DAILY rental giant Hertz Corporation has launched a leasing company offering customers a vehicle on contracts of anything from one day to four years. This new Hertz Leasing - the former Hertz Leasing is now called Axus - aims to operate in every European country by the end of next year, and become one of the top five pan-European leasing companies by 2002.

The Hertz Corporation already has leasing operations in 22 European countries, although these tend to be the smaller markets, and aggressive plans are afoot to establish or acquire companies in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Benelux region, with the company expecting to open one operation per country in every quarter of 1998. Each country already has a management team on the rental side, as well as a critical mass in terms of buildings and back-up functions.