American Express GBT Closes KDS Acquisition
American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) reports the completion of the acquisition of KDS, a global provider of integrated travel technology headquartered in France.
Announced in August, the acquisition is part of GBT’s broader investment strategy to develop a suite of integrated digital services for business travellers, bolstering its core technology platform with KDS’ integrated travel SaaS technology.
GBT Chief Executive Doug Anderson commented, “The acquisition of KDS is pivotal for GBT. We are focused on providing solutions that optimize the traveller experience within the managed travel environment. Our strategy is to develop and acquire the tools to deliver on that objective. KDS allows us to offer the first seamless end-to-end shopping and booking experience centred on today’s business traveller.”
Dean Forbes, CEO of KDS, added that, “the immediate focus will be on developing our solutions further as part of a global travel leader and continuing to work with all our partners and customers for the benefit of their business travel.”
All KDS employees have officially joined the GBT family of 12,000 employees globally.