Auto Enthusiast

So, who do you think will win? Who do you think should win?

jackal

Well, Avis Budget Group has done some things recently I don't like (won't go into details), so I'd prefer Hertz.

That said, it's not a slam-dunk--both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Auto Enthusiast

I hear Hertz won Dollar, and will divest from Advantage. Maybe Avis will buy it?

jackal

$50/share.

If only I'd bought DTG when it was $0.66/share not too long ago...

(Had I not thought there was a good possibility of bankruptcy, I probably would have...)

spacehawk

I hope it's not the bigger the worse.

Auto Enthusiast

In the paper recently, shareholders voted in favor of Avis, and Hertz said they will retreat.

I wonder what will happen now. Avis already has leisure brand Budget to compete, sometimes fiercely, with Enterprise. But it's not a true apples-to-apples competition. Budget also does one-way rentals, which is a market Enterprise by and large chooses to forfeit.

National/Alamo would not be a true comparison. National is the premium brand, and Alamo is the leisure brand. Enterprise bought them, so now there are 2 leisure brands in the same house. But only 1 leisure brand, Alamo, does one-ways, so it's indirect internal competition.

Hertz has Advantage, but it's not as big a brand. Unlike its parent one-way king, Advantage does not typically do one-ways. Dollar does one-ways, sometimes priced competitively, sometimes not. So with 2 leisure brands under one roof, and both doing one-ways, Dollar seems to be a more direct internal competitor with Budget. Dollar would be less of a competitor with Advantage.

A while ago, Hertz said if they lost, they would bulk up the Advantage brand, and divest from it if they won. I wonder how Advantage would be built up, and who their target competition would be.

jackal

Unless you saw something very recently (since Friday) I completely missed, I didn't see that the shareholders voted in favor of Avis Budget Group. They simply voted to reject Hertz's takeover bid, but that doesn't have any bearing on the shareholders' thoughts about an ABG (ticker symbol: CAR) takeover. It's entirely possible the shareholders will vote to stay independent--after all, Dollar Thrifty was probably the best-performing company this last year during the recession. As far as I know, no date has been set for a vote on the Avis Budget bid. The DTG BOD hasn't, AFAIK, approved the CAR bid.

Auto Enthusiast

Do you think Dollar/Thrifty should remain independent?

jackal

I think there are advantages to both joining with a major player like Hertz and remaining independent, and honestly, I haven't formed a strong opinion on the matter. For me, personally, I think I will be better served by remaining independent, but I am not entirely opposed to a merger with Hertz.

I do, however, disagree vehemently with a merger with Avis Budget, and my one share of DTG will definitely be voting against that, if it comes to a vote.