Cendant Starting over

Cendant has decided to start again. The US-based service conglomerate is going to divide into four separate listed companies. Harry Silverman, the founder and chief executive, hopes that the market will give the parts a substantially higher value than the current $21bn. It might work. On rough numbers, Cendant shares look undervalued. They are trading at 16 times the company’s new, lower expectation of $1.32 earnings per share for 2005. That is a 20% discount to the peer group. And if the $1.70...