I said this to Lizzard King and now I'll address it to you:
Nick, it is amazing how two people can come to two completely different conclusions. CD is a great company. In fact, CD is as close to the perfect company as I've ever seen. Maybe I missed some other great stock, but CD is certainly the best I've EVER seen (with, perhaps, the exception of MSFT).
If you don't like CD, then you must not understand what they are doing. I once had a business. The business required a lot of overhead. I had equipment, property, employee taxes, employee insurance, which all cost a lot of money to maintain. CD's businesses don't require the cash and headaches to maintain them. They own franchises and collect the royalties.
Because they own the franchises, and not the actual assets; They don't have to worry about the capital expenditures required to maintain the hotels (Days Inns, Ramada, etc.), car rental fleets (AVIS), realty chains (Century 21, Caldwell Banker, etc.).
Late last year, CUC was bought. This is a corp that specializes in another low assets business- membership clubs. For instance, they charge $ 69 per year for an internet buying club that allows you to buy at wholesale. This is a new program and is already hugely successful. While the likes of Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com slug it out for low prices, therefore cutting into profits, CD will make money from the year membership fees. This company has been on of the fastest growing billion dollar class company int he world and I expect that to continue.
The membership services will complement the franchise part of the business as they will be able to cross market.
I will be opening a site on CD, soon, on my website. You should probably take another look at CD. This is like buying ORCL at $ 19, even at the current price of about $ 20.56a.
Of course, I might be wrong, but I now have a lot of CD, though I did not buy stock options.
For a good article on what is really going on at CD. Keep in mind that CD came into existance late last year with the merger of CUC and HFS:
wired.com
CD: $ 20.63b $ 20.81a
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