Earnings Labs

Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (HTZ)

Q4 2009 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 24, 2010

$5.70

+1.88%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Hertz Global Holdings' 2009 fourth quarter and full-year conference call. The company has asked me to remind you that certain statements made on this call contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance and by their nature are subject to inherent uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Any forward-looking information relayed on this call speaks only as of this date and the company undertakes no obligation to update that information to reflect changed circumstances. Additional information concerning these statements is contained in the company's press release regarding its fourth quarter and full year results issued yesterday and in the Risk Factors and Forward-Looking Statements section of the company's 2008 Form 10-K and third quarter 2009 Form 10-Q. Copies of this filing are available from the SEC, the Hertz website or the company's Investor Relations department. I would like to remind you that today's call is being recorded by the company and is also being made available for replay starting at 12.30 p.m. Eastern Time today and running through March 12th, 2010. I would now like to turn the call over to our host, Leslie Hunziker. Please go ahead.

Leslie Hunziker

Management

Good morning and welcome to Hertz Global Holdings' 2009 fourth quarter and full year conference call. You should all have our press release and associated financial information. We've also provided slides to accompany our conference call, which can be accessed on our website at www.hertz.com/investorrelations. In a minute, I'll turn the call over to Mark Frissora, Hertz's Chairman and CEO. Also speaking today is Elyse Douglas, our Chief Financial Officer. In addition, we have Scott Sider, Executive Vice President and President of Vehicle Rental and Leasing, The Americas; Michel Taride, Executive Vice President and President, Hertz International; and Gerry Plescia, Executive Vice President and President of Hertz Equipment Rental. They'll all be on hand for the Q&A session. Today, we will use certain non-GAAP financial measures, all of which are reconciled with GAAP numbers in our press release and at the back of the slide presentation, both of which are posted on our website. We believe that our profitability and performance is better demonstrated using these non-GAAP metrics. Our call today focuses on Hertz Global Holdings, the publicly traded company. Results for the Hertz Corporation differed only slightly as explained in our press release. Now, I'll turn the call over to Mark Frissora.

Mark Frissora

Management

Good morning, everyone and thanks for joining us. Let's start on slide number six – page six. At Hertz, we have a comprehensive plan to improve operating efficiencies, restore financial strength and position the company for future growth. Last year, we gained significant momentum on all fronts. Our confidence that Hertz had the ability to manage effectively in response to changing market conditions proved true in 2009. We emerged from a very difficult year leaner, more focused, and better positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities and improving economic trends. During 2009, we increased operating efficiency through a comprehensive cost management effort, generating savings of $760 million, well in excess of our $620 million goal. We demonstrated the agility of our car rental, car business by quickly adjusting our labor and fleet network to match the dramatic change in demand. Specifically, worldwide rent-a-car fleet was down 9.7%, while transaction days in 2009 were down 8%. And we added the Advantage value brand to our portfolio to capture a greater share of the growing Leisure segment. Since our acquisition of Advantage in April, it has already gained a full point of U.S. airport market share. Along the way, we also made several small strategic acquisitions to expand our Equipment Rental presence in the less cyclical industrial market. And we continue to invest in technology by acquiring Eileo, the world's leader in telematics to advance our leadership by taking the customer experience to the next level. We were also extremely successful in refinancing $3.2 billion of U.S. fleet debt one year ahead of schedule with pricing on par with our 2005 rates. And we raised $990 million of capital through a successful convertible debt and equity transaction. Both operational and financial results exceeded our expectations in our worldwide rent-a-car customer satisfaction. Score…

Elyse Douglas

Management

Thanks, Mark and good morning, everyone. Let me begin by summarizing the consolidated results for the fourth quarter and full year, starting on slide 13. In the fourth quarter, while consolidated revenue declined 2.7% over the prior-year period, our profitability improved significantly. We earned $39.2 million in adjusted pretax income, which was an increase of $142.9 million or 137.8% over last year. The quarter's 2.3% adjusted pretax margin was an improvement of more than 800 basis points. And we delivered $221 million of corporate EBITDA at 12.7% margin. This is almost double the previous year’s levels in both dollars and as a percent of revenue. These improvements are due to the strength in the rent-a-car business, which is offsetting the challenges faced in equipment rental and our continued focus on costs. Evidence of this is the 4.3% and 8.6% decline in adjusted direct operating and SG&A expenses respectively in the fourth quarter year over year. Consolidated expenses also were down as a percentage of revenue due to a number of factors, including aligning operations to market conditions; 25% lower damage costs in worldwide rent-a-car; reduced corporate overhead through process efficiencies that drove an 8% reduction in corporate staffing levels; a 4.2% increase in labor productivity as measured by total company rental revenue per employee; and a value added tax refund in Europe, which reduced direct operating and net interest expense by $8.2 million and $10.3 million, respectively. And even with additional shares outstanding due to the May equity offering, we delivered adjusted EPS of $0.06 versus an adjusted net loss of $0.22 per share a year earlier. For 2009, outlined on slide 14, consolidated revenue declined $1.4 billion, but adjusted pre-tax fell by only $38.3 million. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.29 for the year which exceeded our guidance…

