Bulletin: BULLETIN: Cendant Corp.'s Share Repurchase Increase Does Not Affect Ratings

NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) April 26, 2005--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its credit rating and outlook on Cendant Corp. (BBB/Positive/A-2) are not affected by the company's announcement that it had increased its share repurchase target for 2005 to $1 billion. Cendant had previously maintained a 2005 target of $500 million in share repurchases. The company is expected to continue to use its strong cash flow after capital expenditures and dividends, which amounted to about $2 billion in 2004, primarily for acquisitions and share repurchases. Cendant bought back $756 billion of its stock during 2004 and about $111 million in the 2005 first quarter. Despite this expected increase in share repurchase activity, Standard&Poor's continues to

...NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) April 26, 2005--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that its credit rating and outlook on Cendant Corp. (###/Positive/A-2) are not affected by the company's announcement that it had increased its share repurchase target for 2005 to $1 billion. Cendant had previously maintained a 2005 target of $500 million in share repurchases. The company is expected to continue to use its strong cash flow after capital expenditures and dividends, which amounted to about $2 billion in 2004, primarily for acquisitions and share repurchases. Cendant bought back $756 billion of its stock during 2004 and about $111 million in the 2005 first quarter. Despite this expected increase in share repurchase activity, Standard & Poor's continues to expect Cendant's credit measures to remain good for the ratings, and even improve modestly due to expected earnings growth during 2005. Adjusted for operating leases, debt to EBITDA was about 2.2x for the 12 months ended March 2005....

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