Next week, the company, which consists of two car-rental businesses owned by Chrysler, is expected to sell 22.5 million shares at $19 to $22 each.

For more than a decade, United's former chairman, Richard J. Ferris, diversified the company into hotels and the car-rental business.

At about the same time, in 1960, the car-rental business in Europe began to take off, he said, "and we were well-positioned to enter it."

The company is also working to expand its new car-rental business -currently in operation in Minneapolis and Oklahoma City - nationwide within five years.

Meanwhile, he spent heavily to upgrade the company's remaining plants and diversified into auto services and the car-rental business.

Though new-car sales in its foreign-car dealerships are "very soft," the used-car and car-rental business is up 50 percent from a year earlier.

We're now in the carpet business, the car-rental business and the financing business.

He had a heart attack while he was running the car-rental business.

The company, which is based in Chicago, hopes to turn its car-rental business, operating in Minneapolis and Oklahoma City, into a nationwide chain.

In 1942 he served in the US Coast Guard; in later years he opened a liquor store and a car-rental business.