Europcar bets on corporate ride-sharing

Europcar is expanding its fledgling corporate ride-sharing business to all its European markets, as the continent's largest car rental company by market share adapts its business model to the rise of Uber and other ride-sharing services.

Philippe Germond, chief executive of the Paris-based group since September, said Europcar's Ubeeqo offering for corporate clients will be rolled out beyond France to Germany and the UK in the coming months.

The expansion comes as Europcar, which has nearly 20 per cent of the European rental market, prepares for its initial public offering, with Eurazeo, its private equity owners, expected to float the company before June.

The move is an example of how car rental companies are attempting to cash in on changing consumer patterns, with ride-sharing platforms such as Zipcar, BlaBlaCar and Uber becoming increasingly popular.

"The trend is from car ownership to car usage," said Mr Germond in an interview with the Financial Times. "We want to expand our mobility ecosystem with a full range of car rental services."

Ubeeqo, a French start-up bought by Europcar earlier this year, facilitates corporate car fleet pooling, whereby executives use their phones to borrow a car from a central stock rather than having exclusive use of one.

The company also offers a system of "mobility benefits" for employees, where instead of having their own car they get points to use on shared cars, taxis or even trains.

Europcar, which makes most of its €2bn revenue from its 190,000 rental cars, has already made inroads into new areas of the "sharing economy".

Europcar also has Car2Go, a car-sharing company for the consumer market that it owns with Daimler. The company already does nearly half of its business with corporate customers.

It is not the only company to get in on the sharing trend. Last week, Enterprise Rent-A-Car bought City Car Club, a UK independent car-sharing company. In 2013, Avis agreed to buy Zipcar.

<

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

"Owning a car in a big city like Paris makes less and less sense when ride-sharing options are available," he said. "We do not see the rise of ride sharing as a threat to us."

Eurazeo bought Europcar in 2006 for €3.08bn and hopes to float the company for more than €4bn including debt in the second quarter of the year, although that depends on market conditions.

Revenues at Europcar in 2014 were up 3.4 per cent in 2014, while operating profit rose 35 per cent to €21.2m. The group reported a net loss of €112m, with results weighed down by restructuring costs.

"The group is halfway along its transformation plan in a growing European rental market," said Mr Germond.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation