Cendant Corporation

Thomas E. Sowa had little use of his left leg and arm after contracting polio as a child. But Mr. Sowa found ways to do home-improvement projects, pursue hobbies that included bowling, golf and fishing, and work in the travel industry for nearly 40...

Hundreds of thousands of Californians could be eligible for $100 payments under the proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit against some of the nation's largest residential real estate brokerages. The lawsuit accused the real estate brokers of...

The collapse of PHH Corp.'s deal to sell itself is a lesson for these credit-crunched times: If you're in the mortgage business, don't count on anyone getting the money to buy you - no matter how decent your prospects look. PHH agreed in March to sell...

LOW-PRICE guarantees on travel websites are about as common as warts on a toad — and sometimes about as attractive. The guarantees typically say that if a traveler finds a better deal on another website for the same hotel rate or airfare, the...

Major lodging companies' phone numbers and Web sites are listed below. Several hotel and motel brands may be managed by one umbrella company. Thus, different chains may share central reservation staffs and Internet systems. Corporate affiliations are...

PNC Financial Services Group Inc., one of the nation's largest regional banks, said Monday it is buying Baltimore-based Mercantile Bankshares Corp. for about $6 billion as part of an expansion plan targeting wealthy, fast-growing markets. The Pittsburgh...

Walter Forbes, the former chairman of Cendant Corp., was convicted at his third criminal trial for his role in the accounting fraud that caused the company's market value to drop $14 billion in one day in 1998. Jurors in Bridgeport, Conn., convicted...

Lake Mary-based Ruth's Chris Steak House on Wednesday posted a sharp gain in third-quarter profits, but its earnings fell short of analysts' expectations. Net income for the quarter ended Sept. 24 was $2.3 million, or 10 cents a share, compared with $368,...

When Mel Karmazin left as president of media giant Viacom Inc. last June, he walked away with more than $31 million. That package alone would have been enough money to make Karmazin one of the 10 highest-paid executives at publicly traded companies in...

9 W. 57th St., New York, 10019 212-413-1800 www.cendant.com www.avis.com www.wizcom.com Employees: 500 Top official: Henry Silverman, CEO Parent company: Cendant Corp., Manhattan Ticker: CD

CHRIS WILLIAMS appreciates plush surroundings. In December, he and his wife, Alice, stayed in a $350-a-night Ritz-Carlton in Florida. "Marble everything," he said. But last month, the couple from Rome, Ga., decided on the Holiday Inn Express...

Cendant Corp., already a major player in Central Florida's hotel and time-share markets, said Wednesday it will buy the Wyndham brand and franchise system nationwide for $100 million in cash. Locally, that would give Cendant the management rights to...