Global Business Travel Group Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 6, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • The company delivered 20% adjusted EBITDA growth with a 240 basis-point margin expansion in Q2 and generated free cash flow up 148%, prompting a $30 million raise in full-year FCF guidance.
  • In July, Amex GBT refinanced its debt, cutting interest costs by ~180 bps, extending maturities to 2031, upsizing its revolver to €360 million, and reducing net leverage to 2.0× EBITDA.
  • Revenue rose 6% to $625 million, driven by 4% transaction growth (5% ex-France) and 5% TTV growth, with global-multinational transactions up 7% while SME transactions were muted at 1%.
  • SME customers continued to tighten travel spending amid higher interest costs and inflation, leading to softer same-store sales, though new SME wins remain robust and are expected to drive H2 recovery.
  • The planned CWT acquisition is now expected to close in Q1 2025 due to the UK CMA’s Phase 2 review, with the company expressing confidence in ultimately securing approval.
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Earnings Conference Call
Global Business Travel Group Q2 2024
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the American Express Global Business Travel Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, please note today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to the Vice President of Investor Relations, Jennifer Thorington. Please go ahead.

Jennifer Thorington
VP of Investor Relations at American Express Global Business Travel

Hello, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. This morning, we issued an earnings press release, which is available on SEC.gov and our website at investors.amexglobalbusinesstravel.com. A slide presentation, which accompanies today's prepared remarks, is also available on the Amex GBT Investor Relations webpage. We would like to advise you that our comments contain certain forward-looking statements that represent our beliefs or expectations about future events, including industry and macroeconomic trends, cost savings, and acquisition synergies, among others. All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made on today's conference call. More information on these and other risks and uncertainties is contained in our earnings release issued this morning in our other SEC filings.

Jennifer Thorington
VP of Investor Relations at American Express Global Business Travel

Throughout today's call, we will be presenting certain non-GAAP financial measures such as EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted operating expenses, free cash flow, and net debt. All references during today's call to such non-GAAP financial measures have been adjusted to exclude certain items. Definitions of these terms in the most directly comparable GAAP measures and reconciliations for non-GAAP measures are available in the supplemental materials of this presentation and in the earnings release. Participating with me today are Paul Abbott, our Chief Executive Officer, Karen Williams, our Chief Financial Officer, and David Thompson, our Chief Information Technology Officer. Also joining for the Q&A session today is Eric Bock, our Chief Legal Officer and Head of Global M&A. With that, I will now turn the call over to Paul. Paul?

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Thank you, Jennifer. Welcome to everyone, and thank you for joining our second quarter 2024 earnings call. In the second quarter, we delivered strong Adjusted EBITDA growth, significant margin expansion, and accelerated free cash flow. These strong bottom line results were in line with our expectations and put us on track to deliver against our full year guidance. Our focus on controlling costs and driving operating leverage is clearly evidenced in our Q2 results. Adjusted operating expenses increased just 2% compared to 6% revenue growth. We drove significant Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of 240 basis points year-over-year, and Adjusted EBITDA growth of 20%. Our progress to positive and accelerating free cash flow remains an important focus for the company, providing us with additional opportunities to invest in our growth and drive shareholder returns.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

A strong second quarter gives us the confidence to raise our Free Cash Flow guidance for the full year. Last quarter, we mentioned an opportunity to refinance our debt, which we have now successfully completed in July. We've significantly lowered our interest costs, extended our debt maturities, and upsized our revolver, and we continue to deleverage our balance sheet. Increased demand for our software and services resulted in continued share gains on a strong foundation. We have sustained our pace of new wins, and importantly, further increased our customer retention rate. Starting with revenue growth. Revenue was up 6% to reach $625 million for the quarter, driven by growth in transactions, TTV, and increased demand for our products and professional services. Transactions were up 4%.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

