Management Group Moves Rent-A-Wreck To New Quarters, Record Earnings

15 December 1999

Management Group Moves Rent-A-Wreck To New Quarters, Record Earnings

    OWINGS MILLS, Md.--Dec. 15, 1999--In need of larger quarters following five straight years of record growth, leading used-car rental company Rent-A-Wreck of America Inc. today announced its move to a new corporate base in Owings Mills, Md., a suburb of Baltimore.
    The new, more spacious and efficient facility, which Rent-A-Wreck is leasing, is also in Owings Mills.
    "We feel that this facility can be our base of operations for years to come," said Kenneth L. Blum, Jr., president. The phenomenal growth began six years ago, when a management team headed by Kenneth L. Blum, Sr. assumed control of the struggling company's day-to-day operations.
    Since then, the team has successfully implemented new business philosophies involving a greater emphasis on stricter cost containment, marketing and the modernization of the company's communications systems.
    The results are in the numbers, including the company's recently-released record earnings for the second fiscal quarter.
    For the three months ended Sept. 30, 1999, net income was $432,467, or 7 cents a diluted share, a 17-percent increase over the same period last year, when net income was $334,848, or 6 cents a diluted share. Revenue also rose, from $1,666,264 in the third quarter of 1998 to $1,866,041 during the third quarter of this year.
    For the six months ended Sept. 30, 1999, net income was $665,498, or 11 cents a diluted share, a 22-percent increase over the same period in 1998, when net income was $501,512, or 09 cents a diluted share. Revenue for the six-month period totaled $3,345,202, up from $2,951,873.
    In the most recent fiscal year, the company - now with over 650 locations throughout the nation and abroad -- reported a 57 percent rise in net income.
    In addition to his company's core business, Blum Jr. in 1997 launched Consolidated American Rental Insurance Co. Ltd., Rent-A-Wreck's in-house insurance company.
    A recent issue of Equities magazine labeled Rent-A-Wreck one of "America's Most Profitable Companies," ranking it 65th out of 147 NASDAQ companies with a minimum five-year return on shareholders' equity of 20 percent, a minimum 20-percent return on equity in the past fiscal year and a debt-to-equity ratio of less than 200 percent.