiting our ability to travel. But overall, we have seen a good step-up in both order, revenues, EBITA and profitability. And there are good reasons to be positive looking forward. We can see longevity in our EFA Typhoon-related activities as the aircraft look set to fly until 2050 with continued investment ahead of them for new equipment, mainly electronics.

And then we are seeing the development of the Tempest program, and this is giving us the kind of real long-term visibility greater than we have ever seen. DRS is also progressing well, continuing to deliver on promises. It has a strong backlog, around $11 billion, including the unfunded portion. You remember always that we talk of hard backlog and soft backlog, but the sum of the group is around $11 billion. It's well positioned towards key DoD priorities, with a visible improvement in EBITA and profitability, driven by program transitioning from development to production. And you can see all these details in the S-1 and its updated updates, which we are continuing to make publicly available.

Then aircraft is a structurally strong business performing well, with a step-up this year in its order, revenues and profitability. We have a very high-quality business, with military/governmental exposure. Aircraft growth is being driven across all its business lines. We continue to benefit from the important EFA waste contract and also from other EFA activities into the medium-long term. We can also see our longer term future in the fighter market being shaped by Tempest. And the strong success of our trainers is also driving our growth. We see exciting opportunities developing for our M-345 and M-346. That is opening a new market for the Typhoon fighter attack version, a unique platform in the market. And also leveraging a new approach to training system, through the international flight training school, selling flight hours.

And all underpinned by an important contribution from customer support of around 25%. And we are also very excited by our position on EuroMALE, a key European defense program of the future. All this makes aircraft a growth story for us with an excellent future.

While on the civil side, we are proactively addressing the challenges faced by aerostructure. And we have signed last week the agreement with the unions for the early retirement of up to 500 people as announced in March. This will be NPV positive. As well as the upskilling and reskilling started in 2020 for the redeployment of another 500 people in other divisions of the group.

In ATR, we have delivered 6 aircraft in the first half, and we are on track to meet our full year target of more than doubling last year delivery. We are seeing some signs of market recovery in the narrow body and regional segments, so we see aerospace back. We expect ATR to recover earlier than other areas of civil, although not evenly across all geographies. And the cargo market is certainly seeing opportunities with COVID-related tailwinds. We will update you in more detail on our product reposition in the civil business when we present to you the third quarter results.

At group level, we are also seeing more attractive opportunities to deliver long-term growth post COVID, using our existing assets, capabilities and technologies. A prime example being the very significant Italian national recovery plan. We are very well placed to support as well as the next-generation EU.

At the same time, we maintain our strong commitment to ESG and can point to a number of success here. ESG to us is crucial and a key base for our strategy on an -- in the industrial plan. This synergy of financial and ESG factors is reflected in our first integrated report, which is comprehensive, measurable and transparent view of the value generated by the company. And we recently won the CFO award in Italy, in recognition of Alessandra work in leading our integrated reporting process. Many compliments, Alessandra.

In 2020, we also received key awards. We ranked first in the Transparency International Defense Company Index 2020, A band. We are #1 worldwide. We were confirmed industry leader in aerospace and defense of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices. We achieved the least score in CDP for climate change. We have been included in the gender equality index in Bloomberg. And yesterday, we have been confirmed again at the top in anticorruption with the Anti-bribery Management System Certification. It reflects a commitment to integrity, transparency and compliance made over the years and the rules in place to prevent and fight against corruption. And you see the importance and priority we are placing to ESG also in the new long-term incentive plan.

Sustainability targets are 10% short term of the short-term remuneration. And for the first time, also our long-term incentive plan now contains 2 key ESG metrics on which we will be evaluated over the next 3 years. This accounts for 20% of the long-term remuneration, and this is a strong commitment for all of us.

So we have a clear alignment of executive pay with ESG targets to ensure sustainability is embedded in culture and behaviors. The effective management of economic, environmental and social risk and opportunities create long-term value and assures the reliable and robust results.

I will now hand over to Alessandra, who will go into more detail on our business and financial performance and outlook. Thank you.

[Alessandra Genco, executive]

Thanks, Alessandro, and good afternoon, everybody. I want to start with the key topics on our first half results, then cover the performance across the operating businesses and then update you on how we are so far on track for the full year.

