American Express Global Business Travel Reports Strong Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2025 Financial Results

Reiterated Full-Year 2026 Guidance for Revenue Growth of 19% to 21% and $615 Million to $645 Million in Adjusted EBITDA

Doubled Share Buyback Authorization to $600 Million

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–American Express Global Business Travel (“Amex GBT” or the “Company”) (NYSE: GBTG), a leading technology and services company for travel, expense, and meetings & events today reported fourth quarter and full-year 2025 financial results.

Fourth Quarter & Full-Year 2025 Financial Summary

Business Highlights

• Strong financial results. Q4 and FY’25 results in line with expectations and reiterated FY’26 guidance for 19% to 21% revenue growth and $615 million to $645 million in Adjusted EBITDA.
• Continued share gains. Total New Wins Value of $3.3 billion and 96% customer retention rate in 2025, excluding CWT.
• Delivering on growth strategy. Launched “Complete,” a new flagship solution for travel and expense, in partnership with SAP Concur. Launching next-gen Egencia in April with new AI features and user experience and full integration to SAP Concur expense. Closed transformative CWT acquisition in September 2025.
• AI is powering further growth and value creation. Leveraging AI to 1) revolutionize the customer experience, 2) power the agentic transformation of B2B travel and 3) reduce operating costs.
• Doubled share repurchase authorization to $600 million. Reflects confidence in ability to deliver growth, AI-enabled product innovation, margin expansion and cash generation while maintaining a strong balance sheet and delivering attractive capital returns to shareholders.

Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Highlights

(Changes compared to prior year period unless otherwise noted)

• Revenue of $792 million increased 34%. Within this, Travel Revenue increased 36% due to Transaction Growth of 37% and TTV growth of 45%, both driven by the acquisition of CWT, business travel demand and share gains. Product and Professional Services Revenue increased 27%. Excluding the impact of CWT, revenue growth was 8%.
• Total operating expenses of $763 million increased 36%, primarily due to the consolidation of CWT, Transaction Growth which resulted in increased cost of revenue, increased investments in technology and content and sales and marketing costs, partially offset by $37 million of cost transformation benefits and $5 million of CWT synergies. Additionally, there were higher restructuring and integration costs related to cost transformation and CWT synergies and higher depreciation and amortization.
• Net income of $83 million improved by $97 million, primarily due to fair value movements on earnout derivative liabilities and gain on remeasurement of previously held equity interest.
• Net cash provided by operating activities totaled $52 million, a decrease of 23%, primarily due to net working capital usage and increased cash restructuring costs primarily related to CWT synergies, partially offset by stronger profitability.
• Free Cash Flow totaled $13 million, a decrease of 66%, due to lower net cash from operating activities and increased purchase of property and equipment primarily due to capitalized technology investments.

Full-Year 2025 Financial Highlights

(Changes compared to prior year period unless otherwise noted)

• Revenue of $2,718 million increased 12%. Within this, Travel Revenue increased 12% due to Transaction Growth of 14% and TTV growth of 17%, both driven by the acquisition of CWT, business travel demand and share gains. Product and Professional Services Revenue increased 15%.
• Total operating expenses of $2,588 million increased 12%, primarily due to the consolidation of CWT, Transaction Growth which resulted in increased cost of revenue, increased investments in technology and content and sales and marketing costs, partially offset by $103 million of cost transformation benefits and $5 million of CWT synergies. Additionally, there were higher restructuring costs related to cost transformation and CWT synergies and higher depreciation and amortization.
• Net income of $111 million improved by $245 million, primarily due to increased operating income, gain on remeasurement of previously held equity interest, fair value movements on earnout derivative liabilities, loss on extinguishment of debt in the prior year period and lower interest expense.
• Net cash provided by operating activities totaled $233 million, a decrease of 15%, primarily due to the non-recurrence of a prior year benefit from Egencia net working capital optimization, higher cash taxes and higher cash M&A costs related to CWT, partially offset by higher operating income and cash inflows from termination of interest rate swap contracts.
• Free Cash Flow totaled $104 million, a decrease of 37%, due to lower net cash from operating activities primarily related to CWT and increased purchase of property and equipment primarily due to capitalized technology investments.

Reiterated Full-Year 2026 Guidance

Amex GBT will host its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 investor conference call today at 9:00 a.m. E.T. The live webcast and accompanying slide presentation can be accessed on the Amex GBT Investor Relations website at investors.amexglobalbusinesstravel.com. A replay of the event will be available on the website for at least 90 days following the event.

Glossary of Terms

See the “Glossary of Terms” for the definitions of certain terms used within this press release.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

The Company refers to certain financial measures that are not recognized under GAAP in this press release, including EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Operating Expenses, Adjusted Gross Profit, Free Cash Flow and Net Debt. See “Non-GAAP Financial Measures” below for an explanation of these non-GAAP financial measures and “Tabular Reconciliations for Non-GAAP Financial Measures” below for reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP measures.

About American Express Global Business Travel

American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) is a leading software and services company for travel, expense, and meetings & events. We have built the most valuable marketplace in travel with the most comprehensive and competitive content. A choice of solutions brought to you through a strong combination of technology and people, delivering the best experiences, proven at scale. With travel professionals and business partners in more than 140 countries, our solutions deliver savings, flexibility, and service from a brand you can trust – Amex GBT.

