Authored by Fred Smith via RoadandTrack.com,
Two months after filing for bankruptcy protection, Hertz finally has a plan in place to attempt to stay afloat until 2021.
To appease lenders and maintain future business, it will unload nearly 200,000 of the manufacturer’s total leased vehicles, numbering under 500,000.
The long-awaited bulk sale of 182,521 cars will take place over the course of the rest of the year, with a deadline set for December 31st, in order to fund an agreed $650 million in other lease-related debts. The number is a step up from the 144,000-car shedding Hertz had proposed last month, but leaves the company with a large enough fleet to maintain a viable business when it emerges from bankruptcy into a world that will, hopefully, involve enough routine travel for rental cars to be a viable business enterprise.
The deal is a direct result of a more positive used car market than the one Hertz had previously faced when it announced its filing in May. The market will allow the rental giant to recoup more of its losses than it had previously expected, which seems to have been the sticking point for lenders approving the deal.
That same market, however, could look very different by the end of the sale period, thanks in no small part to the potential market flooding of 182,000 former rental cars hitting the market with a requirement to be sold in a specific time period.
While no specifics were offered about which portion of the Hertz fleet will be sold, earlier sales this year have included a wide range of low mileage C7 Corvette Z06 options, as well as two of the unique-to-Hertz, 750 horsepower Camaro ZL1s.