American Express Global Business Travel to acquire Egencia
With a forecast of rising business travel in the wake of mass vaccination and the opening of borders, commercial payment firms are positioning themselves to cover this space with partnerships or acquisition with travel management companies.
This week, American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) has announced that it has made a binding offer to acquire Egencia which is Expedia Group’s corporate travel arm. Under this transaction, Expedia Group would become a shareholder and enter a ‘long-term strategic commercial agreement with GBT’ as mentioned in the press note.
“Egencia would be strengthened by GBT’s complementary technology, enterprise capabilities and cutting-edge content. This would create new opportunities for both multinational and small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) clients, suppliers and the talented teams within both organizations,” said Paul Abbott, Global Business Travel’s CEO.
Last month, Mastercard and Amadeus partnered for virtual cards in travel.
As per the press release, this transaction would bring Egencia into GBT and GBT would continue to invest in the Egencia brand, its resources and technology. Together they would provide ‘comprehensive technology’ and ‘customer solution’ across segments in business travel.
Noted in the press release, teaming of Egencia with GBT’s Supply MarketPlace would give clients more choice and suppliers more access to business travellers.
Ariane Gorin, President of Expedia Business Services in the press release noted that the combination of GBT’s solutions and Egencia’s technology would help create business solutions travel offerings for customers and suppliers and further noted that “long-term accommodations supply agreement with Expedia Partner Solutions (EPS) would enhance GBT’s Supply MarketPlace and meaningfully further Expedia Group’s goal of powering businesses across the entire ecosystem”.
The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and it is worthy to note that the financial details of these transactions were not disclosed in the press release.