Cendant the conglomerate that had been planning to spin itself off into four separate public companies is thinking about selling its travel unit to a private equity buyer, reports the New York Times. The travel business includes online bookers Orbitz and Cheaptickets.com.

The private equity players can pay more than a spin-off would yield and since the travel business was built through acquisitions, most of them recent, the tax problems won’t be very serious.

There are two morals to this tale. The fate of conglomerates continues to be very gloomy. And the break-ups are even worse. This is the story of another conglomerate that produced very few synergies and found that many of its far-flung businesses did not fit well with others - even within the same division. And even breaking them up does not seem to doing much for shareholders who have been watching the stock slide.

And if there is significant private equity interest, it could mean the new buyers have a plan to increase profitability. Online bookings never seem to be as smooth as they appear in the ads but maybe that will change with strong management and some infusion of cash.