Ford will sell its car-rental firm Hertz to a group of corporate-buyout firms, including Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Carlyle Group and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, for $5.5 billion to $6 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Go deeper with GlobalData

Premium Insights

The gold standard of business intelligence.

Find out more

Related Company Profiles

View all

Citing people familiar with the matter, the newspaper said Hertz’s fate could be determined as soon as Friday.


It said the private-equity firms would also assume Hertz’s debt, which totals more than $10 billion, according to recent regulatory filings, of which around half is long-term debt.


The buyout firms will spend as little as $3 billion of their own funds and borrow as much as $12 billion to finance the purchase and the assumption of debt, the Journal said.


A winning bid by the Clayton Dubilier group would hand a rare defeat to a competing group of private-equity firms — including Bain Capital, Blackstone Group, Texas Pacific Group and Thomas H. Lee & Partners — people familiar with the matter told the paper. Both Ford and Hertz declined to comment.

How well do you really know your competitors?

Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.

Company Profile – free sample

Thank you!

Your download email will arrive shortly

Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample

We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form

By GlobalData
Visit our Privacy Policy for more information about our services, how we may use, process and share your personal data, including information of your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. Our services are intended for corporate subscribers and you warrant that the email address submitted is your corporate email address.

The two groups have been pitted in an intense auction for Hertz. At the last moment, despite Hurricane Katrina potentially harming prospects for the car-rental business, the price tag actually rose, participants in the process told the Journal.


The newspaper said Ford had considered taking the company public, and it is possible Ford’s board could return to that course at the last moment. The cash-strapped car maker wants to reduce the debt on its balance sheet, and it would no longer have to consolidate the debt of the fleet operations after a public listing.


Ford announced in June that it wanted to spin-off Hertz.