Investing.com -- Shares in Hertz Global Holdings Inc (N:HTZ) ticked up in after-hours trading after the Florida-based rental car company posted mixed results with its fourth quarter earnings on Monday.
Hertz, the largest rental car company in the U.S. by sales, reported earnings of $70 million or 0.16 per share, considerably above net losses of $234 million or 0.51 per share during the same period a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, Hertz reported adjusted per share earnings of 0.05, above adjusted per share losses of 0.22 over the fourth quarter of 2014.
The company also finished with revenues of $2.41 billion for the three-month period, down 6% on an annual basis, due in part to the negative effects from foreign currency translation. Hertz blamed the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange for reducing sales by $75 million and restraining profits by $6 million.
Nevertheless, Hertz topped analysts' forecasts for adjusted per share earnings of 0.04 and narrowly missed expectations for revenues of $2.52 billion. Hertz CEO John Tague credited a more effective fleet management system for reducing costs by lowering out of service levels and reducing maintenance costs.
"By fundamentally improving our fleet management and reducing costs throughout the business, we delivered on our expected outcome for the fourth quarter and the full year, despite a highly competitive pricing environment," Tague said in a statement. "We are encouraged by rising customer satisfaction across our major brands, which reached record levels in the third and fourth quarters of 2015, as well as the pace of improvement in our cost structure."
Hertz expressed concern in its quarterly report on the ramifications of a 20-month downturn in oil prices on its forward outlook in 2016. As a result, the company lowered its full-year adjusted corporate EBITDA by $0.1 billion to $1.7 billion.
"Looking ahead, we continue to see soft pricing in the U.S. rental car market in the first quarter 2016 as well as continued weakness in upstream oil and gas markets affecting equipment rental, both of which are reflected in our outlook for 2016," Tague added. "In this environment, we will continue to focus internally on improving cost and quality as part of our commitment to our three-to-five year margin improvement plan."
Shares in Hertz gained 0.11 or 1.29% to 8.61 in after-hours.