Members Area
June 30, 2008
Posted By BY RICK OWEN, NORTHERN NEWS
Posted 3 hours ago
The new owner of National Car Rental in Kirkland Lake anticipates the current employment level will remain about the same.
The Taylor family, of St. Louis, who own National Car Rental, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Alamo Rent A Car, recently announced they purchase Murdoch Group the largest single licencee of the National brand, which has its head office in Kirkland Lake.
The purchase includes the vehicle rental and leasing business and the used vehicle sales operation but does not include the collision centre or glass business. The Taylor family did not buy the buildings or land but will continue to lease space from one of the Murdoch companies.
National Car Rental President Greg Stubblefield said "in Kirkland Lake there is two pieces, there is operating and there is administrative headquarters.
In the administrative headquarters there is a small number of people that have expertise in the different businesses, whether its commercial leasing or the rental business and also the car sales business and accounting and so forth. We don't anticipate much change honestly obviously there are couple of people that will probably retire. He at Rob Murdoch is staying on to run and oversee the businesses in Northern Ontario so no major changes are anticipated.
Another reason the company president doesn't expect many changes is because it was a National Car Rental franchise so all that is happening is it is changing from a franchise to a corporate owned store.
Stubblefield said different franchisees have different goals, wants and desires, some want to retire so the circumstances are unique to each franchise and there is no overall plan to buy back all the franchises.
He does not anticipate the introduction of any new or different businesses or major changes so the ownership transition will be transparent and seamless to the outside world.
In talking about the acquisition Stubblefield said "we are really excited, the Murdoch family is real excited, it should be a win-win for everybody. We are just happy about it."
The Murdoch group operated 21 National Car Rental sites, including 15 neighbourhood branch offices and six airport locations. In total the Murdoch Group employed about 180 people. The company was started by Mel Murdoch, who operated a taxi service in Larder Lake.