Visit amexglobalbusinesstravel.com for more information about Amex GBT. Follow @amexgbt on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Glossary of Terms

• AI refers to Artificial Intelligence.
• B2B refers to business-to-business.
• Customer retention rate is calculated based on transactions.
• CWT refers to refers to CWT Holdings, LLC.
• M&A refers to mergers and acquisitions
• LTM refers to the last twelve months.
• Total New Wins Value is calculated using expected annual Total Transaction Value (TTV) over the contract term from all new client wins over the last twelve months.
• Total Transaction Value or TTV refers to the sum of the total price paid by travelers for air, hotel, rail, car rental and cruise bookings, including taxes and other charges applied by suppliers at point of sale, less cancellations and refunds.
• Transaction Growth represents year-over-year increase or decrease as a percentage of the total transactions, including air, hotel, car rental, rail or other travel-related transactions, recorded at the time of booking, and is calculated on a net basis to exclude cancellations, refunds and exchanges. To calculate year-over-year growth or decline, we compare the total number of transactions in the comparative previous period/ year to the total number of transactions in the current period/year in percentage terms. We have presented Transaction Growth on a net basis to exclude cancellations, refunds and exchanges as management believes this better aligns Transaction Growth with the way we measure TTV and earn revenue. Prior period Transaction Growth percentages have been recalculated and represented to conform to current period presentation.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We report our financial results in accordance with GAAP. Our non-GAAP financial measures are provided in addition to, and should not be considered as an alternative to, other performance or liquidity measures derived in accordance with GAAP. Non-GAAP financial measures have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them either in isolation or as a substitute for analyzing our results as reported under GAAP. In addition, because not all companies use identical calculations, the presentations of our non-GAAP financial measures may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures of other companies and can differ significantly from company to company.

Management believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide users of our financial information with useful supplemental information that enables a better comparison of our performance or liquidity across periods. In addition, we use certain of these non-GAAP financial measures as performance measures as they are important metrics used by management to evaluate and understand the underlying operations and business trends, forecast future results and determine future capital investment allocations. We also use certain of our non-GAAP financial measures as indicators of our ability to generate cash to meet our liquidity needs and to assist our management in evaluating our financial flexibility, capital structure and leverage. These non-GAAP financial measures supplement comparable GAAP measures in the evaluation of the effectiveness of our business strategies, to make budgeting decisions, and/or to compare our performance and liquidity against that of other peer companies using similar measures.

We define Adjusted Gross Profit as revenue less cost of revenue (excluding depreciation and amortization).

We define Adjusted Gross Profit Margin as Adjusted Gross Profit divided by revenue.

We define EBITDA as net income (loss) before interest income, interest expense, gain (loss) on early extinguishment of debt, benefit from (provision for) income taxes and depreciation and amortization.

We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) before interest income, interest expense, gain (loss) on early extinguishment of debt, benefit from (provision for) income taxes and depreciation and amortization and as further adjusted to exclude costs that management believes are non-core to the underlying business of the Company, consisting of restructuring, exit and related charges, integration costs, costs related to mergers and acquisitions, non-cash equity-based compensation and related employer taxes, long-term incentive plan costs, certain corporate costs, fair value movements on earnout derivative liabilities, gain (loss) on remeasurement of previously held equity investment, foreign currency gains (losses) and non-service components of net periodic pension benefit (cost).

We define Adjusted EBITDA Margin as Adjusted EBITDA divided by revenue.

We define Adjusted Operating Expenses as total operating expenses excluding depreciation and amortization and costs that management believes are non-core to the underlying business of the Company, consisting of restructuring, exit and related charges, integration costs, costs related to mergers and acquisitions, non-cash equity-based compensation and related employer taxes, long-term incentive plan costs and certain corporate costs.

Adjusted Gross Profit, Adjusted Gross Profit Margin, EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin and Adjusted Operating Expenses are supplemental non-GAAP financial measures of operating performance that do not represent and should not be considered as alternatives to gross profit, net income (loss) or total operating expenses, as determined under GAAP. In addition, these measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies.

These non-GAAP measures have limitations as analytical tools, and these measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of the Company’s results or expenses as reported under GAAP. Some of these limitations are that these measures do not reflect:

• changes in, or cash requirements for, our working capital needs or contractual commitments;
• our interest expense, or the cash requirements to service interest or principal payments on our indebtedness;
• our tax expense, or the cash requirements to pay our taxes;
• recurring, non-cash expenses of depreciation and amortization of property and equipment and definite-lived intangible assets and, although these are non-cash expenses, the assets being depreciated and amortized may have to be replaced in the future;
• the non-cash expense of stock-based compensation, which has been, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, an important part of how we attract and retain our employees and a significant recurring expense in our business;
• restructuring, mergers and acquisition and integration costs, all of which are intrinsic of our acquisitive business model; and
• impact on earnings or changes resulting from matters that are non-core to our underlying business, as we believe they are not indicative of our underlying operations.

Contacts

Investor Contact: Jennifer Thorington, [email protected]
Media Contact: Megan Kat, [email protected]

Read full story here