History
In 1945, at the age of 29, Leonard Shoen co-founded U-Haul with his wife, Anna Mary Carty, in the town of Ridgefield, Washington, with an investment of $5,000.[6] He began building rental trailers and splitting the fees for their use with gas station owners whom he franchised as agents. He developed return rentals, one-way rentals and enlisted investors as partners in each trailer as methods of growth.
By 1955, there were more than 10,000 U-Haul trailers on the road, and the brand was nationally known. Distracted to some extent by growing his business, Shoen took time for multiple marriages (after the death of Anna Mary at age 34 due to a congenital heart defect) and he eventually had a total of 13 children with 4 wives each of whom he made stockholders. Shoen transferred all but 2% of control to his children when two of them, Edward and Mark, launched a successful takeover of the business in 1986. Family squabbling over the U-Haul empire turned to physical confrontations between some of his children at company meetings, even before the 1986 takeover, and accusations of murder for hire when Sam's daughter-in-law, Eva, was murdered in her home. The murderer was found and stated it was a robbery gone wrong; however, Sam continued to accuse Joe and Mark of being behind her death. The takeover sparked a major family dispute that led to a $461 million judgment in favor of Leonard Shoen and others. In 1999, 83-year-old Leonard Shoen suffered fatal injuries when he crashed into a telephone pole near his Las Vegas, Nevada, home; it was later ruled a suicide.
Between 1984 and 1992, U-Haul rented camper trailer that could be slept in. When this service was discontinued, the fiberglass trailers were sold off to the public.[7]
The Shoen family, currently led by chairman and president Edward "Joe" Shoen, owns about 40% of the company through their AMERCO holding company. AMERCO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2003 and emerged in March 2004. The filing did not affect U-Haul operations.
In 2012, another moving and storage company, PODS, sued U-Haul in U.S. District Court for trademark infringement, claiming that U-Haul "improperly and unlawfully" used the word "pods" to describe its U-Box product. On September 25, 2014, a jury ruled that U-Haul had infringed on PODS' trademarks, causing confusion and damaging business for PODS. The jury found that U-Haul unjustly profited from mentioning the term on its marketing and advertising materials and began using the word only after PODS became famous as a brand name in the industry. The jury awarded PODS $62 million in damages.[8] In 2014 UHaul sued HireAHelper for trademark infringement, a suit that was settled out of court.[9]
Each December, U-Haul is used by UPS, USPS, and FedEx, to help temporarily expand fleets to handle a surge due to Christmas and other holiday volume.[10]
From 2007 to 2020, the company operated Uhaul Car Share.
In June 2021, the company's division in West Virginia filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, blaming several challenges as a result of the decision, including management turnover, unprofitable locations, and litigation costs leading to poor cash flow and liquidity.[11]
