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American Express Company

Financial Services / PaymentsFounded 1850
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Company data updated: September 2026

Acquisitions

American Express Acquisitions

8

Major Deals Covered

$2.6B

Disclosed Deal Value

What are American Express's biggest acquisitions?

American Express's largest disclosed acquisition here is IDS Financial Services for $773M in 1984. This page covers 8 major deals from 1984 to 2025, each with its price where disclosed and the reason behind it.

Major deals covered
8
Largest deal
IDS Financial Services ($773M)
First deal
1984
Most recent
2025
CompanyYearPricePurpose
IDS Financial Services1984$773.0MAmerican Express bought IDS Financial Services, a Minneapolis financial planning and insurance company, in 1984 as part of chief executive James Robinson III's plan to offer investment advice, insurance and payments under a single brand. The target market was middle-class American families buying comprehensive financial plans, and Amex believed its brand and distribution could grow IDS faster than IDS could grow alone.
Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb1984$360.0MAmerican Express bought the investment bank Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb in 1984 to add capital markets and investment banking to its payments and financial planning businesses. James Robinson III expected the combination of Amex's wealthy client base with Lehman's Wall Street relationships to produce cross-selling and fee income.
Thomas Cook corporate travel and United States travel offices1994$375.0MAmerican Express agreed in September 1994 to pay $375 million for the international business travel operations of the Thomas Cook Group and for 385 United States travel offices held by its American licensee. The aim was to consolidate corporate travel management, then a fragmented market, and to remove a direct competitor in both business travel and traveler's cheques.
Loyalty Partner2011$660.0MAmerican Express announced in December 2010 that it would buy Loyalty Partner, the German company behind the Payback coalition loyalty program in Germany, Poland and India, in a transaction valuing the business at $660 million, made up of $566 million in cash plus $94 million of equity retained by Loyalty Partner management. The purchase closed in the first quarter of 2011. It brought roughly 34 million loyalty customers and a data analytics business serving retailers that did not necessarily accept American Express cards.
Resy2019UndisclosedAmerican Express announced on May 15, 2019 that it would buy Resy, a restaurant reservation and restaurant-management platform, and completed the deal in August 2019. Terms were not disclosed. Dining is the largest travel and entertainment spending category on Amex cards, and reservations are a benefit the company can deliver directly rather than through a partner.
Kabbage2020UndisclosedAmerican Express announced on August 17, 2020 that it had agreed to acquire substantially all of Kabbage, a financial technology company providing cash flow management and lending to United States small businesses, including its team, product suite, data platform and intellectual property. Neither company disclosed a price. The purpose was to move American Express beyond cards into a broader small business financial platform.
Tock2024$400.0MAmerican Express agreed in June 2024 to buy Tock, a reservation, table and event management platform, from Squarespace for $400 million in cash. Tock serves restaurants, wineries and event venues, and pairing it with Resy widened the range of dining inventory American Express can offer card members in its largest travel and entertainment spending category.
Center2025UndisclosedAmerican Express agreed on March 6, 2025 to buy Center, a Seattle-area software company that modernizes expense management for small and mid-sized businesses, and completed the purchase on April 16, 2025. Terms were not disclosed. The goal was to combine commercial card payments with automated expense capture and accounting workflows in one platform.
What companies has American Express bought?
Major acquisitions by American Express documented here include IDS Financial Services (1984), Loyalty Partner (2011), Tock (2024), Thomas Cook corporate travel and United States travel offices (1994) and Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb (1984).
What is American Express's most recent acquisition?
The most recent American Express acquisition documented here is Center, in 2025.

Center

2025

Why

American Express agreed on March 6, 2025 to buy Center, a Seattle-area software company that modernizes expense management for small and mid-sized businesses, and completed the purchase on April 16, 2025. Terms were not disclosed. The goal was to combine commercial card payments with automated expense capture and accounting workflows in one platform.

Impact

Center gave American Express expense management software to sell alongside its corporate and small business cards, an area where fintech competitors had been winning mid-market customers on software rather than on card economics.

Outcome

The FY2025 Form 10-K states that American Express is enhancing its non-card business-to-business payment products and cash and expense management solutions through the 2025 acquisition of Center. In April 2026 the company followed it by agreeing to buy Hyper, an agentic expense management company.

Source →

Tock

2024

$400M

Why

American Express agreed in June 2024 to buy Tock, a reservation, table and event management platform, from Squarespace for $400 million in cash. Tock serves restaurants, wineries and event venues, and pairing it with Resy widened the range of dining inventory American Express can offer card members in its largest travel and entertainment spending category.

