By Laura Sanicola

(Reuters) -Oil rose more than $1 a barrel on Thursday, extending the previous day’s rally of nearly 3%, as optimism over record U.S. crude exports and signs that recession fears are abating outweighed concern over slack demand in China.

Data showed record U.S. crude exports, a hopeful sign for demand. [EIA/] Speculation that central banks could be nearing the end of rate-hiking cycles added support, after the European Central bank raised rates by 75 basis points. [MKTS/GLOB]

“Crude prices are rallying after the U.S. economy bounced back last quarter,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA, referring to strong corporate earnings reports in the latest quarter, though he added oil’s gains were capped by the view that an economic slowdown remains.

Brent crude settled up $1.27, or 1.3%, to $96.96 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled up $1.17, or 1.3%, to $89.08 a barrel.

Worries about Chinese demand limited the rally. Global investors dumped Chinese assets early this week as the economy of the world’s biggest energy consumer was beset by a zero-COVID policy, a property crisis and falling market confidence.

“Concerns that China’s muddled economic policies may continue under President Xi Jinping’s growing power weighed on sentiment,” said Hiroyuki Kikukawa, general manager of research at Nissan Securities.

In early trade, the U.S. dollar touched a one-month low, lending oil support, although the U.S. currency rallied later. A weaker dollar makes oil cheaper for holders of other currencies and usually reflects greater investor appetite for risk. [USD/]

Crude surged early this year after Russia invaded Ukraine, with Brent coming close to its all-time high of $147 in March. More recently, oil has slumped on economic worries.

U.S. and Western officials are finalising plans to impose a cap on Russian oil prices. The World Bank warned that any plan will need active participation of emerging market economies.

(Additional reporting by Alex Lawler in London and Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo; Editing by Mike Harrison, Kirsten Donovan, David Gregorio and Deepa Babington)

By Guy Faulconbridge

LONDON (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the world faced the most dangerous decade since World War Two as Western elites scrambled to prevent the inevitable crumbling of the global dominance of the United States and its allies.

In one of his longest public appearances since he sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, Putin signalled he had no regrets about what he calls “a special operation” and accused the West of inciting the war and of playing a “dangerous, bloody and dirty” game that was sowing chaos across the world.

“The historical period of the West’s undivided dominance over world affairs is coming to an end,” Putin, Russia’s paramount leader, told the Valdai Discussion Club during a session entitled “A Post-Hegemonic World: Justice and Security for Everyone”.

“We are standing at a historical frontier: Ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, important decade since the end of World War Two.”

The 70-year-old former KGB spy was more than an hour late to the meeting of Russia experts where he gave a typically scathing interpretation of what he portrayed as Western decadence and decline in the face of rising Asian powers such as China.

He appeared relaxed over more than three and a half hours as he was questioned about fears of nuclear war, his relations with President Xi Jinping, and about how he felt about Russian soldiers killed in the Ukraine war, which he cast “partly” as a civil war, a notion Kyiv rejects.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the war, while the West has imposed the most severe sanctions in history on Russia, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of natural resources.

‘DIRTY BOMB’

The Russian leader blamed the West for stoking recent nuclear tensions, citing remarks by former British Prime Minister Liz Truss about her readiness to use London’s nuclear deterrent if the circumstances demanded it.

He repeated an assertion that Ukraine could detonate a “dirty bomb” laced with radioactive material to frame Moscow – an allegation dismissed by Kyiv and the West as false and without evidence.

A suggestion by Kyiv that the Russian charge might mean Moscow plans to detonate such a device itself was false, he said.

“We don’t need to do that. There would be no sense whatsoever in doing that,” Putin said, adding that the Kremlin had responded to what it felt was nuclear blackmail by the West.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in the depths of the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the United States came closest to nuclear war.

Asked about a potential nuclear escalation around Ukraine, Putin said the danger of nuclear weapons would exist as long as nuclear weapons existed.

But he said Russia’s military doctrine was defensive and, asked about the Cuban Missile crisis, quipped that he had no desire to be in the place of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader who, along with John F. Kennedy, took the world to the brink of nuclear war before defusing the situation.

