NEW YORK and GREENWICH, CT— Cendant Corp. announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Equivest. The deal includes Cendant buying all of the outstanding common stock of Equivest for $3 per share in cash or approximately $85 million, and all the Equivest preferred stock for about $13 million. Cendant will also assume approximately $60 million of Equivest corporate debt. For the last 12 months, Equivest reported revenue of $128 million and EBITDA of $30 million. Equivest, which markets and sells timeshare vacation services and vacation ownership interests, will be fully integrated into Cendants Fairfield Resorts unit, said company officials. The transaction is expected to be accretive to Cendants earnings per share immediately, adding $0.01 to adjusted EPS in 2002. Accordingly, Cendant also announced that it has raised the companys forecast for 2002 adjusted EPS to $1.26. Concurrent with the execution of the definitive merger agreement with Equivest, Cendant entered into definitive stock purchase agreements to acquire more than 90% of the outstanding shares of common stock and 100% of the outstanding shares of preferred stock from Equivests three largest stockholders, the consolidated bankruptcy estate of The Bennett Funding Group, Inc., R. Perry Harris and C. Wayne Kinser. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2002 and is subject to customary closing conditions.
