Financial regulators in France have approved Volkswagen’s takeover offer of rental car giant Europcar.
The German car manufacturer joined with asset manager Attestor Limited and Dutch automotive conglomerate Pon Holdings in July and priced a €2.9 billion ($3.2 billion) offer for Europcar at 50 cents per share. Attestor is expected to take a 27 percent stake of Europcar’s shares while Pon Holdings will control 7 percent.
French financial regulator Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) has given the green light to the takeover but has yet to announce when the process of tendering shares will commence, Autocar reports.
Read Also: VW In Talks To Purchase Car Rental Group Europcar
Volkswagen believes the purchase of Europcar will help it in its push to become a leading mobility company.
“The consortium believes that this trend requires providers to operate an integrated platform and offer one-fleet-for-all offerings to maximize vehicle utilization and platform quality,” VW said in its original offer. “In addition, urban mobility proposals based on autonomous driving technologies, such as robot cabs, will further accelerate the growth of on-demand mobility solutions.”
VW entered talks with Europcar to purchase the rental company in mid-2020 while the rental car industry was struggling during the Covid-19 pandemic. Interestingly, the VW Group owned Europcar throughout the 1990s but sold it to investment firm Eurazeo for €1.26 billion in 2006.
“The mobility market is changing rapidly as customers increasingly demand new and innovative on-demand mobility solutions, such as subscription and sharing models to complement car ownership,” VW chief executive Herbert Diess said earlier this year. “Europcar provides advanced fleet management capabilities as well as a broad network of stations at major airports, railway stations and city locations and will help accelerate Volkswagen’s delivery of its ambitious mobility services targets.”