So starting with our half year results. In summary, you can see we had a solid first half to the year. Commercial activity has continued strongly with orders of EUR 6.7 billion, up 9.5%. We have delivered well on our strong backlog and driven good top line revenue growth, up 7.9%, EUR 6.3 billion. Military/governmental remains very robust while we remain cautious on the timing of the civil side recovery. We are clearly strengthening our performance as we increase volumes and reduce COVID impact, while executing on programs. EBITA in the first half of EUR 400 million translates into a return on sales higher than last year at 6.3%. Despite the cash pressures on the civil side, group free cash flow is negative EUR 1.4 billion, following our seasonal trend, but increased materially on the same period last year. And so far, we are on track to meet our full year targets.

All this amounts to a good first half performance, especially in the context of an external environment that is still challenging and affected by the global pandemic.

Now let's look in more details at the key group metrics across the operating businesses. Starting with new order intake, which was EUR 6.7 billion, this is a strong performance. We have continued to win important contracts and it shows the strength and resilience of our military and governmental business, with continued affirmation from customers in our important domestic markets as well as on the export side.

And again, we saw good performances across the group and especially strong performances in defense electronics and aircraft. Helicopters performed well with important order wins. Order intake was EUR 2 billion in the first half, lower year-on-year because of the major U.K. Merlin customer support order we booked in 2020. Major order of notice were a follow-up order for 36 TH-73A, the AW119 helicopters for the navy training, other follow-up orders for the Italian army and an order for the AW139 helicopters for Saudi Arabia.

In Defense Electronics, overall, we saw EUR 3.6 billion, of which EUR 2.4 billion in Electronics Europe, showing a significant decrease on the previous year. Highlights here were orders to supply equipment for the Italian navy's new submarines, and also continued successes on the EFA Typhoon program, winning orders to supply radar and aerial protection systems for the German Air Force under the broader Quadriga program.

On a smaller scale currently, but of a growing importance for the future, we secured the next tranche of Tempest funding. We also won orders in the civil -- in the cyber segment for the Italian Carabinieri and the MOD. In the U.S., DRS order intake was EUR 1.2 billion, continuing to benefit well from its position in key markets and its alignment with DoD priorities.

In Aeronautics, order intake was EUR 1.3 billion. The Aircraft division performed very well and again accounted for about 65% of this total, winning export orders for the M-346 trainer aircraft. On the other hand, aerostructure orders take fell to EUR 133 million, reflecting much lower demand from its main customers, Boeing, Airbus and ATR. So overall, we can be very pleased with the level of commercial activities around the order intake. We have succeeded in keeping our book-to-bill above 1.

Moving on to revenues. Revenues were EUR 6.3 billion for the first half, a good top line performance, driven by our strong backlog and solid order intake; best evidence of the quality of the businesses and the growth path is concerned. And we saw top line growth spread across all our divisions, except aerostructures.

Helicopters achieved EUR 1.9 billion of revenues, a double-digit increase, up 11.6%, and we ramped up volumes of military and governmental programs, such as the NH90 for Qatar and the TH-73A for the U.S. Navy as well as higher revenues on the AW189, 149 and 169 lines.

Defense Electronics as a whole also achieved double-digit growth in revenues. Up 9.3% to EUR 3.2 billion, with the European side showing strong growth of 15.5%, while DRS in the U.S. continued on its positive growth trajectory. In constant currency, also up approximately 10%.

Aircraft increased first half revenues by 15% to EUR 1.2 billion, with the growth driven by the trainers, M-346. So overall, a solid and resilient revenue performance across the group and a key reliable driver of our medium-term revenue growth.

We can rely on a strong backlog to deliver this long-term growth. And the backlog was EUR 36 billion, large in size, including the key large orders. The backlog covers almost 3 years of equivalent production, and it is well balanced, as you have seen, across our core businesses, our core geographies and between military/governmental service and customer support.

We have also improved our operational performance in the first half with group EBITA increasing 37% to EUR 400 million. Return on sales rising to 6.3% as we increased volumes and delivered our programs, and we saw further recovery in our operating efficiency as we continue to reduce the impact of COVID. We have delivered a stronger industrial performance across all our main businesses, up from 2020 and despite the ongoing drag of the civil aerostructure business, where losses increased as expected in the first half.