Mark Frissora

Management

The worst appears to be over for the US economy. The International Monetary Fund expects 2010 to be a year of transition and modest growth, reflecting a 3% gain in GDP. In the European economy, although signs of improvement have appeared recently, recovery remains uncertain and fragile. The IMF forecasts less than 1% growth in Europe for 2010, though, in a few countries, notably Ireland, Greece and Spain, the recession is expected to continue. Within the confines of this global environment, we are focused on doing everything we can to drive the top line and ensure we operate as efficiently as possible. Innovation, lean business practices and a strong commitment to marketing our brands are the cornerstone of our efforts. In 2010, we will pursue targeted growth initiatives and reinvest in our business to support future expansion. We also plan to further develop our global presence for rent-a-car and equipment rental in India, China and the Middle East. We will continue to evaluate acquisition opportunities and have sufficient cash and access to capital if opportunities become available at attractive valuations. The scope of our business model is unique. It allows us to look at a rental market opportunity very broadly. Going forward, we will build on past accomplishments by capitalizing on the operating leverage of our global network by maintaining disciplined pricing practices and by leveraging the power of our brand. In 2010, our plan calls for a profit improvement of at least 28% driven by our expectation for slightly higher rates of underlying growth in the US and European rent-a-car markets. The economic recovery should be gradual, and in the second half we should benefit from easier year-over-year comps for equipment rental as well as the renewal of demand for industrial equipment as deferred projects reinitiated. Now let me…

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) Our first question is from the line of Rich Kwas from Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead. Rich Kwas – Wells Fargo Securities: Hi, good morning. Mark, I know in light of the sensitivity here, first of all, how should we think about – it is pretty tight range here, $0.37 to $0.39 for 2010. What are really the major risks aside from macro issues there that you are seeing in the industry right now?

Mark Frissora

Management

On the rent-a-car side, we feel pretty good about US rent-a-car, obviously I said that. We see probably more upside in that business than any of the other two. In Europe, we have got the recovery of the European economy, and again that’s anyone’s guess, but feel like our assumptions build in there are fairly good in terms of the way we provide guidance and then on the HERC side, visibility in the second half of the year is very cloudy as you know. So until we really get in to it, it is really hard to provide any upside on that business based on the assumptions we build in. So we try to give you what the assumptions were or we try to show you what the upside was and what areas. And on costs, we always seem to over-deliver on that. So I feel confident that the team always finds a way to hit their and exceed their cost targets. So I feel that there could be some upside there. So that’s just kind of stating where I just said I guess maybe in a little bit more of a colloquial fashion, but we feel like the operating environment is poor, about half the company is very positive. We have seen rental demand mid-week for US up significantly kind of to mid-double digits; so in the neighborhood of 15% to 20% on Tuesday through Thursday. Those are big numbers. Now we don’t know if that’s going to continue to hold through the rest of the year, but certainly if it does, then that’s a big upside right. So maybe that gives you a little flavor, but there is a pretty strong operating environment in the US right now. We are finding business travel is up significantly in our top 20 accounts and that’s really what drove a lot of our RPD issues in the back half and in the front half of last year. So we feel leisure pricing, frankly, in January – I will say this – in January, our on-airport leisure pricing was up and leisure is our biggest segment, Rich, on airport, and leisure pricing was up I think – what was it Mike? 6.9% in on-airport. So we feel pretty good about that. So again I guess the risks that we have would be competitive behavior on the equipment rental side. I think that’s our number one risk; competitive behavior on the equipment rental side. Rich Kwas – Wells Fargo Securities: Okay. Then just on the business or corporate account, you talked about volume getting better. What’s going on with pricing? I think you are facing relatively benign comp versus 2009. How should we think about the assumption for corporate account pricing for 2010?

Mark Frissora

Management

I think in general, we hope it to be flat to positive. So that’s kind of what we’ve said and we still feel that way. It may be slightly up. Rich Kwas – Wells Fargo Securities: What are you seeing right now – I know that negotiations are ongoing and each moth there is new ones happening, but what are the trends there right now?

Mark Frissora

Management

In the quarter, corporate was up 0.60%, so that’s an actual for fourth quarter. So that gives you the best indicator that I have right now as a fact. Rich Kwas – Wells Fargo Securities: Okay. And you were down – I think for all 2009, you were down 5% in corporate pricing?

