- August 24, 2024
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Lee County company’s new CEO looks to his old company for turnaround assistance.
Rental car giant Hertz is on two different, yet somewhat converging, roads in an ongoing attempt to reverse the company’s lengthy slide.
That slide includes shares stuck under $4 and are down 62.85% over 2024 and nearly 80% since last July. The Estero-based company, which posted $9.37 billion in revenue in 2023, has had a full tank of troubles going back years, beyond the sluggish stock. The list includes: a 2020 bankruptcy; settling a series of lawsuits in 2022 for $168 million where hundreds of customers alleged the company reported vehicles stolen while the drivers were in good standing; and a highly publicized move earlier this year to reverse course on a go-big electric vehicle strategy, when it sold some 20,000 Teslas.
In the boardroom, meanwhile, the company is on CEO No. 5 in seven years in Gil West. The former COO at Delta Airlines, West was appointed CEO in March.
West is now the leader in Hertz’s improvement strategy.
On one side he’s looking to the skies: four out five recently named senior executives all have leadership experience at Delta Airlines. Another new leader, CFO Scott Haralson, held the same post at Spirit Airlines.
On the other side he’s leading the company to the bond market: In mid-June, in what Bloomberg News called an effort “to bolster its balance sheet after a misstep on its electric vehicle fleet” Hertz issued a $1 billion high-yield bond offering.
Hertz media relations officials declined to answer a set of written questions on the company’s turnaround strategy or provide an executive, including West, for an interview. A
The new executives were announced in a July 8 press release. The team includes:
West, in the release, says the new leaders “add capacity and capabilities that complement our existing leadership team's deep institutional knowledge of the rental car industry."