TNAG-1433-FCO40-1916-Leading-personalities-in-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 8

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Avis float coup

by John Jay

SIR JOHN Bremridge, form- er financial secretary of the Hong Kong colonial admin- istration, is to be chairman of Avis Europe, the car rental and leasing group which is planning a £300m flotation on the London stock market later this month.

IS a

His appointment considerable coup for the management team headed by managing director Alan Cath- cart, who has been grooming the company for an offer for sale through merchant bank Morgan Grenfell and stock- broker Cazenove.

Bremridge is a former

chairman of John Swire & Sons, one of Hong Kong's leading conglomerates, and was until 1980 chairman of its highly successful Cathay Pacific Airways subsidiary.

His international business contacts will obviously be important in the develop- ment of Avis Europe, which comprises the British, Euro- pean, African and Middle Eastern interests of Avis Inc, bought recently by the US based Wesray Capital Corp- oration. It is now selling two- thirds of its holding.

Cathcart, who took over as managing director in 1983. has already done a lot to restore Avis Europe's for- tunes. He pulled it out of

Coming west: Sir John Bremridge will take the wheel

truck leasing and car parks in Britain and has since extricated it from trouble- some car rental subsidiaries in Sweden and Israel.

He has also moved the emphasis away from a total dependence on car rental and

into

full service leasing, where the profit margins may be lower but the quality of earnings is much higher. In Britain the company has a joint venture with the Mid- land subsidiary, Forward Trust. while the French business comes through a joint company with Societé Generale.

Profits from continuing

businesses have risen from £14m in the year to end February 1982 to £25m last year on sales up from £127m to £197m. Cathcart is likely to be able to forecast another healthy rise this year despite the fall-off in American

tourist traffic to Europe. His strategy after the float will be to maintain the expansion of the leasing business by or- ganic growth, but acquis- itions are also possible.

The float is likely to be attractive to small investors as Avis is far less exposed to cyclical movements in the tourist trade than other travel companies.

CODE 18-78

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Reference.......

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RECEIVED IN REGIST

10 OCT 1986

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