Looking at the individual businesses. Helicopters EBITA -- increased its EBIT -- its first half results to EUR 148 million, mainly due to better industrial efficiency compared to 2020, and -- with resulting in ROS slightly lower at 7.8% because of the mix of activities. Defense Electronic EBITA was the standout performer in the first half, increasing total EBITA to EUR 297 million. The European side doubled the performance to EUR 201 million, increasing ROS from 5.6% to 9.6%, again, on the back of increased volumes and improved program performance across businesses as well as actions to reduce the impact of COVID and increase efficiency.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., we saw DRS continue on a very positive trajectory, increasing EBITA in constant currency to $160 million, up 66%, with ROS rising from 5.7% to 8.7%. This includes clear signs and evidence of the margin expansion as programs transition from development to production phases. In aircraft, first half EBITA increased to EUR 150 million, another strong performance with strong growing volumes and improved efficiency. ROS got translated into 12.2%.

As we expected, losses in our civil aerostructure business increased in the first half to EUR 82 million and volumes fell across its production sites. ATR itself actually reduced its negative contribution from EUR 34 million to EUR 21 million on the back of successful actions on cost, a better contribution from customer support and even a slightly higher level of deliveries. 6 aircraft were delivered in the first half of 2021 versus 1 single delivery last year.

Lastly, Space contribution turned around and improved to positive EUR 23 million as we saw higher production volumes and better profitability in the manufacturing segment and one-off income at tax level.

Now moving to the below the line items. You can see that first half EBIT rose by approximately 50% to EUR 347 million, reflecting the improvement in EBITA. The nonrecurring costs in the first half amounted to EUR 35 million compared to EUR 45 million last year, with restructuring costs still not including expected costs associated with the aerostructure pension -- preretirement pension plans.

PPA was EUR 11 million.

Our net results reflect an EBITA performance, financial expenses of EUR 88 million and lower impact from FX hedging activity. Meanwhile, our free operating cash flow was negative, almost EUR 1.4 million -- EUR 1.4 billion compared to negative EUR 1.9 billion at the same time last year. We are pleased with that improvement. And although our cash flow is heavily weighted to the latter part of the year, it all means we are on track at this stage to meet our full year guidance. We also confirm our strong liquidity position at EUR 4.2 billion, as well as good financial flexibility in these exceptional times to cope with possible swings in financial needs.

Now let me give you an update on how we see the outlook in the full year. You have seen that we have delivered a solid first half, and we are on track with our expectations. Our main businesses are delivering, and the year has started well on all metrics. We are confirming our full year guidance, assuming progressive improvement in the global health situation throughout the year, with consequent normalization of operating and market conditions.

You can see here on the slide, continuing good commercial momentum and new order intake, group top line growing as we leverage off a solid backlog, group EBITA improving and remaining robust despite preceding softness and continuing COVID effects and group's free operating cash flow of circa EUR 100 million with resilience on the defense side, offset by the expected increased pressure on aerostructures and more normal levels of net investments. And let me remind you that we expect to absorb cash in the third quarter as to the usual seasonal pattern.

Looking at our businesses across the group. In helicopters, on track in the first half, delivered a good performance. We are encouraged by continued strong commercial activity, which remains underpinned by robust military/governmental and customer support. We are cautious about the speed and recovery in the civil side but we're starting to have some more engaged discussions with customers, mainly on EMS and VIP. We feel positive about being on track for the full year, and this confirms the strength of the business.

Defense Electronics. On the European side, we saw a very strong first half and still on track for the full year expectations. We are also seeing the benefits of a more robust and predictable business, and at the same time, winning good new orders and growing both our top line profitability and cash generation. In the U.S., DRS has also had a solid first half and remains on track with its positive trajectory. It has solid prospects driven by its positioning towards key DoD priorities and programs under development, moving into production phase. So delivering the expected margin expansion.

And in Aircraft, we also saw a solid first half, and we are on track. Volumes have been increasing, margins remained strong and we continue to build on our backlog with a strong fiber market and export opportunities for our provider platforms. aerostructure has the most exposure to civil markets. As we expected, this year in 2021, we are seeing the impact of significantly reduced demand from customers, Boeing, Airbus and ATR because of falling air traffic demand. And we're still expecting a cash absorption of EUR 350 million to EUR 400 million in 2021, more towards the lower end of the range of EUR 350 million. Then our ATR joint venture continues to face challenges, but we are seeing some more positive signs in the regional market. ATR is on track to more than double its delivery this year versus 2020.

