A billion here a billion there and pretty soon your talking Cendant

Finally accounting confirmation of what we all knew - you can't turn 7 into 4.3 without impacting the bottom line. Cendant has taken a charge of more than a billion dollars (US) to reflect the difference in the book value of the Travelport assets (the sum of the acquisition prices less any earlier adjustments such as the write-down of ebookers) and the sale price to Blackstone. The good news is that Travelport is now clear of all of that baggage and can focus on growing the business in anticipation of likely breakup by Blackstone. The bad news is that this is the last we will ever hear of more than $2.7bil in wasted shareholder money and missed opportunity. It will become nothing more than a footnote in US corporate history (and an under-read blog post here).