Mark Frissora

Management

I think, the overall corporate pricing was down about 3%, 2.7% to be exact. Rich Kwas – Wells Fargo Securities:

Mark Frissora

Management

The assumption was that pricing would turn positive in the back half of the year, slightly more in the fourth quarter than the third quarter and was built on the notion that volume will actually start to improve. Right now everyone has got excess equipment. We think that’s what’s driving some of the irrational behavior we see from competitors. We are in a protect-share mode. So we’ve got to respond accordingly. The bottom line is the industry has the capacity to improve pricing quickly if in fact people started acting in a rational manner. Rich Kwas – Wells Fargo Securities: Okay, great. I’ll jump off. I will get back in the queue. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We now go to the line of Chris Agnew from MKM Partners. Please go ahead. Chris Agnew – MKM Partners: Thank you, good morning. Could you provide a little context around pre-tax margins? I guess I was a little bit surprised to see only 50 basis points or 70 basis points improvement on 4% to 7% growth. You used to have I think 10% to 12% pre-tax margin targets, and you've since taken out 1.2 billion in costs. Is there anything structurally different about the profitability of the new products and services that you are not currently growing? Thanks.

Mark Frissora

Management

Are you talking about US rent-a-car, worldwide rent-a-car margins or what you’re looking at? Chris Agnew – MKM Partners: Just the full company, the overall organization. I mean, am I incorrect in saying that?

Mark Frissora

Management

Are you talking about guidance for the year, though? Is that what you are talking about? Chris Agnew – MKM Partners: I guess, I am just trying to ask to put into context your pre-tax margin guidance, which is I think indicating 3.3% to 3.5% pre-tax margin. You used to have 10% to 12% pre-tax margin goal. So to put into some context then, is there anything structurally different about the new products and services that you're offering that keep it lower.

Mark Frissora

Management

Chris, the best way to answer it, I would say HERC’s pre-tax margin is down year over year. So that is driving the issue. While we don't have more improvement – we're showing improvement obviously, significant improvement year over year; your question is why is it not up more. I think structurally the difference is HERC’s pre-tax margin ends up actually being down year over year, not on a dollar basis, pre-tax margins actually improve – pre-tax dollars improve, but the margins actually are down. And that would be the best answer to give you. The other one to tell you is that if you look at the upside that would improve the margins as well. We have a very – we have about 300 basis points lower fixed-cost basis. So the revenues we do get provide upside on pre-tax margins. I try to explain to people that the guidance is conservative, tried to show you what the upside would be a 1 point basis of improvement in those categories on that last slide. And I think if you were to take those and then look at the pre-tax margins, accordingly you’d see a more robust pre-tax margin, right? Chris Agnew – MKM Partners: Okay. On the volume that you are looking for, how much – can you break that out with expectation for just your more traditional core on airport business?

Mark Frissora

Management

Say that again. Repeat it if you would, I am sorry. It broke up a little bit in this room. Chris Agnew – MKM Partners: Apologies. The volume guidance, approximately guidance assumption that you provided, can you just break that out for your core on airport business?

Mark Frissora

Management

Chris Agnew – MKM Partners: Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We now go to the line of Himanshu Patel from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Ryan Brinkman – JP Morgan: Hi, this is Ryan Brinkman for Himanshu Patel. You mentioned that there is potential upside to the $300 million cost savings. But I would just like to know in the $0.37 to $0.39 EPS guidance, does that assume the $300 million cost, is it fully offset by the return of costs that were cut in previous year; there is a net benefit there?

Mark Frissora

Management

In the slide the details that you can see is not the $300 million of cost reduction, obviously some of them flows through to the bottom line, but there were some one-offs that don’t, right? And we talked about the SG&A as one of those. We talked about the interest expense as another. Those were the two primary drivers. Ryan Brinkman – JP Morgan: Right. But the cost increase is less than $300 million; I mean you said 35% increase. Okay.

Mark Frissora

Management

Absolutely. Yes. Ryan Brinkman – JP Morgan: And then also in regards to monthly VAT [ph] provision for vehicle, given the sequential flattening used vehicle prices, is $316 per month, is that a decent rate to use going forward? Or is there any reason why that should trend differently than used vehicle prices.

Mark Frissora

Management

Well, we’ve said it’s going to go down 4% to 5%. Ryan Brinkman – JP Morgan: Okay.

Mark Frissora

Management

So that’s what we told you that it will go down at least 4% to 5%. If you notice, it’s also on our upside slide on page 29, I think it is. Ryan Brinkman – JP Morgan:

Elyse Douglas

Management

No. I think it’s a number of different things. I am not sure what you are referring to when you said creative things. The ABS structure, there is a piece of it that is amend-and-extend and then there is some new structures. I wouldn’t say they are particularly unique. Bond offering is what we said on page 22 in the presentation. It’s really just a combination of the asset-backed securitization, which is an amend-and-extend of bond offering. We are looking at some asset-based loan structures and some leasing structures. It’s really a combination of those four things. Ryan Brinkman – JP Morgan: Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We now go to the line of Emily Shanks from Barclays Capital. Please go ahead. Emily Shanks – Barclays Capital: Good morning. Thanks for all the details. I had a question around the HERC business, and apologies if I missed this. What is the industrial piece of it makeup now, what’s that mix?

Gerald Plescia

Analyst

Industrial, I think, is up to, let’s say, 24%. Emily Shanks – Barclays Capital: Okay. It looks to me like at least on a year over year basis you outperformed your peers in that particular segment. I want to get a sense from you what you attribute that to and specifically do you think that you are taking market share?

