Cendant

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Cendant Corporation was a New York-based provider of business and consumer services, primarily within the real estate and travel industries. Although the company was based out of New York City, the majority of Cendant's headquarters employees were located in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey.

The last CEO of Cendant was Henry Silverman.

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In 1996, Cendant purchased Sierra On-Line and Davidson & Associates for $2.2 billion. However, following the fraud debacle the company encountered in 1998, the entire interactive software branch was sold for $1 billion to Havas Interactive, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal.

In 1998, Cendant Corporation was accused of fraud after their company's merging of CUC International and HFS Incorporated in 1997. At the time, Vice Chairman E. Kirk Shelton, had inflated the company's revenue by $500 million over a period of three years. When this report was released to the public, the resulting damage to the company due to market value was approximately $14 billion, with the company's stock trading from a high of $41 down to nearly $12. At the time, this fiasco was the largest case of accounting fraud in the country's history. Mr. Shelton is now serving a 10 year prison sentence.

On September 15, 2004, Cendant purchased the Ramada International Hotels & Resorts unit from Marriott International. At the time, Ramada was primarily a franchised brand of 204 hotels operating in 26 countries and territories. Earlier in 2004, Cendant acquired the trademark rights to the Ramada brand in the United States, where there are 819 franchised properties. It also owns the Canadian rights. [1]

On September 29, 2004, Cendant purchased Orbitz for $1.2 billion. [2]

In early 2005, Cendant purchased ebookers for just under £190 million. During mid 2005, Cendant acquired London based Gullivers Travel Associates.

On October 23, 2005, Cendant Corporation announced its decision to split into four separate companies, citing a necessity to diversify in appealing to stockholders and in an attempt to increase the value of the post-split up company. These four categories include "Real Estate, Travel Distribution, Hospitality and Vehicle Rental Companies."[3]

Cendant originally decided to spin off its Travel Distribution division as a separate company called Travelport, but on June 30, 2006, Cendant announced the sale of Travelport to an affiliate of the privately held Blackstone Group for $4.3 Billion. This sale closed on August 23, 2006.

During the fall of 2005 Progeny Marketing Innovations and Trilegiant were sold to private equity group Apollo Management. They changed their name in January of 2006 to Affinion Group.

On July 31 of 2006, both the Cendant Real Estate division as well as the Cendant Hospitality division were spun-off and became separate companies under the names Realogy and Wyndham Worldwide, respectively. Realogy was subsequently bought by Apollo.

The Cendant Car Rental Group, which owns Avis, Budget Rent A Car and Budget Truck Rental rental companies, became the sole remaining company under the Cendant name. Then the company changed its name to Avis Budget Group and the Cendant name has been completely dissolved.

Former shareholders of Cendant received as a dividend for each share of Cendant common stock held on the dividend distribution date 1/4 share of common stock of Realogy, 1/5 share of common stock of Wyndham Worldwide and the remaining shares were subject to a reverse split resulting in shareholders receiving 1 share of Avis Budget Group for each 10 shares of Cendant previously held.

Cendant owned the rental brands of Avis and Budget, holding these properties in the CCRG (Cendant Car Rental Group). Avis and Budget operate a shared fleet of cars, and have the same "back end" system, but operate at different locations, offer different service levels, and have somewhat different pricing. After the Cendant name was dissolved, the car rental segment became known as Avis Budget Group and currently trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol: CAR.

These brands were spun off into Wyndham Worldwide.

These companies are now under the Realogy banner.

These brands were separated into a new company called Travelport.

These companies are owned by Wyndham Worldwide.

Cendant appeared in the credits of the film Fun with Dick and Jane (2005 film).

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