We saw a slowdown in the second quarter, driven primarily by slower same-store sales and the impact of the Olympics in France. We expect France will bounce back in the fall. Excluding France, transactions were up 5% in the quarter. TTV grew just ahead of transactions by 5%, driven primarily from the transaction growth, as well as higher average ticket prices and higher average hotel room rates. Again, excluding France, TTV grew by 6% in the quarter. Finally, here, our focus on margin expansion and operating leverage resulted in Adjusted EBITDA growth of 20% to $127 million, with strong margin expansion of 240 basis points. In the second quarter, we continued to see stronger relative performance with our global multinational customers.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

As a reminder, we divide our customer base into two general categories: Global Multinational or GMN, and Small and Medium Enterprises or SME. We generally use annual TTV to divide customers into these categories, although this measure can vary by country and by customer need. We do not have products or services that are offered solely to one size of customer. We tend to find that customers of all sizes may prefer different solutions. Some larger customers may prefer a simpler approach, while some smaller customers may prefer a more bespoke, high-touch global solution. Back to the quarter. Global multinational transactions were up 7%, with double-digit growth in the financial services and pharma industries. We saw very solid growth across our top five industry verticals, which account for over 60% of our total global multinational transactions....

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

It is important to point out that we did see Global Multinational same-store sales growth returning to more normalized levels as we cycle over the technology ramp-up we saw in 2023. We have built the most valuable B2B marketplace in travel, with the most comprehensive and the most competitive content in the industry. Our strong combination of technology and people, delivering the best experiences proven at scale, continues to resonate with customers. Our very high customer retention rate with Global Multinational, which reached 98% over the last 12 months, demonstrates the value that we bring to this important customer segment. GMN TTV growth in the quarter was also strong, up 9%, driven by the transaction growth and a 2 percentage point benefit from higher average ticket prices. Our most recent customer survey is encouraging as we look out over the balance of the year.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

It shows that our top 100 GMN customers now expect travel spend to be up approximately 10% year-over-year for the full year 2024, and this is an increase of two percentage points versus the previous survey in Q1. Driven by improvements in expectations within professional services, mining, and the oil and gas industries. The stronger performance within GMN customers highlights the strength of our diversified model, as SME growth was relatively muted in the quarter. On a transaction basis, GMN growth was 7% versus SME at 1%. As we described last quarter, SME customers have tightened spending controls in the face of sustained higher interest costs and higher inflation. As we also discussed on the call in Q1, this is a broader trend for SME businesses beyond travel spend, given the more challenging macro environment.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

We are confident that as the macroeconomic conditions improve, so will SME growth. This outlook is supported by our most recent customer survey, which showed 82% of our top 120 SME customers expect travel spend to grow or remain flat in the second half of this year. Meanwhile, our new wins performance in SME continues to be strong. As you've heard from our peers in the travel industry, we are seeing a negative impact on business travel in France related to the Olympics. Transactions in France were very strong in the first quarter, but rapidly decelerated and ended the second quarter down 4%. France is actually our second-largest country by transaction volume, so it resulted in a negative impact of one percentage point to year-over-year total transaction and TTV growth in Q2. The impact to our revenue growth is smaller.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Clearly, we believe this is a temporary impact, and we expect to see a return to growth in France from September onwards. Finally, here, growth in our air transactions versus hotel and domestic versus international was consistent in the second quarter. Turning to the commercial highlights. We continue to gain share with total new wins value of $3.3 billion over the last 12 months. Importantly, these share gains are on an even stronger foundation of increasingly impressive customer retention, which is up to 97% at the enterprise level over the last 12 months. Our biggest growth opportunity remains with SME customers, which represents approximately $950 billion of travel spend. We are already a leader in managed travel in this segment, but 70% of this opportunity is not currently in a managed travel program.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

As our new wins progress demonstrates, more and more SME customers are recognizing the value of our software and our services and a professionally managed travel program. As a result, SME new wins over the last twelve months totaled $2 billion. In the second quarter, 79% of our transactions came through digital channels. Over 60% of those digital bookings came through on our own software platforms, Neo and Egencia, which we continue to believe is an area of significant competitive differentiation for us. The collaboration between American Express and our Amex GBT Neo1 spend management platform is progressing well, with pleasing results from Amex GBT's most recent digital marketing lead campaign, targeting the very large opportunity in the SME segment. Amex GBT's Neo1 customers acquired digitally, is on track to grow 2x year-over-year in 2024.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

