Cendant Corp, the troubled franchising and direct marketing company is considering selling off its internet businesses that market clothes, books and other goods over the web, including the possibility of spinning them off into a separate company and doing an IPO. The main two that are on the block are Books.com and Netmarket.com. An accounting fraud discovered in April forced the Parsippany, New Jersey company to restate three years of figures. Cendant also owns various online entertainment, gaming and education companies after an aggressive buying spree this year and last. Netmarket.com and other Cendant web sites require a membership fee, which may make them less attractive to prospective buyers. Cendant says it does about $100m in revenues from its internet businesses, but they lose about $50m a year at present. The companies were mostly part of CUC International, which merged with HFS Inc to form Cendant last year and CUC was where the fraud occurred. Cendant is in the midst of selling its consumer software business to Vivendi SA, a French water company, for as much as $985m.
á