Finally, Space is on track for the year. So to sum up, you have seen in our first half results that we are on track and delivering in an external context that remains volatile and uncertain while remembering that our business is weighted more to the second half. But the key points here are, we are back on the growth path, with continued strong commercial activity building our order backlog with a book-to-bill above 1. That backlog driving higher volumes and top line growth across sectors. Profitability benefiting from increasing volume and solid industrial performance and cash flow on track, supported by detailed action plans delivering the first effect already in the half year.

And with that, we are ready to take your questions. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Alessandro Pozzi of Mediobanca.

[Alessandro Pozzi, analyst]

My first question is on free cash flow. I'm just looking at the company compliance consensus. And the 2024, I think, is around EUR 700 million free cash flow. And in order to get to your guidance of neutral net debt by the end of the plan, I think we should assume a free cash flow above the EUR 1 billion mark from 2025, is quite far in the future. But I think it would be very useful to know how much of that is structural? How much of that is just a working capital reversal? We know there is a bigger Kuwait program helping, but we also know that the Kuwait is -- has a payment that spreads throughout the plan. So I think any indication on how that free cash flow is supported and whether there is a bigger structural element, I think would be helpful?

And also, given that you're probably going to have so much cash, what is the appetite for more acquisitions going forward? How much of that free cash flow generation will be for disposal? That's the first question.

[Alessandra Genco, executive]

Okay. Alessandro, so the buildup of that cash flow over time is mainly the result of 2 drivers. The first one is the strong continued delivery on the military/governmental backlog that we have and the continued commercial success in this business segment, the group is achieving as we are showing also in this first half result. And this is resulting in a higher top line with higher profitability and driving cash flows, with associated tight working capital management and all the actions we have taken to maximize cash ins and timely cash ins of activity and milestones.

The other driver is the decreasing absorption from the civil aeronautics business, with a recovery in production volumes as we are starting to see in some segments of the market, and we are confident that towards the end of the plan, the second half of the plan, there will be more production associated with all the programs in which we are engaged.

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

Yes. On acquisition, we don't have any specific appetite. The appetite we have is to be investment grade. The day we will investment grade, we will do any action which is necessary in order to keep this investment-grade position.

[Alessandro Pozzi, analyst]

Okay. I also have another question on DRS. We have seen a nice recovery in margins. Should we assume those margins to be stable at that level, 9% ROS? And also, do you think that allows maybe DRS to be better valued? And do you expect -- do you think market conditions are now improved compared to when you tried to IPO the business earlier in the year?

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

First of all, you remember that when we decided to postpone the IPO, was really a specific market condition. What is good and you stressed that is the fact that there has been a significant improvement in terms of margin. In reality, DRS is delivering what promised during the roadshow.

The problem was that at that time, there was a significant discount by the market on the results we were promising. I think that today, we have shown the first quarter and the second quarter, that there are structural elements for which DRS is improving the profitability, mainly the fact that we are, and this is really a strategic choice, we are reducing the acquisition.

In any case, growing them more than the market of new programs, and we have an higher number of programs, so the weighted average is changing. That is moving from development to production. You know better than me that there is a significant difference in terms of marginality for the development program and production programs. Today, we are still above the market rate in terms of the balance between development and production, but we are lower than the peak we had 2 years ago, if I remember correctly. And so the improving profitability of DRS is implied in this structural element of DRS.

[Alessandro Pozzi, analyst]

Okay. Would it be fair to assume that maybe the IPO is something to happen before year-end?

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

If you have a crystal ball that can see the market in the second half of the year, we pay a little bit this crystal ball, so that we know if the market will be. Not so much, we are from a -- we are very cautious on cost. But is it possible to say how the market will be -- if the market will be positive. As we always said, we have postponed the IPO not withdrawn.

[Operator]

The next question is from Andrew Humphrey of Morgan Stanley.

[Andrew Humphrey, analyst]

I've got a couple, if I may. You mentioned in your prepared comments the agreement that you've signed for early retirement of 500 people and indicated that would be NPV positive. Would I be correct in assuming the implication there is that there is an upfront cash cost to that? And could you highlight in a bit more detail whether that is included in your cash absorption assumptions for this year or the timing and extent of any cash outflow associated with that?

And the second question that I have is, since you last reported, obviously, we've had some further kind of shifting to the right on the 787 Boeing, even producing below the 5 a month they'd outlined previously. Does that have an incremental impact on aerostructures and your expectations on recovery? And I guess kind of how close are you to the kind of end state on restructuring of that business?

