Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. announced March 23 that as part of the company's ongoing efforts to de-leverage its balance sheet and to match its fleet financing capacity with fleet inventory levels appropriate for current and expected market conditions, the company has reduced excess borrowing capacity and given notice of termination on two fleet financing structures.

On March 17, Rental Car Finance Corp. (RCFC), a special purpose financing subsidiary of the company, provided notice to the lenders under its asset-backed variable funding note purchase facility (the "conduit") requesting a reduction in commitments under the conduit from $215 million to $1 million. The reduction in commitments under this facility became effective on March 17. In addition, Dollar Thrifty Funding Corp. (DTFC), a special purpose financing subsidiary of the company, provided notice to the lenders under its commercial paper program (the "commercial paper program") and liquidity lending facility (the "liquidity facility") requesting a reduction in commitments under the commercial paper program and liquidity facility from $277.5 million to $1 million. The reduction in commitments became effective on March 20. RCFC and DTFC have requested termination of these facilities as soon as administratively feasible, and termination is expected to occur prior to the maturity of these facilities in May 2009. As previously reported, $493 million in borrowings under these facilities was repaid in February 2009 and no amounts have since been drawn.

"Over the course of the past 9 months, we have worked aggressively to right-size our fleet as it became clear we needed to moderate our leverage and fleet levels to reflect current market conditions. We have reduced total debt on our balance sheet by approximately $720 million, from $2.6 billion at the end of February 2008 to $1.88 billion at the end of February 2009, which is in line with our strategy," said Scott L. Thompson, president and chief executive officer.