National was founded by 24 independent rental car agents on August 27, 1947. It had grown from 60 locations in the
United States in 1947 to over 2000 locations internationally . In 1987,
Paine Webber, a historical American
brokerage firm, gained majority ownership of National. In 1995, National was owned by an investment group containing William Lobeck of Tulsa,
Alvin Swanner of New Orleans, and Archer McWhorter of Houston. Lobeck was a former president of Chrysler's car rental unit and a former owner of
Thrifty Rent A Car, a competitor of National. It was later sold in 1995 at an estimated price of $1 billion. In 1996, National was acquired by Republic Industries (later renamed
AutoNation). AutoNation spun off its car rental properties as ANC Rental in 2000. ANC filed for bankruptcy a year later; its properties were sold to
Vanguard Automotive Group (controlled by
Cerberus Capital Management) in 2003. On August 1, 2007
Enterprise Rent-A-Car assumed control of Vanguard Automotive Group. == References ==