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

First of all, many thanks for the question. The first one, early retirement is a nice version. So we have an upfront cost. The cash flow is -- will be positive year after year because when we charge all the costs when we signed the contract. We have the outflow of cash when the people is, in reality, retiring or getting out from the company. So -- and year after year, the savings we have of the people retired is higher in terms of cash flow, outflow is higher than the payment we have to provide to the 1 that are going away in the year. So we have a charge this year, is a one-off charge, will be an extraordinary cost.

And we will have the outflow during the time in the next 3 years or even more. So we have -- it's a long period of time. So it's positive both in terms of cash year after year and in terms of NPV.

On the 787, we don't have a major impact. As you know, we are below 5% even today in terms of rate. But Valerio Cioffi, who is supervising the division will provide little bit more details.

[Lucio Cioffi, executive]

Up to now, really, you have seen that Boeing announced temporarily lower than 5 per month, and that will gradually return to current level announced. So really, we do not have a foreseen impact in the numbers that we had in our plan for the year. And as Alessandro said before, we mainly remain at an average value of 5 per month, without a real impact as soon as we will grow up during next year.

[Andrew Humphrey, analyst]

And could I kind of jump in with a kind of final 1 actually, on the guidance. I mean, you've left your guidance in place despite, I think, what's a very strong earnings performance in Q2. The implication, as I see it, if I take the midpoint of the full year guidance is that second half revenue will be up about 2% on a reported basis year-on-year at the midpoint. There's clearly a kind of deceleration from where we've been in the first half despite what one assumes to be easier comps in some of the businesses sequentially. Can you confirm that, and say, are you being a little bit cautious on that, on maintaining rather than raising that guidance?

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

Since I started to manage the company, we have been always cautious. So we have always detailed the promise.

[Operator]

The next question is from Martino De Ambroggi of Equita.

[Martino De Ambroggi, analyst]

One question is on the guidance, but if it's possible to have a view on helicopters and aircraft ex aerostructure for the full year in terms of operating performance, stand-alone for helicopters and aircraft.

The second is a general question on the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan. I don't know if it's possible, maybe it's too early to quantify what could be a potential order intake for you? And if not, at least to have an idea of what is the overall amount of the business you may bid for?

[Alessandra Genco, executive]

Okay. Martino, I'll take the first part of your question. On helicopters, what we're seeing in helicopters is on the military/governmental business, which accounts for really 85% to 90% of the total of the backlog, a strong delivery profile across all programs, very important programs that we have in the backlog. So we do see continued support coming from that side of the business, coupled with a very resilient customer support that accounts for more than 1/3 of the total turnover of helicopters. And where we do continue to see a level of flight hours, very significant applied fleet for the family and for the entire AW platforms, very, very sustained. So those are the dynamics.

As we said on the civil side, we see more engaged conversation on the VIP and on the medical EMS segments. The others oil and gas and utility remains subdued, and we are a bit more conscious. But again, we have a lot to deliver on the military and defense backlog.

On aircraft -- well, the aircraft, let's remember that it's very strong international programs, Eurofighter and JSF, where we continue to see solid order intake. On JSF, we're maintaining strong production rates and assembling aircraft for the Italian customers or other customers. And on the wing production, the rate is maintained, sustained, and we do see also additional opportunities -- business opportunities potentially coming through.

On the EFA or the Eurofighter, where you've heard about Quadriga in Germany, the 38 aircraft, and there are a number of other export campaigns that the consortium is working on. Combined with that, what we have registered in the first half of the year is traction on the trainer business, where the M-346 in particular has been confirmed as the leading platform for the training of pilots that will be flying on the fifth-generation fighters. And that remains a key franchise business for us, well recognized.

I will leave the floor now to Valerio to talk about the next-generation EU program.

[Martino De Ambroggi, analyst]

Alessandra, if I may. Helicopters, double-digit EBITA margin is a reasonable target for the current year. And for the aircraft, is it possible an extra performance because of the deliveries of the Eurofighter program or more or less similar to last year?

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

Martino, it's important always to remember that you're always seeing the EBITA margin but we are entering an incredibly large program where there is a huge pass-through in helicopter, you have to remember that. Because the EUR 3.17 billion of order from Qatar on which we start to have significant milestones. And we have a work share, which is slightly above 40%. So the remaining slightly lesser than 60%, were in any day, which is entirely different. But we like a lot this 60%, shall we say, 50-something percent, because we have a margin without committed capital. So I think that we have a little bit to get out from this topic of return on sales unless you incentivize the company not to grow.

