The car rental company Sixt is eagerly awaiting the return of business trips and tourists to the airports. At the moment he is in the red. But buys airport stations in the USA from an insolvent competitor.
Pullach (dpa) - Germany's largest car rental company Sixt made a loss of 123 million euros before taxes in the first half of the year, but weathered the Corona crisis better than the competition.
Sixt even seized the opportunity and bought ten airport stations in the USA at a bargain price from the insolvent car rental company Advantage Rent a Car. These ten locations - including New York, Houston and Las Vegas - are with 3.4 billion US dollars (2.87 billion euros) market volume, half a billion larger than the entire German rental market, said CEO Erich Sixt on Thursday.
Between April and June, business at the major airports - with which Sixt normally generates 40 percent of its sales - was practically zero, and even now "it's still pretty sad," said the CEO. But it'll come back sometime. In holiday destinations such as Mallorca, Côte d'Azur and Sardinia, rental cars are almost fully booked at the moment, and Sixt has increased prices there. In the city offices in Germany and the USA, too, demand is approaching the previous year's level in some cases.
Nevertheless, Sixt cashed in on its annual forecast at the beginning of August and does not want to make a new one. He would have expected a faster recovery at the airports, but the development "is simply no longer predictable," said Erich Sixt, referring to the latest travel warnings for parts of Spain.
With short-time working, Sixt saved 40 percent of its personnel costs in the second quarter. The rental fleet has been greatly reduced, the fleet costs in the second quarter were even halved, as CFO Jörg Bremer said.
In the first half of the year sales slumped 37 percent to 717 million euros. The company posted a pre-tax loss of 123 million euros, following a pre-tax profit of 113 million euros in the first half of last year. "A devastating result. But it could have been much worse, as you can see from our competitors," said Erich Sixt.
Hertz filed for bankruptcy in the US and continues to work under bankruptcy protection. Avis-Budget and Europcar reduced their fleets even more than Sixt, their sales collapsed by more than 40 percent and they made even higher losses: Avis-Budget showed a loss of 639 million dollars for the first half of the year, Europcar a loss of 286 million euros .
The bad news for car rental companies: "The rents will increase due to the situation of the competitors", said Erich Sixt.
In contrast to its competitors, Sixt is "solidly financed", with an equity ratio of 24 percent, cash reserves of 800 million euros and an unused KfW loan of up to 1.5 billion euros. This means that the car rental company can take off as soon as demand picks up again. It is important when business travelers and tourists fly again.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 200813-99-154598 / 3