We continue to invest in NDC and our marketplace to make sure we offer the most comprehensive, the most competitive content in the industry, and to help our partners retail to our premium customers in the most effective way. We're now working with 20 airlines on NDC, and because we own our software solutions in Neo and Egencia, we are very well positioned to lead the changes that are required. We also continue to make business travel more sustainable. Our new agreement with Shell Aviation reinforces our commitment to sustainable aviation fuel. Avelia is one of the world's first blockchain-powered book-and-claim platforms for SAF, and we already have more than 30 corporations and airlines participating in the Avelia program, including customers like Bank of America and Google.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Also, during the second quarter, we published our annual ESG report that highlighted our commitment and our progress in sustainability, governance, and developing the workforce of the future. We continue to successfully work with non-governmental organizations to provide safe travel for vulnerable refugees and get rapid response emergency relief workers to disaster zones. Our inclusion groups continue to thrive. We are growing the number of minority-owned businesses in our supplier portfolio, and we are working with customers to make business travel more accessible for all. I also want to take a moment to thank my colleagues for the clear thinking and swift action that helped mitigate the impact of the recent CrowdStrike incident. We have received countless notes from customers thanking our service team for their outstanding support, helping travelers through the disruption to get where they needed to be.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Finally, as you saw last week, we provided an update on the CWT acquisition, which is now expected to close in the first quarter of 2025. We continue to work collaboratively with the CMA, which intends to continue its review of the transaction in a Phase II investigation, as well as with the Department of Justice in the U.S.. We believe that a comprehensive analysis will clearly show the transaction will create more choice for customers, more efficient distribution for suppliers, while maintaining a highly competitive environment for business travel services. We continue to expect to receive full approval of the transaction. Before turning the call over to Karen to discuss our results and outlook in more detail, I'm very pleased to introduce David Thompson, our CIO.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

We have previously discussed the potential of the investments that we're making in automation and AI to drive further productivity gains and margin expansion, and I'm pleased to say we are making good progress as initiatives now move from the pilot phase to implementation. As I promised on a previous earnings call, David is here to speak more about our progress with RPA, machine learning, and AI, to create better experiences for our customers and to improve productivity. David, over to you.

David Thompson
CIO at American Express Global Business Travel

Thanks, Paul, and hello, everyone. As previously shared on our Q4 earnings call, Amex GBT launched our AI program focused on driving innovation through new and existing artificial intelligence technologies. We are already delivering operational efficiencies through safe, secure, and scaled AI capabilities. Through our AI initiatives, we are adopting next-generation AI technologies focused across four key objectives: First, increase service efficiencies. Second, increase engineering velocity. Third, streamline our financial processes, and fourth, enabling our workforce. These four areas account for approximately 70% of our total Adjusted Operating Expenses, representing a huge opportunity to continue driving productivity improvements. As Karen will elaborate on, automation and AI initiatives are a component of the $100 million in total saving opportunities we expect to deliver this year. Our strategy is broader than generative AI.

David Thompson
CIO at American Express Global Business Travel

We are taking advantage of multiple capabilities, including natural language processing, large language models, third-party SaaS solutions, and our own proprietary machine learning capabilities to accomplish these objectives. And so let me share some of these thoughts and progress to date. Dealing with a massive amount of data is a common challenge for organizations. The effort required to exploit that data is very complex and labor-intensive. Amex GBT is looking to harness the power of AI to gain insights from our two largest communication channels to understand why clients are contacting us, which in turn allows us to direct them to the most efficient channel to meet their needs. To garner these insights, we are utilizing our own internally deployed large language models, which sits behind Amex GBT firewalls and is not available to the public internet.