[Martino De Ambroggi, analyst]

Clear.

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

So as you know, I prefer to talk of return on invested capital. I know that we are providing the number at the group level, not at a division level. We have internally all the numbers at the divisional level, but this is a, shall we say, that is not feasible today to compete in the market. But again, we are seeing a significant growth everywhere in terms of return on invested capital. And we like a lot to be the primer on large programs. Unless we'll be always a secondary player. I hope that I have been very clear.

[Martino De Ambroggi, analyst]

Yes, yes. Very clear.

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

Okay. Thanks.

[Lucio Cioffi, executive]

Okay. On the second question, really, the next-generation EU provide a big set of opportunities, mainly positioned in the medium term strategy. They play right to our core strengths and capabilities as we said some months ago. We are leveraging on asset technology, which are -- which we have inside our core businesses. And also, we shall keep our strong advantage from internal labs that Leonardo and the Leonardo choice to work on disruptive technologies, such as the cloud, the ATC, the artificial intelligence.

So really, we cannot quantify now which could be the impact. And -- but we have a very large side -- size of projects with a significant number of projects already in place in order to be immediately ready. No formal tenders have been issued yet. So we cannot quantify, and we do not have a real number, but we can cover all the cluster that we anticipated some months ago. So I don't want to be boring, but global monitoring for the environment, for critical infrastructure, digital, public administration, logistics, space economy, and the more we work on our internal capability, the more we found significant project that we can apply and that we will apply as soon as the tender will be issued.

[Martino De Ambroggi, analyst]

Okay. It's a rather difficult matter.

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

More than difficult, it's difficult to play, to quantify. There are many areas on which we get involved. Today, there is not yet any tender or tender already issued. So we have to wait in order to see. We know that we have many different projects that we have presented related to the [indiscernible]. That's mainly on the civil side, just to be clear.

[Operator]

The next question is from Chris Hallam of Goldman Sachs.

[Chris Hallam, analyst]

Just 1 question on cash flow seasonality. So cash has obviously outperformed expectations, but remains very seasonal. And I'm sure you've seen that several of your European peers seem to have been able to break that normal seasonal pattern and are now pointing towards a more balanced first half, second half split for free cash flow.

So I just wonder what you think has enabled them to do that, as compared to the dynamics that you're seeing and the customer discussions which you're having? And whether in the coming years of the plan, we might expect to see lower seasonality first half, second half on the cash flow side?

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

I think that it should be important to ask at all these players, what is the contribution of the domestic cash flow. Because we have the feeling that there is -- the government of the country where they are based is anticipating some order in a significant way. But then, clearly, for us, this is a priority to talk with all our customers. As you know, on the domestic business, we don't have upfront payment. So we have the payments only when we have the advanced -- advancement of the milestones. So it's for us is slightly different.

And what we are seeing is that from the international customers, the number of anticipated payments is lower. So since we are consuming the old anticipation, which are significant, for instance, the Kuwait anticipation has been significant. You remember the volatility we had year after year on the advance payment of Kuwait when we started to consume this advanced payment.

So we do expect a more stable trend for to reason one, we don't have in our pipeline any other jumbo versus secondly, also the large orders for instance, the Qatar order is not being significant in terms of the down payment. So -- which is better when you start it's good when you deliver because you have the cash flow more in line with the week. So it's is relatively positive.

You can be sure that we have an incredible focus on moving from order to cash-in. Again, the problem that usually is better the electronic business and the platform business. We have 2 plan for business, which is relatively large. And we are also working about -- with all our customers in order to revise the procedures and to see if we can have a more stable cash flow stream during the life of the order. Unfortunately, what I've discussed is not only the Italian governmental business or the defense business, which is a focus on the midyear-end because many countries the last months of the fiscal year, not in other countries are likely enough, the fiscal year-end in December, but there is a rush for contracts and payments.

[Operator]

The next question is from Nick Cunningham of Agency Partners.

[Nick Cunningham, analyst]

I wanted to ask 2 things, both about aeronautics. First of all, on aerostructures, it's obviously very good to hear that you're beginning to deal with the capacity issues. But I wanted to look at the sites issues as well, particularly Grottaglie because it's obviously such a single-specialized, very large site. And I imagine that 5 787s a month is probably using maybe a single shift on 1 of the lines. And so is there a way of dealing with that? Are there other things that can go into Grottaglie, given how specialized it is, that enables you to use that overhead more efficiently, as well as just dealing with the headcount issues?

