Cerberus Capital Management’s portfolio company Vanguard Car Rental Group, the owner of Alamo and National Car Rental, has filed documents with US securities regulators to offer as much as $300 million in common stock via an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.
Cerberus bought Alamo and National Car Rental from bankrupt ANC Rental Corp. in October 2003 for $2.44 billion, creating Vanguard.
The filing did not specify the amount of shares that will be offered or a price range for the shares. It did disclose that there are no plans for a cash dividend to common stock holders.
Vanguard has hired JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs to coordinate the IPO, the filing said. The Tulsa, Oklahoma-based company said it plans to use cash from the IPO for debt reduction and general corporate purposes.
As of March 31 the company, which also operates the Rent A Car brand, has a network of 3,800 locations in 82 countries, with a fleet of 298,000 vehicles. The company owns, franchises and licenses facilities at or near airports in the United States and at off-airport locations in Europe.
The company had rental revenues of $2.82 billion and net income of $105.3 million in 2005.
The filing comes shortly after Hertz Global Holdings, owner of the Hertz brand car rental chain, said in mid-July that it is planning to sell as much as $1 billion of stock in an IPO. Hertz was purchased in a $14 billion leveraged buyout by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, The Carlyle Group and Merrill Lynch Private Equity seven months ago, and in June the company received a $1 billion debt-refinancing commitment from six banks to fund its shareholder dividend.
Cerberus currently manages $18 billion and recently received national attention for its $14 billion acquisition of General Motors Acceptance Corp (GMAC) in April.