Gerald Plescia

Analyst

When we look at the revenue growth, we are slightly better than one of our competitors and not as good as another one. But I think that primarily our better cost management through yield management systems that we put in place, discipline around our sales organization, our revenues per branch are much higher. So we're able to I guess collect a lot of our costs on what we call regional fleets and we share a lot of our fleets with each other. So I’d just say SG&A management coupled with direct operating expense management, all combined, plus we have a national account base that’s probably second to none in the industry, and we believe that that corporate structure provides more efficiency and better pricing than let’s just say small little one-offs in local communities. Emily Shanks – Barclays Capital: Then my final question is for Elyse, as we look at the revolver which is maturing at the end of this year. How should we think about that or can you comment on what your plans are around potential amend-and-extend?

Elyse Douglas

Management

The corporate revolver, that's in 2012 maturity? Emily Shanks – Barclays Capital: I thought the term loan was 2012 and the revolver itself was due December 21, 2010. Is that wrong?

Elyse Douglas

Management

They are both 2012. And we are looking at amend-and-extend strategies, but we have no plans to do anything right now. Emily Shanks – Barclays Capital: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We now move to the line of James Ellman from Seacliff Capital. Please go ahead. James Ellman – Seacliff Capital: I guess, could you tell us a little bit about demand that you are seeing in HERC certainly in terms of pricing and demand? We're seeing something a bit more conservative coming from RSC. Could you comment on where is your business different and why would you be a bit more optimistic about the back half of the year? And then finally, if you could just comment on the irrational pricing you are mentioning, is this pricing irrational in light of potentially some customers liquidating their fleets. Thank you.

Mark Frissora

Management

I think RSD from what I’ve read in their transcripts said the same thing we did, second half improves year over year. There is potential to improve in the second half of the year. In terms of volume levels by region, our strongest areas right now, believe it or not, are Florida and the western half of Canada. And that’s due to the fact that Florida was first into the recession. We think it's first out and we are doing some really good things there as well. We put in a much better – we have a much better industrial base than we used to have. But beyond that, we’ve been focusing on power generation and a better mix of equipment. So again, we are actually seeing Florida be up year over year. And that is one of our biggest markets for non-res. However western – what we call our western region which is California even going up to the northwest, that region still is under a lot of pressure. So we haven’t really seen any improvement there, but we’ve seen improvement everywhere else. And the biggest I guess positive is as the weather starts to get a little warmer we’ve seen some nice activity again in Florida and some of the Midwest and northeast as well. So that gives you contextually what we're seeing today. And why it gives us some confidence that that could be based, again, very weak comps, some improvement year over year in the third and fourth quarter. In terms of the irrational pricing activities, not a whole much more I can say about that, right? So we are all governed by the same antitrust issues. So I'm not going to signal at all, it’s just to say that competitors continue to really be predatory [ph] we think in large extent. They will go after business and try to gain market share in environment where no one is going to give up market share. Everyone is fighting for the same market share because we all have extra equipment. So to have pricing levels that would be below the marketplace seem to be a stupid strategy. So that’s the best way I can put it. So I have been surprised by the stupidity by a lot of competitors. James Ellman – Seacliff Capital: All right. If we could switch gears just for moment to the retail business, could you comment on Simply Wheelz, since that was relatively big initiative last year and we didn’t hear anything about it yet today? And also could you just comment on when you are talking about ancillary rental equipment for the GPS, I would imagine that most people have a GPS on their smart phone now. What's happening to the trends there and what sort of depreciation rate do you take on that equipment?

Mark Frissora

Management

Okay. So, the Advantage brand – we basically folded Simply Wheelz right into the Advantage brand. We've I think announced that on a previous call. So there is not a whole lot to talk about Simply Wheelz because it’s part of Advantage now. It didn’t make sense to have two different Leisure brands, so we immediately consolidated it. In terms of – your other question was? What was it? James Ellman – Seacliff Capital: Just GPS equipment, NeverLost equipment that you have in terms of people having GPS built into their smart phone now, potentially leading to a decline of demand there. Is that taking place in line with your expectations and what sort of depreciation you have built into that equipment?

