CALGARY - Franchise Services of North America Inc. (FSNA) entered into an agreement to acquire Simply Wheelz LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and the holding company of the Advantage Rent-A-Car brand (Advantage) and certain other assets from Hertz Global Holdings Inc. FSNA's purchase of Advantage facilitates Hertz's $2.3 billion acquisition of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc.
FSNA will operate Advantage from 62 rental locations servicing airports across the United States. This includes certain former Thrifty rental locations where Advantage will now operate from in-terminal concessions in new markets in the United States. The acquisition significantly expands upon FSNA's current leisure car rental presence, which consists of 28 franchised airport locations operated under the U-Save Car & Truck Rental brand globally.
"The acquisition of Advantage is a significant milestone for FSNA as it marks a major step forward in our growth strategy by considerably strengthening our position in the U.S. car rental market," said Sandy Miller, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of FSNA. "Advantage is a well-known brand in the leisure rental car space, and their operations include prime airport locations, which will complement our existing North American business. We plan to continue the development of the brand both domestically and internationally. We welcome the Advantage employees and their customers and are committed to making this a seamless transition for all."
"Expanding our car rental footprint and running multi-branded companies will help to enhance the underlying value of the company for our shareholders. We also believe that in many instances, an opportunity will exist for our franchisees to expand their offerings and this will mean an incremental opportunity for our insurance divisions," added Tom McDonnell, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of FSNA.
The completion of the acquisition is conditioned upon, among other things, Hertz completing its acquisition of Dollar Thrifty. The merger is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