“No way. No, I can’t imagine myself in the role of Khrushchev,” Putin said.

‘DIRTY GAME’

Putin quoted a 1978 Harvard lecture by Russian dissident and novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who launched a frontal assault on Western civilisation, decrying the hollow materialism and “the blindness of superiority” of the West.

“Power over the world is what the so-called West has put on the line in its game – but the game is dangerous, bloody and I would say dirty,” said Putin. “The sower of the wind, as they say, will reap the storm.”

“I have always believed and believe in common sense so I am convinced that sooner or later the new centres of the multipolar world order and the West will have to start an equal conversation about the future we share – and the earlier the better,” Putin said.

He cast the conflict in Ukraine as a battle between the West and Russia for the fate of the second largest Eastern Slav country which he said had ended in tragedy for Kyiv.

Putin said he thought constantly of Russian casualties in Ukraine, but avoided getting into detail about what the West says are huge losses. But only Russia could guarantee the territorial integrity of Ukraine, he said.

Ultimately, Putin said, the West would have to talk to Russia and other major powers about the future of the world.

(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge/Andrew Osborn)

By Stanley Widianto, Ananda Teresia and Wa Lone

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Myanmar’s military government warned on Thursday that any pressure from its Southeast Asian neighbours to put a time frame on a peace plan would create “negative implications”.

The ruling junta, which seized power from an elected government last year, was reacting to a meeting earlier on Thursday of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries in Jakarta to discuss easing the intensifying crisis.

ASEAN remains committed to a peace plan agreed with Myanmar’s military rulers, its chair Cambodia said on Thursday, even as some countries raised concerns over the failure to implement the plan agreed with the junta 18 months ago.

No Myanmar representatives were present at the special meeting of the group’s foreign ministers to discuss the stalled peace plan.

Myanmar’s generals have been barred from high-level ASEAN meetings since last year, after the army ousted Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in a February 2021 coup, detaining her and thousands of activists and launching a deadly crackdown that has given rise to armed resistance movements.

The junta has done little to honour its commitments to the so-called five-point peace “consensus” which includes an immediately halting violence, starting dialogue, allowing an ASEAN chair envoy to facilitate mediation and allowing ASEAN to provide humanitarian assistance.

The head of the junta has blamed the lack of progress on instability in the country and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Late on Thursday, Myanmar’s military-appointed foreign ministry released a statement blaming armed resistance movements for violence and saying pressure to set a time frame will create more negative implications than positive ones.

Political analysts said the ASEAN meeting, which comes ahead of the bloc’s leaders’ summit next month, was disappointing and did little to move the needle on getting Myanmar’s generals to cooperate.

“Today’s meeting reflects that there is no common position among the ASEAN countries, they are split in handling the Myanmar issue,” said Lina Alexandra of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.

ASEAN foreign ministers and representatives agreed on Thursday the bloc should be even more determined for a peaceful solution in Myanmar as soon as possible, the chair said in a statement, noting that Myanmar’s situation remained “critical and fragile”.

“The foreign ministers expressed concern and disappointment over no significant progress on the five-point consensus implementation,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told a news conference after the meeting.

Recent weeks have included some of the bloodiest incidents in Myanmar, including a bombing at Myanmar’s largest prison and an air strike in Kachin State on Sunday, which local media said killed at least 50 people.

“The violent acts need to stop immediately. And Indonesia has mentioned that this request needs to be delivered to Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s military) immediately,” said Retno.

ASEAN has a longstanding policy of non-interference in members’ sovereign affairs, but some have called for the bloc to be bolder in taking action against the junta and engaging other stakeholders like the shadow government.

When asked if ASEAN representatives would meet the shadow National Unity Government, Indonesian foreign ministry official Sidharto R. Suryodipuro said: “engagement with all stakeholders includes other parties, NUG being one of them.”

The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, on Wednesday described the situation in Myanmar as “tragic” and said the United States, which has imposed sanctions on the military leadership, would take “additional steps to put pressure on the regime,” but did not elaborate.