Mark Frissora

Management

We got a three-year depreciation life built into the equipment. In terms of what trends are, when you look at GPS, right, ours are hardwired into the car, right? So you don't have to worry about signals when it first starts up. It's a satellite system, but everything is hardwired. So you don't have sticky things slipping all over the place. I mean, it's a very – NeverLost is considered a very strong brand and we own – we were a joint venture partner with Magellan on that, about 65% ownership by Hertz. That business has always grown. Now, it's flattened out in the recession because of people deselecting what they thought was an $11-a-day feature, right? So corporate customers had to actually – they were given directions that they couldn’t upgrade to NeverLost in some cases. So in general, it's also been an area where we haven't focused strongly enough on ancillary revenues. So we don't look at NeverLost as being something that's going to be a big decline for us. We've been seeing it to be more flattish and we expect to get it growing again, because we've introduced three new versions – a new version that is a touch screen, very similar to what you would get on the most – PDAs today. It's a touch screen, it's online trip planning, it has weather and flight information immediately available to you. So you are going to actually put in the thing, whatever your flight number is and know on a real-time basis what your flight is. So we've actually increased the functionality of it, invested some money in it, and we think it's the best-in-class in the industry right now. So we believe people will continue to upgrade to that as things move forward. So we are not seeing any pressure at this point. It had been increasing double digit every year up until the recession and now it's a little bit more flattish. So I don't know if that answers your question, but we feel pretty decent about it being something that will continue to be ancillary revenue upside for us. James Ellman – Seacliff Capital: Mark, thanks for the color and I appreciate it. Take care.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We now go to the line of Todd Hallowitz [ph] with Philadelphia Financial. Please go ahead. Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: Thank you. I just want to commend you guys on the slide 29, it's very helpful. On the pricing, can you just break out U.S. versus corporate if you don't mind for your assumptions for rental car for this year in just the U.S. actually?

Mark Frissora

Management

Todd, I doubt we'll do that. I do – we never have done that and that's a very detailed breakout, right? So we – Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: Well, you said the U.S. in the quarter was up 9% in Leisure and down 6% in corporate. So you did it in the quarter.

Mark Frissora

Management

No, no. I said that we were up 9.6% on airport in Leisure. Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: That's what I'm asking with the same assumptions for this year.

Mark Frissora

Management

Yes, but we don't give that. I mean, we will give it to you as it occurs, but I don't give guidance on that. So – and I'm not going to. I mean, we went a long way on page 29 to giving you what our pricing – 1-point pricing improvement is. We gave you the exact pretax opportunity on it. So – but we are not going to give segment guidance, if you will, on pricing. Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: That's reasonable. Let me ask the question then this way. If you look at the year-over-year price increases, they really started last February and March and have been pretty stable since then. So you have had year – good year-over-year price growth, it's now anniversarying in February and March. Do you think that there would still be price increases post the February-March time frame this year? In other words, when you look out your six to eight weeks, do you still see U.S. domestic Leisure price increases?

Mark Frissora

Management

I would – let me – let me answer that question this way. We believe that the pricing environment continues to be positive because of tight fleets and that the industry is still very tightly fleeted, many of our competitors are tightly fleeted and continue to act very rational. So – and we a have a period of increasing demand with tighter fleets which yields better pricing opportunities. So I – the answer is the industry today in the U.S., and even we are seeing some pretty good pricing dynamics in Europe, it continues to be favorable for as far as we can see it. Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: Okay. And my other question is you are using options less and less, which I commend you on. You guys save what, about $500 by not using options and if we look out three or four years into the future, what percent of your costs would you hope not to go through option?

Mark Frissora

Management

Yes, it's $400 to $500 we save and bigger opportunity for us is to sell more cars, obviously direct to dealers, as well as direct to consumers and we are actually building up a capability of that. And for me to forecast where we are going to be would be probably erroneous at this point, but I would say it's fair to say we'd like to get some number, about half – less than half of our cars would go through option. Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: Okay. And you are going to open more of your own dealerships as well?

Mark Frissora

Management

Do what? Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: Are you going to open more of your own dealerships?

Mark Frissora

Management

No. No, no. We are not going to do that. I mean – Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: Well, you have a couple now.

Mark Frissora

Management

Yes. No, I know. We have – we have about eight stores and what we are really trying to do rather than do it through stores, we are trying to do it through Internet, we have a program called Rent-to-Buy and we are now licensed in 13 states. And that program, we have to gain scale and capability in it, so we need more cars in it. So as we get more states and we gain more capability and experience, we will be advertising that more to the consumer and marketing it more and we are hopeful that that grows to be a significant percentage of our overall marketing efforts. We are also, you should know, adding a lot of people in the field, as well as at headquarters to sell cars. You have to have the people that are good and experienced at it and our average profit per car hasn't been as great in some cases as our competitors, because we haven't sold direct to the consumer, direct to the dealers and we have not had the infrastructure. We've been building that infrastructure in 2009 and we continue to make a big investment in it in 2010 and we actually believe as we shift that, we are going to – our depreciation per vehicle actually – net depreciation per vehicle, which is a composite of both the acquisition, price, as well as the selling price, that's going to improve and that's upside potential for us. Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: And what was the dollar gains on vehicle sales in the quarter? You said it was very small. Can you give the exact number? I know it's in the Q.

Elyse Douglas

Management

In the U.S., it's $12 million. Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: And what was on the Equipment Rental side?

Elyse Douglas

Management

For the quarter – for the fourth quarter.

Mark Frissora

Management

For the fourth quarter, it was $12 million.

Elyse Douglas

Management

In the U.S.

Mark Frissora

Management

In the U.S.

Elyse Douglas

Management

On a consolidated basis, it will be slightly negative.

