GERMAN daily rental giant Sixt has secured four rental desks at Heathrow just days after making its first UK acquisition - and is promising further rapid expansion in the future. The aggressive car hire concern bought European Car Rental for an undisclosed sum last week - and had secured its first outlets in all four terminals at Heathrow within 48 hours.

Both the former European Car Rental Site and the new Heathrow outlets will be branded as Sixt European Car Rental, with the latter due to start trading at the beginning of November. Sixt general manager, European operations Peter Crouch said the company would be looking for rapid growth, both organic and through acquisition, in the short to medium term.

'We probably need to be operating from another 30 to 40 locations in the UK to give us a good spread,' said Crouch. 'But Sixt doesn't believe in setting targets - we just want to grow as quickly as we can.'

Although a relative newcomer to the daily rental scene, Sixt has established a reputation in Europe for renting quality cars at cut-throat prices profitably where others have failed. Based in Munich, Sixt currently operates 55,000 cars throughout Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France and also has a leasing operation in Germany with around 18,000 vehicles. It specialises in corporate car hire and is the world's largest purchaser of Mercedes cars.