Hertz: “We’ll come and get you” ®

Sorry, for the interruption in the middle of my multi-part AIG analysis, but I just had to write this up.

Reuters is reporting that Hertz has decided to file a defamation suit against an Independent Research Firm, for suggesting that it might go bankrupt. This has to be the most outrageous thing I’ve read all year.

Hertz was included in a list of “Twenty companies most likely to go bankrupt” which was published and circulated by Audit Integrity, Inc, an independent research firm.

The outrage is not that Hertz may go bankrupt, (I have no idea) but that Hertz actually files this suit and considers it an “appropriate response”.

So now every time an analyst states something a company may not like, the “appropriate response” is to sue? Wow. Just Wow. (Any lawyers out there willing to represent me on the cheap?).

A research report is an opinion. Like…first amendment protected? Remember that? Opinions are an integral part of the market, without them we would not have two sides to a trade. Shut that down and we can say goodbye to any remnants of transparency. It was bad enough when everyone had to be “hush, hush” last year about the collapsing banks due to “public interest”. Now we can’t state an opinion about a car rental company’s prospects?

As for the report, I haven’t seen it, but Seeking Alpha has the list. I obviously don’t agree with it, since I own credits for a number of the names on the list (no not Hertz).

That is not the point. Obviously. I can only hope (because if I predict, I get sued), that Hertz gets this thrown out and Audit Integrity countersues and takes Hertz to the cleaners. Maybe it will throw the company into bankruptcy. LOL. (That was a joke, Hertz people).

I certainly KNOW which rental car company I won’t be using EVER AGAIN. I think that is an “appropriate response”.