Mark Frissora

Management

It will be slightly negative on a consolidated basis. Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: And then on the Equipment Rental side, what was the gain from selling used equipment?

Mark Frissora

Management

I don't know. Do you guys have that? I'm asking one of the guys in the room here if they –

Elyse Douglas

Management

I think it was $3.6 million

Mark Frissora

Management

$3 million.

Elyse Douglas

Management

$3 million. Todd Hallowitz – Philadelphia Financial: Thank you, guys. Thank you again. That's a much better disclosure, thank you.

Mark Frissora

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We now go to the line of Mick Millman from Millman Research Associates. Please go ahead. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: Thank you. It's Mike. Sort of on the same vein, in the fourth quarter, you indicated 9.6% Leisure airport pricing. Was that basically price, was that basically mix? And I was curious –

Mark Frissora

Management

That's RPD. That would be RPD increase of 9.6%, which is both price and mix combined, right? So I mean, it's – we didn’t have a favorable mix. So it would have been higher – probably a little bit higher if – but 9.6% was the actual RPD number. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: And could you talk about – the Leisure price was higher than the business price, which I think is unusual?

Mark Frissora

Management

No. I mean, in terms of what happens for us, Leisure pricing has always been a very good mix of our business, right? You are able to price it up at the airport much better than you could do it maybe in an off-airport location, but again, we've always had fairly high RPD on Leisure. If I were to look at the last 10 years, you would see numbers that are – at the corporate level, are higher most of the time. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: Higher than the business?

Mark Frissora

Management

That's correct. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: And that number –

Mark Frissora

Management

On the airport, Mike. I mean, remember, everything I'm qualifying is at the airport. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: Yes, at the airport. And did that 9.6% include Advantage?

Mark Frissora

Management

No. No, no. It does not include Advantage. We report Advantage separately. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: And can you give us what that number was?

Mark Frissora

Management

I don't know. Do you have the RPD for Advantage? It was averaging around 29 bucks a day. Yes. So I guess with – it's about $30. Advantage on airport was $30. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: And you said that on airport Leisure in January was 6.9% and I think you said that March was looking even better.

Mark Frissora

Management

No, I didn’t say that. I just told you what January was, but I did tell you that March volume looks good and I did say that in a week, we are getting very nice spikes in demand, driven by business travel, as well as Leisure being fairly strong. And as – and over the Tuesday through Thursday businesses where we peak up on demand because of business travel and in those peak periods, what I did say was that we were having 15% to 20% increases in volume the last couple of weeks with that – in that peak period. And that's very encouraging for us, that's much higher than we thought it would be. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: And is it fair to say that when you have higher volume, it gives you an opportunity to have – increase your price on the Leisure? Could you have less Leisure cars?

Mark Frissora

Management

Absolutely. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: And your full-year guidance of 0.6% seems a little bit out of joint with volume going up 7.4%. It would seem to suggest squeeze the volume a bit and raise the price a bit.

Mark Frissora

Management

Yes, this is why we gave you the upside on the – that last chart, on page 29 I think it was, if I remember right. Yes, it's page 29. We say that pricing has an opportunity. In fact, we improve our pricing by 1 point, it's $50 million of pretax. So absolutely, an opportunity for us. And again, this is based on the competitive reaction. We can't predict to some extent what's going to occur. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: But you are predicting you would be up 7.4% in volume. Do you see the industry being up 7.4%?

Mark Frissora

Management

Still no. I have no idea, I don't have – this is again the – this is for obviously worldwide rent-a-car, which includes Europe as well. And we predicted based on kind of a two times GDP growth rate, right? We think the volume, again, in days is conservatively set. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: And getting back to Advantage, so I'm – in the resources suggesting that Advantage pricing seems to be off below at times competing with tertiary pricing as opposed to value pricing. Could you talk about your pricing strategy with Advantage?

Mark Frissora

Management

I think the only thing I can tell you – I can't comment on pricing strategy, I can tell you that we – what we've historically done with Advantage's price on top of what we consider to be one of the lower competitors on airport and we don't try to go below that lower competitor, we try to stay right on top of that lower competitor. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: And with –

Mark Frissora

Management

That is – I've said that before and I'll say it again. That's what – that's what our strategy is, to price kind of on top of what we consider to be the lower competitor on airport. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: And I think in the past you've suggested that was enterprise?

Mark Frissora

Management

I don't know if I suggested that or not. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: Well, assuming enterprise for example, it would seem the reverse, that enterprise is reaching down to meet Advantage.

Mark Frissora

Management

Mike, we can't get into a pricing discussion. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: Okay.

Mark Frissora

Management

You know the very reasons why we cannot get into a pricing discussion. Our strategy has been to price on top of the lower competitor, all right? That’s it, period. And that's all I can say on that. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: On Toyota, looking out, is it conservative to assume that residual prices will continue to be where they were?