And then the second question was about military aircraft. And again, very good to hear that M-346 and now M-345 is beginning to sell. I'm wondering, can you give us some kind of rough indication as to what proportion of revenues are accounted for by trainers? And also what the visibility is? Because I know in the past, they tended to sell in small packets, if you like. And so you get some activity and then it stops and then you get some more activity. So I'm wondering how much visibility there is for a sort of steady baseload of trainer activity going forward?

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

So I will, in fact, answer to -- for the restructure business, then I leave the floor to Valerio. You are right, we have 2 sites which are mainly focused on a single program: one is Grottaglie; the other one is Pomigliano. 2 different stories. On the ATR, as we said, we are confident, very confident that there will be a good recovery, now 2021, we do expect to, clearly to be better than the previous year at the ATR level for -- in terms of production for us. We are utilizing also some -- we had in the past, but we are managing properly the HR cost, then we will see in the next year's recovery, really depends also on -- as you remember that when Alessandra was talking, spent some more on the fighter model is something that today where a certain expected time, maybe that this will improve furthermore because in an aircraft, which is very useful for shall we say, the electronic sales business of Amazon or Google nor whatever it is.

Then the other factory, which up to a certain extent, it is a more complex is Grottaglie because it's focused on the 787. In Pomigliano, we have also some other capabilities. So there is another business that can be done in Pomigliano. In Grottaglie, as we said, we are working in order to look for new activities, some new working package from existing cash and some working targets from completely different sectors.

The big question mark is what will happen to the 787. Talking with the airline companies, everyone is saying that it's still the best aircraft in the segment because in terms of operational cost, it is the lowest one. So I'm sure that the program will be successful. So it's a matter of time. As you know, we -- from the fuselage 1405, we will have -- 06, we'll have a different price, which has been already negotiated. So I'm very confident the [indiscernible] what will be the rate in the next 2 years. But I'm very confident of the fact that this aircraft will continue to be a strong player in the business.

Valerio, I don't know if you want to add anything more.

[Lucio Cioffi, executive]

No. I think that mainly you said everything about the 2 site. Really Pomigliano, as you said, is something that we can manage in a simpler way, being ATR 50% under our technical also responsibility. So we are finding a new version, the fighter. We are developing the short take-off and landing. And we are also evaluating which could be in the future additional market in order to use, in order to be expanded and have opportunities for ATR. Pomigliano has also some engineering capabilities and a sort of autonomy.

At the same time, Grottaglie is through what has been said, but you shall also remember that if we come back 24 months ago, we were 40 -- 14 ships per month. So we were at the maximum rate. And we are trying to define how to diversify production. Obviously, with a short-term impact because in other case, we shall invest and there is not a short-term solution. We shall also consider that really -- we -- our idea is that the rate of the 787 will grow and probably could also grow better than expected as we have now in our plan, really, considering the product and the market.

[Alessandra Genco, executive]

Okay. Nick, going to your question around the military aircraft and visibility. On the military aircraft, the trainer, as we're saying this year has had already in the first half and is expected for the rest of the year to have a solid and strong order intake that will guarantee a stable level of production for the year to come, and speaking namely about the M-346. That's clearly a production level that will be related to machines as well as to customer support.

We also have to remember that we are coupling the traditional sale of aircraft with a new business line, which is the International Flight Training School, where we're actually selling flight hours. And we are in the ramp-up phase, but we're seeing -- we're signing up customers. We're signing up various air forces in Europe and beyond Europe, and this is good news because it's clearly going to fuel another avenue for a stable growth for the platforms as well as our ability and always increasing ability to provide value-added services to our customers, which are very much sought after.

[Nick Cunningham, analyst]

Just on the M-346. So it sounds like you've taken a lot of orders, but production hasn't really ramped up yet. Asking the question then in a different way, how -- what proportion of revenues do you see it going to, for military aircraft in, let's say, a couple of years from now?

[Alessandra Genco, executive]

Starting from the 2020 level, we do see an increase in the next couple of years, which would be in the double-digit range. Now we also have to remember that the market, the trainer market globally, compared to the fighter market, proportionally is a niche market. So we can't expect the trainer market within the aircraft division to represent a major portion of the total turnover. That means it's a healthy portion, but again, coupled with customer support to stabilize the production rates and margins.