David Thompson
CIO at American Express Global Business Travel

By supplementing our own LLM with Amex GBT proprietary data and third-party SaaS technologies, we identify customer intent and analyze demand to provide optimized routing and develop future self-service opportunities. We've also focused on increasing our engineering velocity through partnering with third-party SaaS provider, GitHub. With their Copilot, we have measured a 20% productivity increase in test case creation, code documentation, and new user story development. Finally, two proof of concepts have been approved for expansion: our intelligent virtual assistant, or IVA, and our servicing conversational copilot. Data collected at the start of a process is exponentially more valuable than data collected throughout a business process. The IVA is intended to provide customer identification, intent, and authentication to start automating processes prior to connecting to a travel counselor.

David Thompson
CIO at American Express Global Business Travel

Our conversational copilot will be enabled to provide quick access to customer and client information without the need for material investment in structured data stores. The expected outcome of both initiatives is the reduction of manual effort for our servicing team. They will spend less time copying and pasting and more time servicing the customer. That means a better customer experience and lower operating costs. I look forward to continuing to update you on our progress in future calls. And now I'd like to hand it over to Karen to discuss the financial results and 2024 outlook in more detail. Karen?

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

Thank you, David, and hello, everyone. I've previously talked about my three key priorities when it comes to managing our financial performance: accelerating cash flow generation, driving operating leverage and continued margin expansion, and importantly, creating capacity to invest and drive long-term sustained growth, both organically and through strategic M&A. Again, in the second quarter, I am really happy with the progress we have made in all three areas. The significant margin expansion and accelerating Free Cash Flow we reported in the second quarter, a testament to this, in addition to the momentum we are seeing in our investment spend. Now let's turn to our financial performance in more detail. We delivered strong results that were in line with our expectations from an Adjusted EBITDA perspective. Revenue reached $625 million, up 6% year-over-year.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

Revenue yield, which we define as revenue divided by TTV, was 8%, flat year-over-year in the quarter. As we turn to total operating expenses, which are a key area of focus for us, I am incredibly pleased with the momentum we are seeing across the enterprise when it comes to increasing productivity. Importantly, we are delivering cost savings that not only drive our margin expansion, but also drive growth by investing in technology and content, including our software platforms and AI. As a reminder, in 2024, we expect to invest an incremental $40 million with a 70-30 split between OpEx and CapEx. Together, the net impact of these resulted in adjusted operating expense growth of just 2% year-over-year versus revenue growth of 6%. Critically, this strong operating leverage translated into 240 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

Adjusted EBITDA grew 20% to $127 million. I'm very happy with the continued momentum and acceleration when it comes to cash flow generation. In the quarter, we achieved free cash flow generation of $49 million, up 148% year-over-year. This was driven by our working capital actions, which I've discussed previously on our calls. Finally, our leverage ratio on net debt, divided by last twelve months adjusted EBITDA, is 2x as of June 30, 2024. This represents a very significant step down from the 3.5x in June 2023. As Paul mentioned, we executed a successful debt refinancing in July that significantly lowers our interest costs. This is another pivotal moment for the company.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

Our refinancing lowers our interest rate margin by approximately 180 basis points, with the new term loan facility priced at SOFR + 3%. In total, over the past eight months, we have significantly reduced our interest costs. When we consider this recent refinancing and the previously achieved savings from our lowered leverage, our estimated annualized run rate cash interest savings are approximately $40 million, or put it another way, represents a 30% reduction. The debt refinancing further strengthens our financial position by extending our debt maturities to 2031. We also upsized our revolver capacity to be at a more appropriate level from $50 million-$360 million. While we have no plans to draw on the revolver, this increases our liquidity and financial flexibility. Importantly, there are no longer covenants around minimum cash, which previously stood at $200 million.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

