American Express Global Business Travel has added four new investors to the consortium that owns 50 percent of the corporate travel management giant. Under the equity recapitalization, Carlyle Global Partners, the University of California Office of the Chief Investment Officer of the Regents, Kaiser Permanente and GIC—the government of Singapore's foreign investment arm—will join the Certares-led investor group that owns half of Amex GBT.
Greg O'Hara, the founder and senior managing director of Certares, will continue as executive chairman of the GBT board of directors, the company said. Meanwhile, Paul Abbott, who took over as Amex GBT's CEO in September, will continue in that role.
The new investors join existing Amex GBT equity partners Certares, Qatar Investment Authority, funds managed by BlackRock and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas in owning half of the company. American Express retains its 50 percent ownership stake in Amex GBT, which was spun off into a separate entity in 2014 and currently is ranked as the world's largest TMC, managing more than $35 billion in corporate travel annually.
Earlier this month, Amex GBT announced that president Philippe Chereque would step down in March 2020, with Andrew Crawley assuming the newly created role of chief commercial officer upon Chereque's departure.