(Additional reporting by Ananda Teresia in Jakarta, Poppy McPherson in Bangkok and Prak Chan Thul in Phnom Penh; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Mike Harrison, Toby Chopra and Josie Kao)

(Reuters) -Elon Musk, who once tweeted “I hate advertising”, said he wants Twitter Inc to be “the most respected advertising platform”, in a bid to gain the trust of ad buyers ahead of the expected close of his $44 billion deal for the social media firm.

Musk, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and investors in the deal had previously suggested moving away from advertising and seeking revenue from subscriptions and other means. Advertisers have also told Reuters they were apprehensive of the takeover.

“There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising. Most of it has been wrong,” Musk said in a tweet on Thursday.

“Fundamentally, Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand grows your enterprise.”

Musk also responded with “absolutely” to a tweet calling for top content creators on Twitter to be compensated similarly to other social media platforms.

Ad sales accounted for more than 90% of Twitter’s revenue in the second quarter, and Reuters reported earlier this week that the company was struggling to keep its most active users who are vital to the business.

That underscores the challenge faced by Musk, who visited Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco on Wednesday and also hinted at being the company’s top boss by updating his profile bio to “Chief Twit”.

In his tweets on Thursday, Musk also said he wanted Twitter to be “a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence”.

The self-described “free speech absolutist” said in May he would reverse Twitter’s ban on former U.S. President Donald Trump, who was removed from the microblogging site in January last year over the risk of further incitement of violence after the storming of the U.S. Capitol.

The question of reinstating Trump on the social media platform has been seen as a litmus test of how far Musk will go in making changes, even though Trump himself has said he would not return.

Twitter deal’s completion would mark an end to a six-month-long saga. The company’s shares will be suspended from trading on Friday, the New York Stock Exchange’s website showed.

Musk plans to take Twitter Inc’s new holding company public again in three to five years after he buys the social media company, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Tiyashi Datta; Writing by Aditya Soni; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

(Corrects date of verdict to Wednesday from Tuesday in second paragraph, with no other changes to headline or text)

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal jury in Detroit ordered Ford Motor Co to pay Versata Software Inc $104.6 million in damages for breaching a 2004 licensing contract and misappropriating trade secrets.

Jurors deliberated over two days before holding Ford liable on Wednesday, following a 15-day trial.

Versata, based in Austin, Texas, said it licensed its automotive software to Ford from 1998 to 2015, helping the automaker’s engineers and marketing agents collaborate on and design vehicles with “seamless real time updates” worldwide.

It said Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford began copying its software after growing weary of paying millions of dollars in annual licensing fees, and in 2014 rejected a “final” offer to license Versata’s major software for $17 million a year.

More than $82.2 million of the jury award was for breach of contract, with the remaining $22.4 million for trade secret misappropriation. Versata’s damages expert testified that the company suffered $59.9 million in trade secret damages.

“While we respect the jury’s decision, we believe the facts and the law do not support this outcome,” Ford said in a statement on Wednesday. “Ford will appeal the verdict.”

Lawyers for Versata did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The litigation began in April 2015, when Ford sought a court order that it did not infringe Versata’s intellectual property.

The case is Versata Software Inc et al v Ford Motor Co, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, No. 15-10628.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

By Maya Gebeily and Maayan Lubell

BAABDA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Lebanese and Israeli leaders finalised a U.S.-brokered maritime demarcation deal on Thursday, bringing a measure of accommodation between the enemy states as they eye offshore energy exploration.

Leaders from Lebanon, Israel and the United States have all hailed the deal as “historic” but the possibility of a wider diplomatic breakthrough remains slim.

As a result, there was no joint signing ceremony: Lebanese President Michel Aoun signed a letter approving the deal at his palace in Baabda in the presence of the U.S. official who mediated the accord, Amos Hochstein.

“We have heard about the Abraham Accords. Today there is a new era. It could be the Amos Hochstein accord,” said top Lebanese negotiator and deputy parliament speaker Elias Bou Saab, referring to the 2020 U.S.-brokered normalisation of ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid signed separately in Jerusalem, saying the deal was a “tremendous achievement” that had produced Lebanon’s de facto recognition of Israel.