Our total debt level remains unchanged. We've already reached the middle of our target leverage ratio of 1.5x-2.5x, and we continue to deleverage. And as a reminder, there is no expected incremental financing required to fund the pending CWT acquisition. I think it's important to note that our refinancing was significantly oversubscribed, and we saw high demand over twice our target, which speaks to the confidence in GBT and the momentum we continue to drive in terms of our performance. The participating lender group includes 94 debt investors and broadens our investor base while bringing in high-quality, blue-chip anchor investors. I am incredibly happy with this outcome. Now, I'd like to turn our attention to the balance of year. We have previously shared our powerful financial model with all of you and how it positions us for industry-leading returns.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

First, we expect business travel demand from our premium customer base to grow above GDP. Second, we expect to continue to grow ahead of the market by driving share gains with our differentiated value proposition. Third is margin expansion. We are laser-focused on a disciplined cost structure and continued margin growth. Our operating leverage is forecasted to drive 18%-32% Adjusted EBITDA growth in 2024. Fourth, we are incredibly focused on optimizing our capital deployment. Our positive and accelerating free cash flow can fund important incremental growth opportunities. And finally, we have shared before how M&A presents an opportunity to further accelerate the strong performance you've already seen in our business, including significant value creation from the pending CWT acquisition. And so let's turn to the full year 2024 guidance.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

Please note, our guidance does not incorporate the impact of CWT, which we now expect to close in the first quarter of 2025. Our H1 results were strong and keep us on track to achieve our 2024 targets. We are hitting the mark on what we can control and delivering solid revenue growth, significant cost savings, strong Adjusted EBITDA growth, and margin expansion. We are reiterating our guidance for full year revenue of $2.43 billion-$2.5 billion, and our full year Adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $450 million-$500 million, representing a growth of 18%-32%. We remain focused on driving continued operating leverage.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

This includes $100 million of cost savings from the carryover actions taken in 2023, plus new cost initiatives and productivity improvements this year, including the progress David described on automation and AI. Executing these savings enables us to deliver strong margin expansion of 150-350 basis points, while making significant investments in future growth, particularly in driving our sales and marketing engine, our software platforms, and AI. The strong margin performance we have already seen in H1 and expectations for continued margin expansion in H2 reinforce our confidence in achieving the midpoint of our Adjusted EBITDA guidance range despite a softer macro environment. And finally, I am delighted to raise our guidance for free cash flow and now expect to generate more than $130 million in 2024, a $30 million increase.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

This means we are now targeting free cash flow conversion of just under 30% of Adjusted EBITDA. This significant step up is primarily driven by the continued benefit from the Egencia working capital initiatives, as well as lower interest expense from our recent refinancing. I will now provide more detail with regards to the second half and how I think about Q3 and Q4 seasonality. In light of the softer macro environment, we now expect revenue growth of 6%-7% year-over-year in H2, with an acceleration due to the phasing of new wins and as we bounce back from one-time factors like the Olympics in France. Combined with H1 performance, that means we expect to be between the lower and midpoint end range of guidance for the full year.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

We expect revenue yield to decline by approximately 10 basis points due to the non-TTV driven components of revenue and continued shift to digital transactions in line with our strategy. We expect this trend to also carry over into 2025. In the second half of this year, we expect Adjusted Operating Expense growth of just 2%-3% versus revenue growth of 6%-7%. From a seasonality perspective, we expect Q3 and Q4 revenue growth to be similar. Revenue yield is expected to be higher in Q4, given phasing consistent with prior years. Expenses are expected to step down sequentially in Q3 and Q4 on an absolute basis. And so I want to end with a reminder of our capital allocation policy, which is focused on cash generation, deleveraging, growth investments, and shareholder returns.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

The priority order for our capital allocation policy is, first, accelerating cash generation with a longer-term Free Cash Flow target of 45%-50% of Adjusted EBITDA. Second, although we are already right in the middle of our 1.5x-2.5x Net Debt to Adjusted EBITDA target, continuing to deleverage. Third, as we continue to see cash flow acceleration and naturally deleverage, it gives us the optionality to invest in technology and organic growth. Fourth, we intend to continue to pursue accretive, highly synergistic M&A opportunities. And finally, we will focus on returning cash to shareholders. To wrap things up, our second quarter performance was solid, with strong bottom line performance.

