Car Rental Giant To Accelerate With US Deal

One of the biggest car rental operators in the UK is to snap up Auto Europe, a US rival, in a move that will create a transatlantic industry powerhouse.

Sky News understands that CarTrawler, which is based in Dublin and has been majority-owned by BC Partners for the last year, is in advanced talks about a takeover of Auto Europe, which targets Americans planning holidays overseas.

The deal, which could be announced as soon as this week, will give CarTrawler a substantial presence in the vast US market.

One source described the transaction as "transformational" for CarTrawler, whose operations include the well-known Holiday Autos brand.

Auto Europe is being acquired from Court Square, a New York-based private equity firm, and will represent an important phase of a strategy known in the private equity industry as a 'buy-and build'.

Speaking last year when BC announced its takeover of CarTrawler, Matthew Tooth, a partner at the buyout firm, said it was keen to grow the company "on a global scale".

"CarTrawler offers a truly unique proposition to its online travel partners, enabling them to optimise the revenue potential from car rental through offering end customers access to an unrivalled breadth of rental options across many suppliers," he said.

"For suppliers, CarTrawler facilitates access to many distribution channels that would otherwise not be available."

CarTrawler's portfolio of partners includes some of the world’s leading international airlines, hotel groups and online travel retailers, including Aer Lingus (Other OTC: AELGF - news) , Virgin Australia and Starwood Hotels.

The company's rapid growth was illustrated by its sale for well over £350m in March 2014, just two years after it had changed hands for little more than £75m.

The previous takeover of CarTrawler, by ECI Partners, another investment firm earned multimillion pound windfalls for Greg and Niall Turley, the brothers who founded the business and oversaw its expansion into more than 170 countries.

CarTrawler announced the acquisition of the online assets of Holiday Autos in 2013, buying them from Travelocity Global, which was then the parent company of Lastminute.com, the online leisure bookings company.

In 2013, CarTrawler, which has become a popular platform for companies to rent cars online, had annual bookings of around 5 million vehicles, and sales of more than £425m.

Last year's deal also saw Insight Venture Partners, another private equity group, acquire a minority stake in CarTrawler.

The value of the Auto Europe deal was unclear on Monday.

BC Partners declined to comment.