“It is not every day that an enemy country recognises the state of Israel, in a written agreement, in view of the international community,” Lapid told his Cabinet in broadcast remarks.

In a pre-recorded interview aired later on Thursday, Aoun said delineating the boundary would prevent war with Israel and that the full status of the southern border would be resolved later through “dialogue.”

But he insisted the accord did not constitute a peace agreement with Israel, after having earlier said the deal was purely “technical” and would have “no political dimensions or impacts that contradict Lebanon’s foreign policy”.

Lebanon does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and still considers itself at war with its neighbour, with laws barring contact with Israeli officials.

‘CONFIDENCE-BUILDING MEASURE’

Lower-level delegations from each country headed to the United Nations’ peacekeeping base at Naqoura along their contested land border, which has yet to be delineated.

There, the delegations entered the same tent, each standing on a side of a table, and submitted their signed copies of the deal to U.S. officials and their new coordinates for the maritime border to the United Nations, officially bringing the deal into force, an Israeli official and a Lebanese source told Reuters.

“I hope it will serve as a confidence-building measure that promotes more security and stability in the region and economic benefits for both countries,” said the U.N.’s Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka.

The accord comes days ahead of major political milestones for both Israel and Lebanon.

Aoun’s term is set to end on Oct. 31 and political sources say he was keen to seal the deal as the crowning achievement of his six years in office.

Israel holds elections on Nov. 1, its fifth in less than four years.

Hochstein said the accord should be adhered to even if officials change on either side and the United States would continue to play a guarantor role to ensure it remains in force.

“If one side violates the deal, both sides lose,” he said.

The accord removes one source of potential conflict between Israel and Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah and could help alleviate Lebanon’s economic crisis.

An offshore energy discovery – while not enough on its own to resolve Lebanon’s deep economic problems – would be a major boon, providing badly needed hard currency and possibly one day easing crippling blackouts.

Offshore areas in the eastern Mediterranean and Levant have yielded major gas discoveries in the past decade and interest has grown since Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine disrupted gas pipeline flows.

In a statement on Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden said energy in the region “should not be a cause for conflict, but a tool for cooperation, stability, security and prosperity”.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon’s powerful armed group Hezbollah, on Thursday called it a “very big victory for Lebanon.”

He said the fighters and military resources that his group had mobilised as a form of pressure to ensure talks went well could now be de-activated, announcing: “Mission accomplished.”

Nasrallah also said the Lebanese government had been careful to ensure that the negotiations and approval protocols had no hint of “normalization” with Israel.

(Reporting by Maayan Lubell, Dan Williams, Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily; Writing by Maayan Lubell and Maya Gebeily; Editing by William Maclean, Nick Macfie, Toby Chopra and Jonathan Oatis)

By Dominique Vidalon

PARIS (Reuters) – French food group Danone on Thursday raised its 2022 revenue growth forecast after its third-quarter sales beat analysts’ estimates as the firm was able to raise prices to counter soaring costs.

The consumer goods giant and owner of Evian and Badoit water and Activia yoghurt said it now expected like-for-like sales growth to reach 7-8% this year compared with the already raised forecast of 5-6% it gave in July.

It said it expects a recurring operating margin above 12%, down from 13.7% last year.

Danone posted a 9.5% rise in third-quarter like-for-like sales to 7.334 billion euros ($7.35 billion), beating analysts’ expectations for a 6.9% rise in a poll compiled by the company.

This also marked a sequential acceleration from 7.7% sales growth achieved in the second quarter and reflected strength in all the group’s businesses, notably in baby food in China and in bottled waters.

CEO Antoine de Saint-Affrique, who took over in September 2021, must conduct a revival plan amid mounting input costs, coupled with further uncertainties caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which led the group to unveil plans to shed control of its dairy food business in Russia.

Price increases contributed 10.9% to third-quarter revenue growth.

