Hertz Misses Q3 Views

reported weaker-than-expected results for the third quarter on Monday. The Naples, Florida-based company reported quarterly earnings of $237 million, or $0.52 per share, compared to $149 million, or $0.32 per share, in the year-ago period. Excluding non-recurring gains, the company's adjusted earnings rose to $0.49 per share from $0.44 per share. Its revenue dropped 5 percent year-over-year to $2.98 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.52 per share on revenue of $3.03 billion. The average estimate among 33 Estimize users was for earnings of $0.52 per share and revenue of $3.04 billion. Total U.S. car rental revenue slipped 2 percent year-over-year to $1,739 million in the third quarter, while international car rental revenue dipped 14 percent to $687 million. Total worldwide equipment rental revenue fell 3 percent to $401 million for the third quarter. Adjusted Corporate EBITDA gained to $601 million from $553 million. During the quarter, Hertz Global repurchased 14.8 million shares for $262 million. "Our profit improvement in the third quarter is early evidence of the potential we see in our performance improvement plan," said John Tague, chief executive officer. "Our fleet efficiency, which measures our ability to match capacity with demand, rose to record levels. In addition, we successfully completed the integration of the Dollar Thrifty operations during a quarter in which we increased customer satisfaction across all of our rental car brands around the world. I want to thank our employees for helping to make this a successful quarter. The company affirmed its full-year 2015 adjusted corporate EBITDA forecast of $1.45 billion to $1.55 billion. Hertz shares gained 4.32 percent to close at $18.82 on Friday.