Budget Rent a Car |
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Official Site: Budget.com
Wikipedia: Budget Rent a Car Page Sections History Article Index Documents |
History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Automotive Industries page on 1 April 2018, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Budget Rent a Car System, Inc. is an American car rental company that was founded in 1958 in Los Angeles, California by Morris Mirkin. Budget's operations are headquartered in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey.
With its original fleet of 10 cars, the company lived up to the 'Budget' name by undercutting the daily and per mile rental rates of the established airport based car rental companies. Mirkin was joined in 1959 by Julius Lederer (husband of columnist Ann Landers) who built the company, and made it an international company. In 1960, the headquarters moved to Chicago, Illinois and the rental fleet expanded with franchised and wholly owned rental outlets.
The company was eventually acquired by Transamerica Corporation, and then sold in 1986 in a leveraged buyout by Gibbons, Green and van Amerongen Ltd., along with management (led by CEO Clifton E. Haley) and selected investors. The company made its first public stock offering in 1987.
Team Rental Group purchased the public company in 1997 and took the name Budget Group. In 2002, it sold the company's assets to Cendant Corporation, which also owned Avis and in September 2006, Cendant Corporation separated into four independent companies. The real estate division became Realogy, Inc., its hospitality services division became Wyndham Worldwide, and the travel distribution services division became Travelport, Inc., an affiliate of The Blackstone Group. In 2006, following the Travelport sale, Cendant, now composed solely of its vehicle rental services businesses, renamed itself Avis Budget Group.
Of the approximately 800 Budget Rental Car locations in the U.S., 600 are company-operated locations and 200 are licensee locations. Internationally, there are 150 company-operated locations and 1,800 licensees.
| Date | File Description | Files |
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| 15 April 2005 | United States District Court for the District of Maryland Gordon Enterprises, Inc. d/b/a Budget Car and Truck Rental of P.G. and Capital Auto Rental Services, Inc. and Auto Sales, Inc. v. Jordan Motors, Inc. d/b/a Jordan Automotive Group Memorandum Opinion |  PDF - 145KB - 16 pages |
| Date | Article | Author/Source |
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| 21 March 1996 | Budget Rent A Car Many auto rental customers choose not to purchase an LDW -- costing as much as $13 per day -- because their own auto insurance policy or their credit card issuer normally will cover damage to rented vehicles. | Press Release (text) Agency: FTC Topic: Budget |
| 21 June 1996 | Announced Actions for June 21, 1996 Budget Rent A Car Systems, settling charges that it engaged in deceptive practices when failing to disclose potential charges of as much as several thousand dollars more than the cost of repairs that it imposed on customers who had not purchased a “loss damage waiver” when those customers returned their cars with significant damage. | Press Release (text) Agency: FTC Topic: Budget |
| 22 August 2002 | Indigio Releases Phase 2 of Budget Truck Rental Website, Expands Relationship with Budget Group, Inc. | Indigio Group, Inc. |
| 20 November 2007 | Budget Rent-A-Car Settles FTC Charges; Fuel Fees Levied on Customers Who Returned Rental Cars With a Full Tank The agency alleges that renters who drove fewer than 75 miles incurred a fuel charge whether or not they returned the car full. | Press Release (text) Agency: FTC Topic: Budget |