[abhinavinc]

I being a healthcare worker in Toronto, am pretty sympathetic to their situation which wasn't really their fault to begin with.

Hertz did build a lot of goodwill among healthcare workers back in April by offering their cars free of any costs (including any hidden costs like insurance, damage waivers etc.) for a period of 2 months. A couple of colleagues did up getting cars literally for free on a first come first serve basis.

[HKP]

I have been a regular user of Hertz whenever I travel to the US for business visits - usually 3-4 times a year. It was very convenient as they have a tie-up with my employer so, they used to offer separate direct access through GOLD, no waiting for return etc. I moved from AVIS to Hertz due to all these.

Now, I got an email from Hertz APAC which says like this

"As such, I am writing to you to personally reassure you that all our businesses around the world remain open and serving customers . All our reservations, promotional offers and vouchers are available as usual. Customers can expect the same high level of service and reliability with enhanced cleaning protocols for extra peace of mind and our loyalty programme points and rewards are not affected. And importantly, the Hertz APAC team remains available and committed to supporting you.

You may have read or heard overnight that Hertz Global Holdings (the U.S. based entity) has voluntarily filed for reorganisation under Chapter 11 in the United States legal process.

It’s vital you know, and understand, that it is still "business as usual" for Hertz across the APAC region (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Korea, Japan and China). Hertz APAC region is not included in the U.S. Chapter 11 legal process.

"Chapter 11", put simply, describes the move a company takes to restructure its debt and address other financial issues. During this type of restructuring, a company typically continues its usual operations so that it can emerge stronger and that is just what the U.S. and Canadian Hertz entities undergoing Chapter 11 intend to do here. The U.S. Chapter 11 process will ensure that Hertz can continue to operate its business effectively under current management in all of its core geographies."

I will surely hope they rebound.

Last time I met this Afghan guy at the return counter who was so keen to know about the Indian cricket team and won't stop talking about Virat Kohli They were a bunch of nice people to deal with in my experience and a lot of their employees like that guy was proud of his job and how its taking care of his family who had to escape from Afghan.

Wishing good luck to Hertz.

\\hkp

[Arbind Ray]

Originally Posted by bigron

...Just like Enterprise and Avis some of their locations are great but some were truly unprofessional. The best thing about them was the range of cars they offered and probably had the best airport locations....

I concur. On November 2018 I extended my weekly rental by a fortnight as my wife and I embarked on a West > North > East > South road trip covering 10,000 km across the length and breadth of USA. As an American Express Platinum Business Card holder my Hertz membership had been upgraded to 5 Star Gold which meant at certain airport locations we could upgrade a) to next category up without paying extra, or b) select any luxury premium vehicle range available in the parking bay at the time. The offer of free WiFi hotspot was too good to miss up on therefore we chose Hertz rental to continue our journey with.

When we arrived at the pickup point in San Diego (had driven down from Las Vegas via Marina del Rey) we caught the tail end of a heated argument between their staff and a customer who in a raised voice angrily said "I'm a lawyer...if this is the way you treat a customer like me, God help the rest of them!"

It was our turn. Despite the free offer of the WiFi hotspot, not only were we being charged usd c360 for it, we were also told we didn't qualify for the 5 Star complimentary upgrade since our booking didn't show our status even though I had booked it online as with the previous booking we were dropping off. Being a weekend they were unable to contact their head office to verify our status. The frustration experienced by the lawyer before us seemed to be creeping up on us. Then a nice young man appeared from inside Hertz back office who was originally from Australia's Sunshine Coast where we had fond memories of visiting several years ago. He was enamored by our English accent and was very amenable to remedying the situation by cancelling our original online booking and manually inputting our information. For good measure he included the complimentary WiFi hotspot and upgraded our vehicle to the Manager's favourite...a new Limited Edition Chrysler Pacifica that had barely been driven for 5000 miles. Result!

Despite sending numerous emails to Hertz customer services after returning to the UK, we never did get our rewards points. I suppose its a moot point now. The upside is we had the best impromptu roadtrip experience we could ever have imagined as we booked into available Marriot/IHG group of hotels in the evenings wherever we'd happen to be driving through along the way.

[bmw_lover]

I think the company is not actually bankrupt but has filed for it as a pro active business strategy timely and may I add cunningly. ( its also a common move among American corporates advised by lawyers too). Anyone even with an iota of common sense can forsee that their entire business model is not going to generate cash flow at all atleast for the next 6 months. As pointed by TusharK, company was already leveraged to the max. at a debt to equity ratio of nearly 1.0. I will equate this situation to going all in at the poker table. Probably destiny scored a Royal Flush this time .

I think Hertz had a policy of replacing their entire fleet every year. That is why their cars were always shining and up to date and that is why they charged a premium in comparison to Enterprise. This bankruptcy move is more a result of poor balance sheet and audacious arrogance than the pandemic. Any global company should be able to survive a couple of quarters with negative growth if they have a cash rich balance sheet.

So instead of going over the hassles of trying to push a dead horse, they chose the easy way out. GTO is right that the company will come out leaner and probably meaner too with tweaks in their model to future proof it from such scenarios.

[ajmat]

The NYT articulates this quite well.

• $2.3 Billion takeover of Thrifty
• $17 Billion in debt
• Recovering from an accounting scandal
• Mismanaged fleet - held cars for too long and not enough SUV's
• Worst of all was that it issued asset based bonds which bought cars and leased them to Hertz (yeah, I find it long-winded also!)

So as quoted in the FT - Hertz became a bank that rented cars

Apologies - this was from the NYT Dealbook update that I receive. There was no link

[mmxylorider]

Post the National/Enterprise Merger and with the combined benefits (Emerald Aisle of National and an unparalleled neighborhood location option from Enterprise), Hertz was going to have a tough time. Add to it, Hertz/Ford and Avis/GM partnership could not match the variety that Enterprise offered.

Our firm had a corporate tie-up with Hertz but moved quickly to Enterprise few years ago. IMPO, an analogy is Hertz being the full service airline competing against LCC who offer more flexibility in the era of Uber and other ride share services.