Mark Frissora

Management

Okay. On Toyota, in terms of residuals, we see very little impact to our profit plan this year due to the Toyota recall. That's what I can say. I can't get into a lot of detail on this, but the bottom line is we see very little residual impact at all. And in fact, residuals on those vehicles are up right now because of the shortage of supply on those vehicles. So if it goes down further, it goes down further. All I can tell you is that we will adjust and age those vehicles. We will trade in for those vehicles with making them maybe a program car versus a risk car. There are a lot of different tools that we have, it's a small group of vehicles for us. It was 13% vehicles we had in the fleet at that time, we've already made a lot of actions on those now. So we feel pretty good, I mean we don't feel like it's any risk, if you will, to our mix and our profit impact for the year. Mike Millman – Millman Research Associates: Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We now go to the line of Chris Doherty from Oppenheimer & Co. Please go ahead. Chris Doherty – Oppenheimer & Co.: Good morning. In terms of the HERC, I'm just trying to understand the comment that you expect to accelerate CapEx in the back half of the year. If you look at where volume was for the quarter, it was down 24%, yet your fleet actually was only down 10%. I mean, that would say that your time utilization was probably down. I mean – I guess, what is your time utilization and is the pickup in CapEx more of a mix issue in that you have to rejigger the mix for the difference in cycles?

Mark Frissora

Management

I guess – first of all, we are not going to accelerate, okay? We are not going to buy any equipment unless we have demand for it. We have a very strict capital plan on the Equipment Rental. We do have aging of fleet though. And so once your fleet gets to a certain age, you don't want to have it if you are going to use it, because the maintenance is way too high. So what we do do is with new equipment, we've been able to trade our old fleet for new fleet. But we will be very prudent on fleet CapEx for the back half of the year. We built a little bit into the plan and we are hopeful that to bounce. That's not to say that it will. If it doesn't, we will not buy, I promise you. We are very prudent on the way we manage our equipment and in the way we buy our equipment. So it will only be there if in fact the demand is there for it. Chris Doherty – Oppenheimer & Co.: The plan is not to –

Mark Frissora

Management

Should I get more clear or? Chris Doherty – Oppenheimer & Co.: No, I just – that's – your just comment of increased CapEx in the back half is more just you replace some stuff, that's understandable.

Mark Frissora

Management

That's right. That's exactly what I – Chris Doherty – Oppenheimer & Co.: That's understandable. And then in terms of the utilization on rack, you talked about how you've gotten deals at the end of this quarter. I mean, where should we think about a target utilization for that? I mean, you've – you've gone over 80% recently. I mean, is it high-70s, low-80s and what's the variability between quarters?

Mark Frissora

Management

Yes. I mean, in the rent-a-car space, we are kind of planning that this year we might be up a point for the overall – for our overall worldwide rent-a-car. So you could – if you want to plan for something, I’d say we plan for a 1-point improvement. We had a big increase, as you know, in 2009. And so we are still planning on some slight improvement this year. Chris Doherty – Oppenheimer & Co.: Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Jay Leopold from Legg Mason. Please go ahead. Jay Leopold – Legg Mason: Good morning. I appreciate your patience in answering all these questions this morning. Chris Agnew asked a series of questions earlier and I think one of them slipped through the cracks that I was very interested in asking myself.

Mark Frissora

Management

Okay. Jay Leopold – Legg Mason: And that is the 10% to 12% pretax margin goal you've talked about for years. I understand that we have – we've gone through a very horrible recession. But I'm wondering what pieces you have of the puzzle to continue to move around to achieve that? Or I guess a more simple question is, is that still an achievable goal in a reasonable time frame?

Mark Frissora

Management

Yes, I think that if we get back to 2006, 2007, either one of those, volume and price levels will definitely exceed those goals. So we have about 300 basis points of fixed costs renewing [ph] out versus where we were in '07. So I feel very comfortable, if we get to normalized revenues of about $8.5 billion, we will easily exceed those goals. Okay? Jay Leopold – Legg Mason: And the change in your balance sheet, the higher interest expenses won't affect your ability to hit that goal?

Mark Frissora

Management

No, because our cost reduction programs layover achieve that interest expense, right, increase. We talked to you on the call about a $300 million number we committed to. We typically always over-deliver on that and the interest expense condition this year is about as best as it's going to get, between $90 million and $110 million number, right? So we feel pretty confident that – again, we really have a lot of efficiency initiatives yet to play out this year and as part of our culture, we are building into the DNA of the company and we've got plenty of room for improvement there and that there is still a lot of profit improvement after the interest expense increase due to cost reduction and revenue growth. Jay Leopold – Legg Mason: Great. So going from $7.5 billion revenue guidance this year to $8.5 billion is going to get you a fairly significant pretax profit improvement?

