Cleary Gottlieb is representing American Express (NYSE: AXP) in the equity recapitalization of American Express Global Business Travel (GBT), a joint venture between American Express and an investor group led by Certares.
In connection with the proposed transaction, American Express will retain its 50% ownership stake, while the Certares-led investor group holding the other 50%, including Qatar Investment Authority, certain funds managed by BlackRock, and Teacher Retirement System of Texas, will now include The Carlyle Group’s (NASDAQ: CG) long-duration private equity platform, Carlyle Global Partners, and GIC, an institutional investor. In addition, the University of California Office of the Chief Investment Officer of the Regents and Kaiser Permanente have also joined the investor group. Greg O’Hara, the founder and senior managing director of Certares, will continue as executive chairman of the GBT board of directors. The transaction was announced on December 17, 2019.
Since it was formed in 2014, the joint venture has established its position as the world’s largest travel management company. GBT has more than 18,000 employees across a network of more than 140 countries and manages more than $35 billion of corporate travel every year.
For more information, please see the press release here.