Thursday May 7, 9:39 pm Eastern Time
INTERVIEW-Cendant eyes interactive internet firms
CHICAGO, May 7 (Reuters) - After a run of large-scale acquisitions, Cendant Corp. (CD - news) is now eyeing small, interactive Internet companies, chairman Walter Forbes said Thursday.
After speaking here to the ''@d:tech'' conference on Internet marketing, Forbes told Reuters that the company is looking at such companies despite having similar in-house capabilities.
''Having said that, I bet we do make a couple more investments and buy a couple more in the next 12 months,'' Forbes said.
Cendant is a large direct marketing and franchise company created in December by the $11 billion merger of HFS Inc, which owned hotel brands Ramada and Howard Johnson and rental car business Avis, and CUC International Inc., a direct marketing membership services firm.
The company made several large-scale acquisitions as part of its initial development plan.
Cendant recently said it is in talks to buy Britain's Royal Automobile Club for $750 million, and earlier today it extended its cash tender for American Bankers Insurance Group (ABI - news) valued at $3.1 billion.
The company recently closed the $1.3 billion purchase of Britain's largest car park operator, National Parking Corp. Ltd. Cendant already owns Internet companies Rent Net and Match.Com.
Cendant stock fell nearly 50 percent after the company on April 15 disclosed possible financial irregularities at one of its units which could lower 1997 earnings by up to $115 million.
Forbes said he had no additional information on an investigation into those irregularities. The company has said that a preliminary report from the board of director's audit committee may be available by mid-May.
''We had a stock meltdown, not a company meltdown,'' Forbes said. ''The company is in great shape.''
At the conference, Forbes displayed a new version of netMarket, its online shopping service, which uses video and voice recognition technology.
The company now sells travel, shopping, auto and dining services on the Web and via telephone at discount prices through a membership program. The company has some 70 million members who can buy just about anything through the service.
''We're really building netMarket for a mass market that really isn't there quite yet,'' Forbes said of the online service. ''We believe if you don't build it now, it's too late.''
biz.yahoo.com |
