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Ziad Minkara, fondateur et PDG du groupe S4BT et Jay Virdee, PDG d'HotelHub - Photo : S4BT

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The S4BT Group, a specialist in business travel, has just acquired Travel Centric Technology, the London-based parent company of HotelHub, a hotel technology platform serving international corporate travel agencies.

This supplier is “specialized in consolidating fragmented hotel content from centralized distribution systems (GDS) and non-GDS sources within a single operating environment,” S4BT said in a press release.

“Its platform is integrated into the workflows of major international corporate travel agencies and handles complex and high-volume hotel transactions.”

With this acquisition, the Group now represents eight brands specializing in business travel: CDS, Goelett, Corporate Rates Club (CRC), TMS, SIAP, Methodica, Trevium and HotelHub and offers a business hotel service integrated across all TMCs, based on interoperable platforms and open APIs.

“Our ambition is clear: to build the most integrated and technologically advanced business travel platform,” said Ziad Minkara, founder and CEO of the S4BT group in this press release.

“The acquisition of HotelHub marks a decisive step in this direction. It propels S4BT into a new dimension, strengthens our position and ensures a solid presence in the United Kingdom. It is not a finality, but a foundation on which we will continue to invest, integrate and develop our solutions.”

More than 60,000 hotel reservations per day

HotelHub thus enables S4BT to extend its presence in the United Kingdom, but also to increase the Group’s engineering capabilities, with 50% of the workforce (out of the Group’s 700 employees) now dedicated to technological and product development.

Moreover, HotelHub’s hotel infrastructure will be integrated into S4BT’s reservation platforms, payment solutions and electronic invoicing tools, “providing better operational control and added value to corporate travel agencies and client companies.”

The innovation efforts, notably in AI-driven rate optimization, automated reconciliation and analysis of hotel performance, should improve revenue quality and the operational efficiency of partner corporate travel agencies.

Finally, this integration will enable S4BT to process more than $5 billion in annual hotel reservations and more than 60,000 hotel bookings per day, thanks to access to more than 2 million properties worldwide.

Read also: CDS launches S4BT, Solutions for Business Travel: a European champion in corporate travel

Amex GBT va passer sous pavillon privé après son rachat par Long Lake - DepositPhotos.com, Rawpixel

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American Express Global Business Travel a annoncé, le 4 mai 2026, avoir conclu un accord définitif en vue de son acquisition par Long Lake Management, dans le cadre d’une transaction d’une valeur d’environ 6,3 milliards de dollars.

“Aux termes de l’accord, les actionnaires d’Amex GBT recevront 9,50 $ par action en espèces, ce qui représente une prime de 60,2% par rapport au cours de clôture de l’action Amex GBT le 1er mai 2026, le dernier jour de bourse complet avant l’annonce de la transaction, et une prime d’environ 65,1% par rapport au prix moyen pondéré par les volumes de l’action Amex GBT pour les 30 jours se terminant le 1er mai 2026“, selon le communiqué officiel.

La transaction devrait être finalisée au cours du second semestre 2026, sous réserve notamment de l’approbation des actionnaires d’Amex GBT et l’obtention des autorisations réglementaires requises.

Une fois la transaction finalisée, les actions ordinaires d’Amex GBT ne seront plus cotées en bourse et Amex GBT deviendra une société privée.

A noter qu’American Express, Expedia, Qatar Investment Authority et BlackRock, représentant collectivement 69% des actions de GBT, ont conclu des accords de vote en faveur de la transaction.

Lire aussi : Read also: What challenges for business travel in 2026?

Behind this acquisition, an acceleration of the transformation of business travel

The deal is financed by a combination of equity contributed by Long Lake’s existing investors and Koch Equity Development LLC (“Koch”), Koch, Inc.’s main investment and acquisition arm, and by a debt financing guaranteed by JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi and MUFG.

It marks the shift of a key publicly traded player to a private model, potentially more agile in its technology investments.

“Thanks to Long Lake’s applied artificial intelligence capabilities, our travel expertise, our global reach and decades of trusted relationships with clients and suppliers, Amex GBT is a driver of transformation for business travel“, stated Paul Abbott, Chief Executive Officer of Amex GBT.

“The future of business travel will rest on seamless collaboration between AI and human agents, serving every traveler: shorter booking lead times, proactive handling of contingencies and simplified travel administration. In partnership with Long Lake, Amex GBT will continue to invest heavily in these technologies and maintain its status for excellent customer service” added, for his part, Alex Taubman, co-founder and CEO of Long Lake.

For reference, American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) is a leader in software and services for travel, expense management and the organization of meetings and events, operating in more than 140 countries.

Read also: Amex GBT, Marietton, ATPI: the behind-the-scenes of consolidation in business travel