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Hertz's EV Bet:

What Went WrongCEO to Step DownShift Back to GasAudio: Scaling Back
EV Ambitions
BackForward
[-1x-1]

Photo Illustration: 731; Getty Images (4)

Businessweek
The Big Take

How Hertz's Bet on Teslas Went Horribly Sideways

A pair of finance veterans bought the bankrupt car rental company and
went all-in on electric. Too bad they got almost everything wrong.

By Erik Schatzker and David Welch
April 3, 2024 at 5:00 PM EDT
Save

Like anyone habituated to the excesses of Wall Street, Tom Wagner and
Greg O'Hara knew how to throw a party. On the night of Nov. 9, 2021,
guests emerging from the oversize elevator at Zero Bond, the
members-only Manhattan social club frequented by Kim Kardashian and
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, were greeted with flutes of
Champagne. Offerings of sliced raw tuna on crispy rice and roasted
maitake mushrooms awaited them as heads turned to admire an Andy
Warhol and a Keith Haring, while New Order throbbed in the
background. On every cocktail napkin, emblazoned with Hertz's
familiar yellow and black, was "Let's Go!"--the slogan for its splashy
new ad campaign starring seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady.

Earlier that day, Hertz Global Holdings Inc., the rental-car giant
that careened into bankruptcy during the first two months of Covid-19
burdened with a bad balance sheet and generations of even worse
management, had raised $1.3 billion in an initial public offering.
Somehow, in slightly more than five months, Wagner and O'Hara had
pulled off one of the greatest turnarounds in corporate history.

 
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