Hertz Shares Plunge as Car Renter Warns It’s Running Low on Cash
(Bloomberg) -- Hertz Global Holdings Inc. shares plummeted after the car renter cautioned it expects to end the year with less cash and borrowing capacity than previously expected.
Management now expects to end the year with about $800 million of liquidity, rather than around $1 billion, Chief Financial Officer Scott Haralson said during a quarterly earnings call Thursday. Hertz shares, which had already dropped after results missed estimates, plunged as much as 27% as of 1:30 p.m. in New York.
Hertz ended September with $531 million in cash and equivalents, well below the $984.5 million balance that analysts were anticipating. The company also fell short of expectations for adjusted earnings per share while narrowly beating estimates for revenue.
The outlook for liquidity includes repayment of $200 million of bonds maturing in early December, Haralson said. Hertz will sell and lease back properties and operate a somewhat smaller inventory of cars to pad its coffers. It may also invest in its fleet more evenly throughout the year to ease the pressure on its balance sheet.
“Taking these factors together, we believe we have sufficient liquidity to operate the business while continuing to execute our strategic priorities,” Haralson said.
Hertz is still smarting from a wrong-way bet on electric vehicles made around the time of its 2021 initial public offering. Soon after the company spent billions of dollars stocking up on EVs, Tesla Inc. began slashing prices across its lineup, sinking the resale value of vehicles on Hertz’s rental lots. Hertz also struggled with higher operating and repair costs before before opting to sell off much of its EV fleet.
Hertz’s market capitalization peaked at more than $16 billion in November 2021, when the company was finalizing its order of 100,000 Teslas. The shares have fallen 95% since then.
(Updates starting in headline and first paragraph with management comments on liquidity.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
Get Latest real-time updates
Catch all the Business News , Corporate news , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More✕
Wait for it…
Oops! Looks like you have exceeded the limit to bookmark the image. Remove some to bookmark this image.