Finance chief Juergen Esser reiterated that cost inflation was expected to be in the “mid-teens” this year but said it was hard to make predictions for 2023.

While Danone was conscious that consumer wallets are tightening, Esser said: “If we need to do more on prices, we will do it in a responsible manner even if it costs us a little bit of volume”.

In the third quarter, the closely-watched Essential Dairy and Plant-based (EDP) business in Europe registered 2.2% sales growth with a contrasted performance by geography.

Sales and volumes were impacted by portfolio choices, namely the pruning of underperforming brands, and temporary delivery suspensions in some countries such as Germany and Belgium due to lengthy price negotiations with retailers, Esser said.

Other countries like France, benefited from the good momentum of key brands like Actimel, Danone, Yopro and Danette.

One positive was the Mizone water business in China which returned to growth in the quarter despite challenging operating conditions.

Rival Unilever Plc also on Thursday raised its full-year sales forecast as it lifted prices to counter costs.

($1 = 0.9974 euros)

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Mark Porter, Kirsten Donovan)

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Tom Barrack, a onetime fundraiser for Donald Trump, acknowledged under cross-examination on Thursday that he hoped his ties to the then-president would encourage a United Arab Emirates official to invest with his company, but said he did not agree to exchange political access for a business relationship.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn say Barrack, 75, used his influence with Trump’s campaign and administration in 2016 and 2017 to promote the United Arab Emirates’ interests without informing the U.S. attorney general he was acting as an agent of the country, as required by law.

Barrack has pleaded not guilty, and argues his interactions with Middle Eastern officials were part of his role running private equity firm Colony Capital, now known as DigitalBridge Group Inc. He began testifying in his own defense on Monday, denying that he agreed to act at the UAE’s direction.

During cross-examination on Thursday, prosecutor Sam Nitze asked Barrack whether he was hoping his ties to Trump could set him apart in his quest to seek investment from Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a national security official in the UAE who also ran a bank, when the two met in the Emirates in May 2016.

“You can’t be just another deal guy, right, showing up with your briefcase and your PowerPoint deck,” Nitze said. “Yes or no, one of the things you wanted to offer Sheikh Tahnoun was your access to Donald Trump?”

Barrack responded affirmatively to both questions. But when asked by Nitze if he agreed to get Sheikh Tahnoun access and influence “in the hopes of securing a long-term business relationship,” Barrack replied, “No.”

Prosecutors have pointed to investments by two Emirati sovereign wealth funds in Colony projects in 2017 and 2018 as evidence of Barrack’s motivation to work as an agent.

Under direct examination by his lawyer Michael Schachter earlier on Thursday, Barrack testified he had little involvement with the deals, which totaled $374 million. He said one of the funds, Mubadala, almost pulled out of one of the deals after learning there would be an Israeli co-investor.

“If Mubadala was investing as a favor to you in exchange for acting as a UAE agent, would you expect them to threaten to pull out?” Schachter said

“Probably not,” Barrack replied.

Mubadala did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside Emirati business hours.

KHASHOGGI MURDER

Under questioning by Schachter, Barrack said he urged the then-president to use the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a “lever” to get Saudi Arabia to end a blockade on Qatar that began in 2017.

The testimony from Barrack that he pushed for Qatar’s interests could undermine the charges he acted at the UAE’s behest. Barrack is not charged with acting as a Saudi agent, but the country is close with the UAE, which implemented the blockade alongside Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and others.

He said that during an October 2018 phone call with Trump -following Khashoggi’s murder in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Turkey – he urged the then-president to use global outrage over the killing “as a lever over this idiotic blockade.”

U.S. intelligence says the murder of Khashoggi, a Saudi insider-turned-critic, was approved by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler. The prince has denied ordering the killing but acknowledged it took place “under my watch.”

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Noeleen Walder)

By Bianca Flowers and Aishwarya Nair

(Reuters) -Heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc on Thursday topped Wall Street estimates for profit and revenue in the third quarter due to price increases and strong order activity from energy and mining customers.

