Hertz’s European Centre pre-tax profits drop 32% to €7.3m

PRE-TAX profits at the Dublin-based European Services Centre for car-hire giant Hertz in 2009 decreased by 32% from €10.8m to €7.3m.

Accounts filed with the Companies’ Office show that Hertz Europe Services Centre Ltd’s (HESC) turnover dropped by 13% from €62m to €53.9m to the end of December 2009.

Last year HESC announced an expansion of its European Shared Services centre in Dublin with the recruitment of 100 staff that would bring total employment at the Swords facility to over 930.

According to the HESC’s directors’ report: “2009 was another successful year for HESC. The rationalisation of the Hertz Corporation’s back office functions worldwide continued throughout 2009 and HESC played its part in this process.

“We commenced further restructuring initiatives across all functions in HESC in order to further enhance the quality of the services we provide to the Hertz Corporation.”

They add: “The back office functions consolidated into Dublin in 2009 included back office fleet accounting activities and a centralised employee care and recruitment team.

The report added: “Despite the economic headwinds that we have faced in the past year, we have once again exceeded our stated financial targets for 2009.”

HESC was established in Dublin in 1996 as part of Hertz’s centralisation strategy which provides reservation, customer and accounting services to each of the company’s nine European markets and also offers European Middle East and Africa (EMEA) franchisee support.

The filings show that the company’s operating profits dropped by 18% from €7.3m to €5.9m in 2009. The accounts include a depreciation cost of €3m.

The accounts show that the company’s accumulated profits amounted to €113m at the end of 2009.

A breakdown of the company’s turnover shows that its busiest market is the USA where it generated €14m — a drop of 20% on the €18m generated in 2008.

The next busiest market was the €10m turnover recorded in France, with €8.8 million recorded in the UK.

The filings show that the numbers employed by the company reduced by 132 in 2009 from 1,007 to 875, with the staff costs decreasing by 13% from €37.2m to 32.4m.

The figures show that the directors’ salaries last year reduced from €456,528 to €372,458.

Hertz Europe Service Centre Ltd is part of the US-owned Hertz corporation.