By spinning off its equipment-rental business, Hertz Global Holdings Inc. hopes to make the construction unit stronger while bolstering its core car-rental service. The Park Ridge, N.J.-based company plans to divest the 355-branch equipment unit into a separate, publicly traded company, valued at $2.5 billion.
"Hertz was starving the equipment-rental business through a lack of investment," explains Nicholas Coppola, a senior equity analyst with Thompson Research Group, Nashville, Tenn. "This provides more focus as a stand-alone entity."