Car rental company Europcar can go back to Volkswagen
The German car corporation Volkswagen decided to strengthen its position in the market. Now it plans to take the carsharing segment seriously. The manufacturer was interested in the car rental company Europcar. According to some sources, Volkswagen wants to buy it for 420 million euros. Negotiations between the parties are currently underway and the final decision on the deal has been announced so far.
According to experts, if the French carsharing company agrees to the terms of the car manufacturer, then the latter can expand its influence in the markets of many countries.
It is worth noting that Volkswagen is not the only corporation that is interested in Europcar. The desire to acquire the latter also expressed a number of joint stock companies, which includes Apollo Global Management.
Experts estimate Europcar at 420 million euros, while its net debt is more than 1 billion euros. The pandemic has dealt a serious blow to the company’s revenues, and now it is trying its best to cope with the problems. As a result of border closures and cancellation of international traffic, demand for car rental has fallen to record levels.
Europcar is owned by the investment company Eurazeo, which the latter acquired from Volkswagen in 2006. At that time, the deal amounted to 1.26 billion euros, but now the German car concern has a great opportunity to return the French network, but with a significant discount.
Europcar was founded in 1949 and its main office is in Paris. The company’s fleet includes more than 200 thousand cars, it is represented in 143 countries and has 2825 rental points, which are located in Europe, Asia, North America and Africa.
Until this year Europcar has been actively developing and expanding its presence in the market. It was planned to increase coverage to 170 countries, but the pandemic and related problems forced management to revise its strategy.
The French company owns the Scooty brand, which provides electric scooter rental services. Prior to that, in 2015, Europcar bought the carsharing company Ubeeqo.
Scooty has 176 electric scooters that can be rented in Belgium and Antwerp and all vehicle reservation, rental and completion operations are done through a special application.
Last year Europcar expanded its fleet of electric cars. In the UK it increased by 85 units – from the manufacturer Renault. Zoe cars are designed mainly for courier purposes.
According to representatives of the carsharing company, the demand for electric cars is regularly growing, many users prefer eco-friendly and economical transport. Having listened to the wishes of customers, Europcar decided to increase its fleet and the Zoe series from Renault is ideal for this.
