Report Assesses Cendant Corp.'s Governance as Moderate

NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Dec. 7, 2004--Cendant Corp.'s corporate governance is currently assessed as "moderate," according to a report published earlier today by Standard&Poor's. The assessment balances recent structural improvements in Cendant's governance practices and structures with ongoing concerns relating to board effectiveness, given the influence of the founder who is also the Chairman and CEO, as well as with shareholder rights and executive pay practices. The assessment was mainly driven by two factors: the dominant role at the company played by CEO Henry Silverman and executive compensation practices that have, at least in the past, been assessed as excessive. Cendant has made substantial structural changes to its governance practices recently, including the adoption of rules that

...(Editor's Note: This Corporate Governance Assessment is presented as a matter of historical record only. Standard & Poor's no longer conducts or monitors assessments of this nature because we have since adopted other approaches to assess the potential effect of corporate governance risk in our credit ratings. Therefore, this assessment does not reflect Standard & Poor's current view of the rated issuer's corporate governance.) NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) Dec. 7, 2004--Cendant Corp.'s corporate governance is currently assessed as "moderate," according to a report published earlier today by Standard & Poor's. The assessment balances recent structural improvements in Cendant's governance practices and structures with ongoing concerns relating to board effectiveness, given the influence of the founder who is also the Chairman and CEO, as well as with shareholder rights and executive pay practices. The assessment was mainly driven by two factors: the dominant role at the company played by CEO...

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