American Express Global Business Travel

American Express Global Business Travel

Type	Private
Headquarters	Jersey City, New Jersey, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Services	Corporate travel management, Event Management
Number of employees	12,000 (2014)
Website	www.amexglobalbusinesstravel.com

American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) is a multinational travel and meetings program management company headquartered in Jersey City, NJ. The company has approximately 12,000 employees, and operations in nearly 120 countries worldwide. On February 9, 2018, the company announced it will acquire Hogg Robinson Group (HRG) PLC, a global B2B services company specialising in travel management, in a recommended all-cash acquisition of the entire issued, and to be issued, ordinary share capital.

Business Overview

American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) provides end-to-end corporate travel and meetings program management through a variety of solutions that service both the client company and the traveler. The company’s products and services are offered through three divisions:

• Travel Management
• Meetings & Events (branded as American Express Meetings & Events)
• Global Business Consulting

Travel Management provides a wide variety of products, tools, and services that allow companies and their travelers to manage their business travel from time of booking to post trip reporting.

American Express Meetings and Events helps companies realize savings opportunities, gain greater visibility into meeting spend and activity, and achieve business results through end-to-end servicing.

Global Business Consulting works with companies to help them create travel programs tailored to their specific goals.

History

American Express first established a Travel Division in 1915 and soon established its first travel agencies.^[1]

In March 2014, American Express announced that it signed an agreement to create a joint venture for Global Business Travel , under which American Express would share ownership of the joint venture with an investor group led by Certares. Under the agreement, American Express would separate its GBT operations into a dedicated holding structure, including assets and liabilities that comprise GBT, and, upon the agreement’s close, would maintain 50% ownership in the joint venture. In exchange, the investor group would hold 50% for a $900 million investment in the joint venture .^[2]

On July 1, 2014, American Express announced it closed the joint venture under the terms and conditions outlined in March .^[3]

On February 9, 2018 American Express Global Business Travel (GBT), announced it will acquire Hogg Robinson Group (HRG) PLC, a global B2B services company specialising in travel management, in a recommended all-cash acquisition of the entire issued, and to be issued, ordinary share capital. The acquisition is conditioned on receipt of antitrust and other regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2018. Both American Express GBT and HRG have made significant investments in people and technology in recent years. The combined group will offer clients and travellers a more comprehensive range of travel management products and services. The acquisition is expected to accelerate growth by utilising complementary footprints and solutions to provide additional benefits to clients and create the ability to combine two advanced travel technology and development platforms to create better products and services to serve clients and travellers.^[4]

References