Impact

Tock added restaurant and venue software customers and event ticketing capability that Resy did not cover, giving American Express two reservation platforms and a deeper commercial relationship with the hospitality sector.

Outcome

The FY2025 Form 10-K describes a dining platform spanning the Resy and Tock networks of restaurants and venues as one of the products offered to card members.

Source →

Kabbage

2020

Why

American Express announced on August 17, 2020 that it had agreed to acquire substantially all of Kabbage, a financial technology company providing cash flow management and lending to United States small businesses, including its team, product suite, data platform and intellectual property. Neither company disclosed a price. The purpose was to move American Express beyond cards into a broader small business financial platform.

Impact

The deal brought a working small business lending and cash flow platform, a substantial customer base and a team experienced in alternative underwriting, capabilities American Express could not have built in a comparable timeframe.

Outcome

Kabbage technology became American Express Business Blueprint, the cash flow management and lending tool inside the company's small business offering, which now sits alongside the expense management software added with Center in 2025.

Source →

Resy

2019

Why

American Express announced on May 15, 2019 that it would buy Resy, a restaurant reservation and restaurant-management platform, and completed the deal in August 2019. Terms were not disclosed. Dining is the largest travel and entertainment spending category on Amex cards, and reservations are a benefit the company can deliver directly rather than through a partner.

Impact

Resy became the base for Global Dining Access and for dining statement credits on the Gold and Platinum Cards, including the $400 Resy credit added in the 2025 Platinum refresh, and it gives American Express a direct software relationship with restaurants as well as with diners.

Outcome

Resy now sits alongside Tock in a dining platform that the FY2025 Form 10-K describes as spanning its network of Resy and Tock restaurants and venues.

Source →

Loyalty Partner

2011

$660M

Why

American Express announced in December 2010 that it would buy Loyalty Partner, the German company behind the Payback coalition loyalty program in Germany, Poland and India, in a transaction valuing the business at $660 million, made up of $566 million in cash plus $94 million of equity retained by Loyalty Partner management. The purchase closed in the first quarter of 2011. It brought roughly 34 million loyalty customers and a data analytics business serving retailers that did not necessarily accept American Express cards.

Impact

Loyalty Partner gave American Express operating experience in coalition loyalty, where points are earned and redeemed across a network of participating merchants, and a view of consumer spending in Germany and other markets at a scale its own card network could not reach there.

Outcome

American Express still operates Payback, and loyalty coalition fees are one of the components it lists inside service fees and other revenue in its FY2025 Form 10-K.

Source →

Thomas Cook corporate travel and United States travel offices

1994

$375M

Why

American Express agreed in September 1994 to pay $375 million for the international business travel operations of the Thomas Cook Group and for 385 United States travel offices held by its American licensee. The aim was to consolidate corporate travel management, then a fragmented market, and to remove a direct competitor in both business travel and traveler's cheques.

Impact

The purchase made American Express the largest corporate travel management operation in the world and deepened the corporate relationships that its corporate card business relied on. It fitted Harvey Golub's strategy of reinvesting in payments and travel after the conglomerate era.

Outcome

The corporate travel unit was later placed in a joint venture with an investor group led by Certares in 2014 and became American Express Global Business Travel, which American Express accounted for as an equity method investee in its FY2025 Form 10-K.

Source →

IDS Financial Services

1984

$773M

Why

American Express bought IDS Financial Services, a Minneapolis financial planning and insurance company, in 1984 as part of chief executive James Robinson III's plan to offer investment advice, insurance and payments under a single brand. The target market was middle-class American families buying comprehensive financial plans, and Amex believed its brand and distribution could grow IDS faster than IDS could grow alone.

Impact

IDS, rebranded American Express Financial Advisors, outlasted the other Robinson-era deals. A model built on thousands of licensed advisers writing financial plans for individual clients produced steady fee income across several economic cycles and contributed meaningfully to earnings through the late 1980s and 1990s while the brokerage and investment banking businesses struggled.

Outcome

American Express spun the business off in 2005 as Ameriprise Financial, letting shareholders value the financial planning franchise separately from payments. Ameriprise has since grown into a substantial independent financial services company, which makes the 1984 purchase one of the better outcomes of the conglomerate era.

Source →

Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb

1984

$360M

Why

American Express bought the investment bank Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb in 1984 to add capital markets and investment banking to its payments and financial planning businesses. James Robinson III expected the combination of Amex's wealthy client base with Lehman's Wall Street relationships to produce cross-selling and fee income.

