THE renaming of all 109 EuroDollar branches and 13 Alamo branches in the UK as National Car Rental has created the country's largest daily rental company. The rebranding exercise follows the acquisition of EuroDollar by US conglomerate Republic Industries, which already owned both National Car Rental and Alamo five months ago.

National will keep the Alamo name for leisure and tourism customers at seven UK branches, six of them at airports, and in towns where both EuroDollar and Alamo had locations, one of these has been closed to avoid duplication. Alamo's traditional strength at airport locations gives National an in-terminal presence at all 14 major UK airports (compared to EuroDollar's five), and the company is expecting a significant increase in in-bound business thanks to National's strong corporate customer base in north America.

Alamo's corporate accounts will transfer to National, and the company has been busy explaining the reorganisation to customers. Both National and Alamo will continue to have independent sales and marketing teams, but behind the scenes they will share operational, technological and financial synergies. Combined, they account for more than 15% of the UK car hire market, running a fleet of over 30,000 vehicles, and this year alone National will buy 22,000 new cars. It will also continue EuroDollar's successful venture into the van hire market which has seen its van fleet increase by 45% over the last year.