Shares of the world’s largest construction and mining equipment manufacturer rose 8.5% after it reported net income rose to $2.04 billion, beating analysts’ estimates of $1.68 billion. Revenue of the industrial bellwether increased to $15 billion, topping predictions of $14.3 billion, according to Refinitiv.

Deerfield, Illinois-based Caterpillar increased prices to help mitigate supply chain constraints and rising raw material and freight costs, cushioning profits.

“We are actually wrapping some price increases that we saw in the third quarter – fourth quarter of last year,” Chief Financial Officer Andrew Bonfield said on a call with analysts. “We will see slight moderation of price in the fourth quarter, still very strong.”

Executives said labor costs and manufacturing inefficiencies remain challenges.

“They’ve gotten a bit worse as opposed to getting better in the last quarter,” Chief Executive Jim Umpleby said.

Umpleby said despite parts and semiconductor shortages, the company continues to see healthy demand and hit margin targets.

While the company has exposure to currency headwinds amid global recession fears, strong demand for equipment has “more than offset” uncertain economic conditions, said Matt Arnold, an analyst at Edward Jones.

Operating margins were up across the company’s three core divisions with construction leading the way with a 19.4% increase from the year prior.

In the previous quarter, Caterpillar had flagged a bigger drop in demand for its excavators in China, a growth market.

Revenue for construction equipment in the Asia Pacific region rose 1% from the previous year. Slumping sales in China have weighed on the manufacturer’s margins as developers halted or delayed construction on presold homes because of debt woes.

A delayed release of China’s economic data showed the economy losing momentum as COVID-19 lockdowns, falling property values and constrained consumption slowed the world’s second-largest economy.

With drilling activity surging in the first half of the year amid soaring oil and gas prices, Caterpillar’s resource division recorded the biggest increase in sales, up 30%.

Caterpillar’s adjusted profit rose to $3.95 per share, outpacing estimates of $3.16 per share.

(Reporting by Bianca Flowers in Chicago and Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur, Bernadette Baum, Will Dunham and Tomasz Janowski and Marguerita Choy)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Hertz Global Holdings Inc on Thursday reported a 12% jump in quarterly revenue, as demand for rental cars stayed strong amid surging leisure travel and constrained production from automakers.

The company’s revenue rose to about $2.5 billion for the quarter through September from $2.23 billion a year ago, while net income rose just 1% to $577 million, or $1.33 per share, reflecting intentionally elevated maintenance costs to address out-of-service levels.

“We managed the fleet pretty aggressively,” Hertz Chief Executive Stephen Scherr said in an interview.

He said Hertz was enjoying the same strong conditions for travel reported by airlines, hotels and others, seeing “undeniable strength in demand across leisure, corporate and for us our ride-share business.”

Scherr said there were “elevated bookings” for international inbound travelers for upcoming trips despite the strong dollar. Booking around the Christmas holidays for places like California and Florida are running twice 2021 levels. “Leisure demand is big,” Scherr said.

The car rental industry, tied closely to airline traffic and hotel bookings, has seen a robust rebound due to pent-up desire to travel after an easing of coronavirus restrictions.

Scherr said the length of corporate car rentals has increased on average by a little more than one day as more business travelers tack on vacation to a work trip.

Consumers have also increasingly opted for rental cars as automakers such as Ford Motor Co and General Motor Co have struggled to fulfill demand due to supply shortages.

Last month, Hertz said it plans to order up to 175,000 General Motors electric vehicles over the next five years, after announcing plans in October 2021 to buy 100,000 Tesla EVs.

Hertz currently has about 40,000 EVs out of 500,000 vehicles in the fleet — and is seeing 50% lower maintenance costs on its EV fleet.

Hertz’s goal is for 25% of its fleet to be electric by the end of 2024.

Hertz said corporate business reached 75% of pre-pandemic levels in the third quarter and corporate rentals are boosting EV demand by businesses seeking to reduce their emissions.

Hertz shares were down about 1% in midday trading.

(Reporting by Priyamvada C in Bengaluru and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Maju Samuel, David Holmes and Mark Porter)