Cendant to Buy Equivest in $98-Mil Deal

NEW YORK CITY-Manhattan-based real estate and travel services firm Cendant Corp. and Greenwich, CT time-share developer Equivest Finance Inc. have signed an agreement for Cendant to acquire all of Equivest’s outstanding stock for $3 per share in cash or roughly $85 million. Equivest will also turn over its preferred stock to Cendant for about $13 million. Cendant will also assume approximately $60 million of Equivest corporate debt.

Equivest, which markets and sells timeshare services and ownerships, will be folded into Cendant’s Fairfield Resorts brand. Aside from ownership interests at 29 resort facilities, located primarily on the Eastern Seaboard and in the US Virgin Islands, Equivest also operates a finance company specializing in consumer timeshare loans. More than 85,000 Equivest timeshare interests have been sold and an additional 20,000 borrowers have arranged financing through Equivest for ownership in unaffiliated resorts.

Cendant’s 60,000 employees provide real estate and travel services to businesses and consumers in more than 100 countries. Its subsidiary, Fairfield, is considered the world’s largest independent timeshare company, with more than 340,000 vacation-owning households and upwards of $500 million in annual timeshare sales.