Is American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) considering putting itself up for sale? And this just three months after finalising the acquisition of its competitor CWT - for $540 million - and just a few weeks after the announcement of a strategic partnership with Concur to deploy a joint solution with Concur, called Complete. Bloomberg reported this on Monday, citing sources close to the matter. It's a possibility that has found favour with the stock market, with the news causing the share price to jump by more than 14% on the New York Stock Exchange. For a while at any rate, since while the share price exceeded 8.10 dollars before the market opened on Tuesday morning, according to the specialist site Skift, it has since fallen back to 7.74 dollars. This compares with $6.83 at the end of last week.
In fact, it is disappointing stock market performance that is behind this potential sale. Amex GBT's shares have fallen by 20% since the start of the year. This poor performance contrasts with the company's operating results for the third quarter, which were marked by a significant increase in revenues (+13% year-on-year) and transactions (+19%) following the integration of CWT. Excluding CWT's contribution, revenues grew by 3% and transactions by 4%, in line with the company's expectations. So there's nothing alarming here.
However, the world's leading business travel agency has reportedly appointed advisors to look into the possibility of selling to potential buyers. Even though, according to Bloomberg's sources, " there is no certainty that a transaction will be completed, and the company could also choose to remain independent" . When questioned by Bloomberg, Skift and Business Travel News Europe, Amex GBT refused to comment on the rumours and speculation.
Focused on business travel management and separated from American Express since 2014 with the sale of a stake to a group of investors including Certares - the major payments player nonetheless remaining Amex GBT's main shareholder - TMC went public in May 2022 with the backing of investment fund Apollo. A move very recently followed by one of its competitors, Navan, listed on Nasdaq for less than a month. The two players currently have fairly similar market capitalisations, with Navan worth around $3.7 billion and Amex GBT $4 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.
If the sale of the leading TMC is confirmed, who could be the potential buyers? According to a source close to the matter quoted by Skift, this sale process could attract players close to Amex GBT, notably Expedia, which has sold its B2B solution Egencia back to the TMC in 2021 and signed a 10-year marketing partnership with Amex GBT at the same time. Similarly, SAP Concur, which has just signed a strategic alliance with Amex GBT for the joint Complete platform, is also among the potential buyers.
And what about Google? In the face of the AI revolution, Skift talks about the interest for Amex GBT in technological platforms that " could include Google as a minority shareholder The company has also been involved in a number of venture capital transactions, including the acquisition of the "G" brand through its venture capital arm Capital G, which holds minority stakes in Airbnb, Stripe and Robinhood. A new soap opera on the horizon after the Amex-CWT merger?