Karen Williams
CFO at American Express Global Business Travel

With our continued focus on share gains, productivity, margin expansion, investing for long-term growth, and cash flow acceleration, we are clearly delivering on these priorities and remain confident in our full-year 2024 guidance. So we can now move into Q&A. Paul, David, and I are joined by Eric Bock, who is our Chief Legal Officer and Global Head of M&A. Operator, please go ahead and open the line.

Operator

Absolutely!

Operator

... If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove your question, please press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, press star one. As a reminder, if you're using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question. We will pause here briefly as questions are registered. Our first question goes to the line of Lee Horowitz with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Lee Horowitz
Lee Horowitz
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Great, thanks for the question. Can you just maybe expand on the state of the macro environment and your expectations for the rest of the year? We've obviously seen some things slow down. You guys are pointing towards acceleration, but, can you just give a little bit more detail on, on some of the maybe spend pressures you're seeing in SME or, or any more color that you're seeing in this, you know, hyper volatile macro environment at the moment?

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Yeah, sure, Lee, thanks for the question. You know, I would say it's a continuation of the themes we discussed in Q1. You know, we have seen a slowdown in sort of same store sales, particularly in the SME segment. On global multinational, I would say it's more a stabilization. You know, we're starting to grow over the ramp-up that we saw last year, particularly from the tech sector. That was, you know, pretty steep ramp-up in the second quarter of last year. So I would say the outlook for global multinational is actually, you know, pretty stable. You know, SME, you know, same store sales, you know, have softened again a couple of points in that second quarter. But that's a trend, you know, we discussed in the last quarter.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

It's also a trend that's been discussed, you know, on quite a lot of earnings calls across various industries. You know, I think we are seeing a tightening of spending from, you know, small to mid-sized companies that are generally more exposed to interest expense and lending costs. But as it relates to the sort of balance of the year, you know, we're sort of expecting to see a moderate acceleration in SME because of the net new wins that we've already signed as those start to get implemented in the second half of the year. You know, there is also a point of benefit in the sort of work days in the second half of the year.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

So, you know, those two things combined are going to give us a you know very moderate acceleration in the second half of the year. And I think as Karen said in her comments there, we're sort of guiding to around 6%-7% growth in the second half of the year. You know, and we're seeing, you know, 1-2 points of acceleration, but really based on frankly things that we can control, which is the implementation of the new business that we have in the pipeline. We're not assuming any improvement in the macro environment. We're assuming that the kind of underlying trends continue for the second half.

Lee Horowitz
Lee Horowitz
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Great, thanks. And then maybe one on NDC. We often get questions from investors regarding your economics in, so an NDC world. Can you maybe elaborate a bit more on how you expect to keep your economics within the business travel, ecosystem sort of stable as NDC content proliferates?

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Yeah, sure. I mean, there is no change to our economics, whether a transaction comes through EDIFACT or NDC. You know, they are simply different technical standards. You know, NDC provides our business partners, airlines, in particular, the opportunity to retail their products and services in a more flexible, and a more personalized way. And so you should really just think of EDIFACT versus NDC as just being two different technical standards, one being more modern, that gives suppliers more flexibility, but it has no impact to our underlying economics or our contractual relationships with those business partners. You know, we actually think over time, now that we're starting to build NDC volumes, and, you know, I think we'll start to see more introduction of ancillary services and personalized offers.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

You know, we think over time, that could actually create additional revenue opportunity for us because we don't participate really in the revenue stream from ancillary services today, and that's something that, you know, could build over time. So, you know, the real takeaway is no, no difference to our economics today, but some opportunity potentially in the future.

Lee Horowitz
Lee Horowitz
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Lee. Our next question goes to the line of Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.

