Biography

The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Bob Ansett page on 21 July 2024, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

By 1965, Ansett was having financial difficulties in the United States. At the same time, the car rental industry in Australia was booming. Both federal and state governments in Australia took a protective stance as regards publicly owned companies, by restricting competition that might affect them.

The lion's share of the Australian car rental industry's business belonged to Avis Australia, which later belonged to Bob Ansett's father, Reg. Avis Australia had government contacts, as well as contracts with Qantas and Reg Ansett's airline, Ansett Australia, which led to Avis company being the sole licensed car rental operator at Australia's 56 major airports. With that in mind, Bob Ansett decided to return to Australia. He was in need of a job and asked his father for one, but was denied. Ansett then raised some capital and became licensed to use the name of Budget Rent a Car, the American car rental company, in Australia. That meant, in essence, when Reg Ansett bought Avis Australia in 1977, father and son became direct competitors. Bob Ansett opened the first Budget Australian location in Melbourne in 1965.

By the early 1980s, Ansett was known to Australians as Budget Australia's owner, appearing on commercials promoting the brand, and was known to occasionally show up himself at Budget locations to attend to the customers. Under Ansett's leadership, Budget had overcome, among others, the Avis operation of his father, Reg Ansett, and become the leading car rental company in Australia.

However, financial troubles loomed for the company, and several financial advisors cast doubt on Ansett's capabilities as a company president. In addition to that, Ansett did not maximise Budget's profits when the company had become the leading car rental company in Australia, because he did not consider profit a priority. There was also a financial dispute between Budget and Citibank, and the Ford Motor Company decided to stop shipping cars to Budget, which compounded the company's financial crisis.

In 1990, Ansett declared himself bankrupt, owing $65,000,000 to debtors.

Bibliography