Amex will get $900 million as part of a major deal to share ownership of its Business Travel Division with the Certares investment group.
The Certares-led collection of companies includes Qatar Holding, BlackRock and Macquarie Capital, as well as Certares itself, and will hold a 50% stake in the division.
The announcement comes six months after Amex disclosed it was in talks to create a joint venture for its business travel division, a move it said at the time would yield somewhere in the region of $700 million to $1 billion.
Former-president of Global Commercial Services at Amex, Bill Glenn, will move to the joint venture to become its be president and CEO.
The JV is being touted as a significant repositioning of the BTD division, with officials touting the deal will "support digital and premium servicing capabilities, mobile applications, improved reporting tools and itinerary management solutions".
Glenn says:
"To our knowledge, this would be the largest single investment made in a travel management company. We believe it will accelerate our growth by funding meaningful advances in technology, analytics and service excellence that will benefit suppliers, partners and our global customer base."
The deal is expected to close during the second quarter of 2014.
In January 2013, Amex announced job cuts of about 5,400 to be made over the course of the year, predominantly from the business travel division.
At the time, chief executive Kenneth Chenault said the company was working to transform itself for the digital market. He also talked about an aggressive shift to online interactions.
NB:Corporate travel image via Shutterstock.