Ex-Cendant Executive Helped Inflate Revenue

A former Cendant Corp. executive told jurors she helped ex-Vice Chairman E. Kirk Shelton inflate revenue when they were at CUC International Inc., which merged with HFS Inc. in 1997 to form Cendant.

Former Cendant Vice President Anne Pember, who is testifying for the government in the criminal fraud trial of Shelton and former Chairman Walter Forbes, said she helped reduce expenses at CUC by $27 million and increased revenue by $149 million on a report covering the first three quarters of fiscal 1997.

Forbes, 61, and Shelton, 49, are accused of ordering CUC accountants to invent revenue to make the company a more attractive merger partner for HFS. Forbes was CUC’s chief executive; Shelton was its president. The two men are on trial in federal court in Hartford, Conn.