Impact

The deal ran into trouble almost immediately. Amex's service-oriented consumer culture clashed with Lehman's trading floor, senior bankers unused to corporate review processes left at high rates, and the expected cross-selling never materialized in any scale.

Outcome

American Express spun the Lehman Brothers unit off as an independent public company in 1994 after years of losses and management turmoil. Lehman then operated on its own until its September 2008 bankruptcy, the largest in American history, which has given the 1984 purchase a historical significance well beyond its original strategic failure.

Source →

American Express Company's Growth & Acquisition Strategy

Amex's growth strategy is aggressively focused on capturing the next generation of wealthy spenders: Millennials and Gen Z. They have successfully revamped their well-known Platinum and Gold cards with perks tailored specifically for younger demographics (like Uber credits and dining rewards), resulting in rapid growth among younger cohorts. Additionally, they are heavily targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), aggressively expanding their corporate card and B2B payment processing services to capture large commercial spending volumes.

How American Express Company Makes Money

American Express runs a closed-loop payments business: it issues the card, owns the network, underwrites the credit and contracts with the merchant. Visa and Mastercard only move the transaction between an issuing bank and an acquiring bank, so they never see both sides of a purchase. Because Amex holds every side of the relationship, it keeps the whole merchant discount fee rather than sharing it, and in FY2025 discount revenue equalled 2.24 percent of the $1,669.8 billion its card members billed. The trade-off is price: merchants pay more to accept Amex than to accept an open-loop card, so the company has to justify the rate with card members who spend more. Average spending per proprietary basic card member was $25,453 in 2025. Amex funds that proposition with annual fees, which reached $10.0 billion in net card fees in FY2025 at an average of $117 per proprietary card, and spends the money back on Membership Rewards, the Centurion Lounge network, Resy and Tock dining access and service. Since converting to a bank holding company in 2008 it has also lent against card balances through American Express National Bank, producing $17.4 billion of net interest income in FY2025.

American Express Acquisitions FAQ

When and why did American Express acquire restaurant reservation platform Resy?

American Express announced the purchase of Resy, a restaurant reservation and restaurant-management platform, on May 15, 2019 and completed it that August. Terms were not disclosed. Resy became the base for Global Dining Access and for the dining credits on the Gold and Platinum Cards.

When did American Express acquire B2B automated accounts payable platform Nipendo?

In January 2023, American Express acquired Israel-based Nipendo to enhance its digital B2B payments network, automating invoice reconciliation and supplier payment workflows for corporate enterprise clients.

When did American Express acquire digital small business lender Kabbage?

American Express acquired the technology platform, customer assets, and digital lending platform of Kabbage in October 2020, integrating its digital banking, automated cash flow, and working capital lines into American Express Business.

When did American Express acquire luxury travel and event booking platform LoungeBuddy?

American Express agreed in March 2019 to buy LoungeBuddy, an app for discovering and booking airport lounges, and expected to close the deal in April 2019. The technology was folded into lounge access inside the Amex mobile app.

When did American Express acquire restaurant discovery guide Pocket Concierge in Japan?

In January 2019, American Express acquired Tokyo-based restaurant reservation platform Pocket Concierge, expanding exclusive fine dining booking access for cardmembers across Japan and East Asia.

What major brokerage and investment banking firms did Amex acquire and later divest?

In the 1980s, Amex acquired brokerage giant Shearson Loeb Rhoades (1981), Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb (1984), and E.F. Hutton (1987), later spinning off Lehman Brothers and selling brokerage assets in the 1990s to focus on payments.

When did American Express acquire Thomas Cook's corporate travel business?

American Express acquired the corporate travel operations of Thomas Cook Group in 1994 for $375 million, creating the world's largest corporate business travel agency management company (later spun off as American Express Global Business Travel / GBT).

How did American Express spin off its corporate travel management division into Amex GBT?

In 2014 American Express placed its corporate travel unit into a joint venture with an investor group led by Certares, retaining a 50 percent stake. The business became American Express Global Business Travel, which American Express accounted for as an equity method investee in its FY2025 Form 10-K while licensing the brand to it.

What did American Express buy in 2024 and 2025?

American Express agreed in June 2024 to buy the reservation platform Tock from Squarespace for $400 million in cash, and completed the purchase of Center, an expense management software company, on April 16, 2025. In April 2026 it agreed to acquire Hyper, an agentic expense management company.

Why did Amex acquire Kabbage?

Amex acquired the fintech startup Kabbage to aggressively expand its footprint in providing automated, digital working capital loans to small businesses.

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Content is for informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Data sourced from SEC filings, annual reports, and public records. See our full disclaimer and methodology.