[Nick Cunningham, analyst]

Absolutely. It's nice if you own a big piece of that niche.

[Alessandra Genco, executive]

I missed your question, again, Nick?

[Nick Cunningham, analyst]

I said, it's nice if you own a big piece of the niche. It's -- so a niche market is good if you have a nice percentage of it.

[Alessandra Genco, executive]

Yes. I mean we do feel that in the M-346, honestly, the platform is recognized as a leading platform. We have sold M-346 in Singapore, in Israel, clearly to the Italian customer. We have been selling it to many other international customers globally some of which we can mention...

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

As well as fighter attack model.

[Alessandra Genco, executive]

As well as the fighter attack. We are expanding the suite of products with the fighter attack and fighter training versions of the platform. And we see that there is really an expanded business opportunity to pursue, and we have started to capture the first elements and the first fruits of this market.

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

So we are aware that we will have an incredible competitor by the [indiscernible] they expand the trainer [ nuance ] when there will be. As you know, we lost the tender for a price issue. Just to be clear if the price has been won, we would have -- in our opinion, there should be a loss close to EUR 2 billion, which is very relevant, and I'm sure you won't be happy with this loss, this -- the account we made. As we know as well, there is already a 1-year delay and that we see if that won't be done there. So -- in any case, our trainer today is the trainer of the market.

[Lucio Cioffi, executive]

We have also -- as Alessandra said, we are selling the aircraft. Really, we are selling flight hour. But at the same time, we have the opportunity to enlarge the market throughout the IFTS because IFTS, which is developed with Italian Air Force, can permit several countries to train on our platform and to understand which is the real advantage of the existing trainer and fighter attack because it's a family, the 346. And so really, at the moment, we are, we have the best platform in the market with the best training system.

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

Yes. And Valerio is pointing a key point. We are not only selling a platform. We are selling a training system. So with the simulators and with all the [indiscernible] that can allow to reduce dramatically the cost for the training, which is very, very important in terms of cost for the air force, that want to train the pilot for a fourth-, fifth- and sixth-generation aircraft.

[Valeria Ricciotti, executive]

Okay. We'll take 2 questions from the web, final ones. The first 1 from Celine Fornaro, UBS. She said free operating cash flow was meaningfully better than expected. Could you please explain the main drivers behind this, and how we should think for the second half as your guidance remains unchanged? Also what level of factoring shall we assume for 2021? And what is the tailwind in the first half? When would you think it would be appropriate to reconsider a dividend payment?

[Alessandra Genco, executive]

Okay. Okay. Answering Celine's question, well, we did have a strong first half of the year, cash flow generation, we reduced the cash flow absorption by EUR 500 million year-over-year. This is the result of all the actions we have put in place already last year and that we are confirming for this year prioritizing cash ins on any other element. There is a laser focus across the entire group at program levels, from delivery of platforms to customer support, delivery of services on cash in. So we have programs from orders to cash, to expedite cash ins, also leveraging strong relationship with customers and incentivize the sales force on cash ins and not only on sales. So that is what we are seeing.

Now for the full year, we are on track to deliver the target that we have with the EUR 100 million of cash generation. There are, as you can appreciate, significant cash-ins that we have to bring home on a number of contracts. As usual, we are heavily weighted to the fourth quarter cash generation. So we'll continue to maintain a strong focus on cashing ins, and we are on track to deliver the target.

On dividends, I think we are -- it's a bit early to discuss the dividend policy. We clearly want to prioritize the net debt level and the investment-grade position as Alessandro was saying, above any other items in conjunction with this growth path that we have undertaken, both organic and inorganic. Dividends are part of the picture, and we'll have, I think, a better understanding and we'll be better positioned to make a call once we have the new plan in place.

[Valeria Ricciotti, executive]

And the final question, could you please help us understand if we should expect any impact from the Boeing 787 issues? Or are they already within the guidance? It's from [indiscernible], Bank of America?

[Alessandra Genco, executive]

No. The effects of recent announcements are, as Valerio explained before, are basically factored into our production rates. So there are no fundamental changes or impacts on the guidance.

[Valeria Ricciotti, executive]

Okay. As there no further questions, we just want to thank you for being with us today, and the IR team is always available for follow-ups.

[Alessandro Profumo, executive]

So many thanks. And for the one of you who are in U.S., good afternoon. The other one, a good evening. Thanks a lot. Bye.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones. Thank you.