Europcar

Europcar is a French car rental company founded in 1949 in Paris.The head office of the holding company, Europcar Group S.A., is in the business park of Val Saint-Quentin at Voisins-le-Bretonneux (Saint Quentin en Yvelines), France.

Today Europcar operates in 140 different countries covering Europe, North America, Western Asia, and Africa. Since May 2006, Europcar has been owned by Eurazeo, one of the top listed investment companies in Europe.

History

Early stages

Europcar was founded in 1949 in Paris by Raoul-Louis Mattei under the name of "The Automobile Subscription". The "Europcars" brand was created in 1951. After 20 years of growth, the company was then owned from 1970 to 1988 by Renault, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits and Accor.

Volkswagen subsidiary

From 1998, Europcar had progressively been acquired by the Volkswagen group, until it eventually became a subsidiary 100% owned by the car constructor in 1999.

Buy-back by Eurazeo

In 2006, Eurazeo, the investment company, bought Europcar from Volkswagen group. The amount of the transaction was worth 2.4 times Europcar's turnover in 2005. The chairman of the Board of Eurazeo, Patrick Sayer, said: "We are thrilled by the acquisition of Europcar. With an initial participation of 900 million euros, it is due to become of the most significant investments for Eurazeo."

Direct Énergie

Direct Énergie (UCI team code: DEN) is a professional road bicycle racing team that competes as a UCI Professional Continental team in UCI Continental Circuits races, and UCI WorldTour races when invited as a wild card entry. Its title sponsor, Europcar, is a Paris-based car rental company. In previous years, the team was known as Brioches La Boulangère, Bonjour, Bouygues Télécom, and Bbox Bouygues Telecom. The 2015 season is the last under the sponsorship of Europcar; the team will be sponsored by Direct Energie in 2016

Beginnings

The team was founded in 1984 as System U. The team disbanded in 1985 but returned in 1986 under new management. Cyrille Guimard became the directeur sportif, bringing his protégé Laurent Fignon who nearly won the 1989 edition of the Tour de France. A change of sponsor in 1990 renamed the team Castorama.

In 1992 Guimard became manager of the team. In 1995, Jean-René Bernaudeau, a former professional racer, became director of the team. From 1996 to 1999, the team withdrew from top-level competition. Bernaudeau set up a development team in the Vendée region called Vendée U.