Hertz paid 16.2 million USD in bonuses days before declaring bankruptcy

Car rental company Hertz Global Holdings said it has paid about 16.2 million USD in bonuses to a range of key executives at the director level and above, days after the company filed for bankruptcy protection.

The company paid President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Stone 700,000 USD, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jamere Jackson 600,000 USD as retention bonuses, Hertz said in a filing to the U.S. regulators.

Last week, the board of the company, which counts billionaire investor Carl Icahn as its largest shareholder with a nearly 39% stake, allowed it to seek chapter 11 protection in a U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware.

The firm is reeling under travel bans and lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of the new coronavirus. Since the virus outbreak, a large portion of Hertz’s revenue, which comes from car rentals at airports, have evaporated.

With nearly 19 billion USD of debt and roughly 38,000 employees worldwide as of the end of 2019, Hertz is among the largest companies to be undone by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Via Reuters