by Wolfgang Ehrensberger, uro am Sonntag
The Volkswagen group apparently thinks
to a takeover of the leading European car rental company Europcar. With reference to insiders, the Reuters news agency reported that Wolfsburg had expressed interest in the French rental car company and asked for an insight into the books. The share then skyrocketed by up to 17 percent. There were no official statements from the companies.
With Europcar Volkswagen could open up an additional sales channel, it said. This is seen as a useful addition due to the corona-related sales slump. The Wolfsburg-based company may also want to use Europcar’s dense network of rental stations in their plans to become a mobility provider. Europcar belonged to VW until 2006. The landlord was sold to the financial investor Eurazeo for 3.3 billion euros because they wanted to focus on the core business as it was then.
It is currently Europcar worth around 390 million euros on the stock exchange. Financial investors are also said to have kept an eye on the company, including Apollo.
Like all other car rental companies, Europcar is struggling with the corona consequences. The French had recently secured a financing package of more than 300 million euros. This includes a loan of 220 million euros, 90 percent of which is guaranteed by the French state.
Even the car rental company Sixt had obtained a 1.5 billion euro loan in May, to which the KfW state bank contributed more than one billion euros. “So far we have not drawn a euro from this loan,” said board member Alexander Sixt at the online rental company’s general meeting on Wednesday. CEO Erich Sixt confirmed that, given the Corona slump, “the second quarter will be the worst in our company’s history”. Nevertheless, he still sees Germany’s largest car rental company on course for the black in 2020.
Given The number of bookings, which is increasing again compared to March and April, is “cautiously optimistic,” said Sixt. Profit before tax for the year as a whole should be “clearly positive, but very much below the previous year”.
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Image sources: Europcar Autovermietung GmbH
