A Cendant to Vivendi
From They Create Worlds by Alex Smith, and Jeffrey Daum
June 1, 2026 · 1h 29m · Episode 259
About this episode
The episode discusses the accounting scandal involving CUC International and its impact on Cendant and the media industry.
TCW Podcast Episode 259 - A Cendant to Vivendi CUC International looked like a company that never missed. Quarter after quarter, just barely beating estimates, right up until the moment Henry Silverman got access to their books and found out why. When a new customer signed up, CUC booked a full year of revenue immediately, even though billing was monthly. If that customer left before the year was up, CUC never corrected the books. The money just stayed there. Perfectly functional assets were declared worthless on paper, with the supposed losses paid off using money from merger funds. That same merger money was then counted again as incoming revenue, making the company look larger and more profitable than it was. Over $500 million in income that never existed. Walter Forbes was forced to resign and was eventually convicted of the largest accounting scandal of the time. Cendant realized the software and games division itself had been part of the machinery. They sold it to French media company Havas. That sale landed in the orbit of Vivendi, a sprawling conglomerate that had started as a 19th century French waterworks company. Its CEO Jean-Marie Messier had bigger things in mind…
People in this episode
Hosts: Alex Smith, Jeffrey Daum
Topics covered
- accounting scandal
- corporate mergers
- financial fraud
- business history
- software industry
- media conglomerates
Keywords
- CUC International
- Cendant
- accounting scandal
- Vivendi
- Havas
- Jean-Marie Messier
- Walter Forbes
- financial fraud
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: CUC International, Cendant, Havas, Vivendi, AOL, Time Warner
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