Mark Frissora

Management

Yes. Yes, it would. And the one thing that you should – I mean, as you look at the numbers, right, of the – of HERC, Equipment Rental versus rent-a-car, one of the things that should jump out at you that is in '07, we had a $1.7 billion business in the Equipment Rental and that business was very profitable, 47% EBITDA margins, EBIT margins were 25%. And then in two years, that business is off 55%, we are now a $1 billion business and the EBITDA went from about let's say $940 million, $930 million in the Equipment Rental side to $450 million. So it's literally cut in half in a period of less than two years. And so when that business turns again, the pretax and EBITDA, earnings potential or margin improvement potential is very large and we think we have a tremendous operating leverage when that happens. Now, rent-a-car is performing at historically high levels already, the high levels in '07. And now, they are almost back to '07 levels on volumes that are down 14% to 15%. So on pretax margins, they are almost at '07 levels, I want to say that again, and volume is down 15%. So we are very confident that – again, as revenues turn on Equipment Rental, that's the big – that will be a big mobilizer, right? And as they continue to improve on rent-a-car, we will be able to achieve those pretax margin goals that we talked about. Jay Leopold – Legg Mason: Great. Thank you. That's a good answer.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We now go to the line of Stephanie Renegar from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Stephanie Renegar – JP Morgan: Hi, Stephanie Renegar from JP Morgan. Just a couple of very quick questions for you. You said that the advance rates next year are going to be about 9 points lower than 2009. I just wondered if you could update us on what the weighted average advance rates for 2009 were as of year-end. And also just for the depreciation that you are expecting in 2010, I was hoping that you could break out your thoughts on the depreciation trends per unit for Europe versus the U.S. And that's it from me.

Elyse Douglas

Management

Okay. So let me start with the first question. You wanted to know what the advance rates were. At the end of 2009, our advance rate was around 72%. Stephanie Renegar – JP Morgan: Okay.

Elyse Douglas

Management

And then as I said – so we are expecting that to be somewhere in the 63% range. And again, that's an estimate based on what we are seeing today. Stephanie Renegar – JP Morgan: Okay.

Elyse Douglas

Management

And what was the second question? Can you repeat the second one? Stephanie Renegar – JP Morgan: Second question was on the depreciation rates per unit. Just wanted to know what the split was between U.S. versus international, particularly in Europe, your outlook.

Elyse Douglas

Management

Well, we said in the U.S., the outlook is a 4% to 5% improvement. And if you give me a minute, I guess –

Michel Taride

Analyst

In Europe, it is – this is Michel speaking.

Elyse Douglas

Management

Yes, a little bit higher in Europe, 6% to 7%. Stephanie Renegar – JP Morgan: A fall, because of an improvement in residual values?

Elyse Douglas

Management

Correct. Because the European market is later to improve, we've seen a lot of the benefit to date in the US and we haven't yet seen as much in Europe. Stephanie Renegar – JP Morgan: Okay.

Elyse Douglas

Management

But we do expect that to accelerate. Stephanie Renegar – JP Morgan: Okay. And this is an – I'm sorry, and this is a – just the contracts that you have that are on buyback are non-risk vehicles. Are you seeing any increase in depreciation per unit there?

Elyse Douglas

Management

No.

Mark Frissora

Management

No. Stephanie Renegar – JP Morgan: Okay.

Mark Frissora

Management

Okay. Stephanie Renegar – JP Morgan: Thank you.

Mark Frissora

Management

Thank you. Stephanie Renegar – JP Morgan: Thank you.

Mark Frissora

Management

Operator, we will take one more question.

Operator

Operator

Wonderful. We have a follow-up from the line of Rich Kwas from Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead. Rich Kwas – Wells Fargo Securities: Hey, Mark. Just on HERC, the 9.5% decline in pricing, it sounds like it gets worse in Q1 and then it gets better. Is that the way to think about it?

Mark Frissora

Management

I think that's fair. Yes, I think that's fair. Maybe flat to little worse. Rich Kwas – Wells Fargo Securities: Okay. All right. And then last question. European restructuring, where are you with that? I know you launched it middle last year. Where are you in terms of taking the costs out and when will you be done?

Mark Frissora

Management

We will be done with the European restructuring this year, obviously, complete it. I think that probably another six months of stuff where we are moving pieces around to our headquarters in Dublin where we had things in country. We have a regional operating center in Geneva that – there is some movement going on there, but in general, it should be done over the next six months, provide for good year-over-year comparisons all year. But we are pretty much done with the European restructuring. Just some changes yet to be implemented, small changes over the next six months. Michel Taride is on the call. Michel, is that accurate?

Michel Taride

Analyst

Yes, Mark. That's accurate, I would say, 85% is completed. As much – an example would be we are setting planning functions in this operating center we have in Geneva. But we now have two regional – it's a regional organization in Europe and the savings we announced, which I think were about $30 million annualized are materializing in fact, but as Mark said, the full-year effect will start in second half. In June, we will be 100% complete. Rich Kwas – Wells Fargo Securities: Okay, great. Thanks.

Mark Frissora

Management

All right. Thanks a lot. Okay, operator?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Would you like to make any closing comments?

Mark Frissora

Management

Yes, just thanks for attending the conference call. We look forward to a great 2010 and talk to you next time.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for using AT&T Executive Teleconference. You may now disconnect.