Duane Pfennigwerth
Duane Pfennigwerth
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Hey, thank you. I thought the France stats were interesting and pretty aligned with what the airlines have been saying. Apologies if you've already said this, but how much was business travel down in France in 2Q? And, you know, how do you see that kind of comparing with the rest of Europe? And then, you know, I guess we're a week or so away from the other side of that, you know, how do you see kind of forward bookings for France in particular, recovering?

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Yeah, thanks, Duane. We did see an impact, and that impact was a little earlier, frankly, than we anticipated. You know, companies actually did start to pull back on travel, you know, into and out of Paris, earlier than we anticipated. We actually had a really strong Q1 in France. I think we were up 13% in the first quarter. We actually ended the second quarter, -4%. So it was actually a, you know, pretty significant swing. But that strong performance in Q1 is what actually gives us confidence that, you know, we're going to see that rebound, I think, once we get into September. And frankly, it, it's really all about September. I mean, you know, July and August are, are slower months for business travel, particularly in Europe and particularly in France....

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

And so if you look at our second quarter, 40% of our sales in the, excuse me, our third quarter, 40% of our third quarter sales come in September. So really the question is more about what are we going to see, you know, kind of post Labor Day in terms of September demand, and do we see that recovery in France? And we believe we will. We believe we'll be back, you know, to solid levels of growth, you know, in France from September onwards.

Duane Pfennigwerth
Duane Pfennigwerth
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Thanks for that. That makes sense. And, I wonder if you'd be willing, can you just touch on what transpired with American this quarter on the travel supplier side? They called out a new agreement with you. Obviously, they had a big push around NDC, but, you know, claimed that the execution of that was, you know, unhelpful to a lot of travel management partners and travel management companies. So I guess if you're willing, like, what role did you play historically at American? You know, how did that role change in their aggressive push to NDC, which they are now unwinding? And does this new agreement kinda get you back to where you were, or are you doing kinda new and different things with them?

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Yeah, look, I think we certainly welcome the changes that American have announced. They've already put their content back into all of the available channels, and I think importantly, they've said publicly, and Robert said this on several occasions, that they kind of recognize the importance of the travel management channel, and they recognize the importance of the relationship with Amex GBT. Also, they have been clear, they recognize the importance of working collaboratively with customers and with distributors to drive the changes that they would like to see in terms of the introduction of modern retailing and NDC. Frankly, we very much welcome that position from American.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

I think, you know, certainly I've said on many times, you know, in public forums, that the best way to drive change in our industry is to make sure that we work collectively to drive that change, and that critically, that the customer is at the center of that change. And that whatever we're trying to do, we have to make sure we bring customers with us, and that we're delivering, you know, more value to customers. And I think, you know, that's certainly what you've heard from me on many occasions, and I think that's what you're hearing from Robert as well. So, yeah, certainly we welcome that change in position from American.

Duane Pfennigwerth
Duane Pfennigwerth
Analyst at Evercore ISI

Okay, thanks for the thoughts.

Operator

Thank you, Duane. Our next question goes to the line of Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Hillary Lee
Hillary Lee
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Hi, guys. This is Hillary Lee on for Toni. I was just wondering if we could possibly go into the CWT acquisition, like, you know, any details that you could provide of why it was pushed into Q1 of 2025?

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Yeah. Sure. Maybe I'll ask Eric to come in here. As you know, Eric, is our Chief Legal Officer and also runs, M&A. So, Eric, maybe you'd like to share your thoughts here.

Eric Bock
Eric Bock
Chief Legal Officer at American Express Global Business Travel

Sure. Hi, Hillary, how are you? Yeah, primarily the reason we switched into Q1 is because of the CMA Phase II, which we announced, and Paul commented on during the main call. That process lasts approximately 24 weeks, so that would, you know, push our original H2 this year into Q1 next year. So that's primarily why we pushed it into Q1.

Hillary Lee
Hillary Lee
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Got it. It wasn't any particular regulatory issue, just pretty much the process itself?

Eric Bock
Eric Bock
Chief Legal Officer at American Express Global Business Travel

Well, you know, the CMA did publish a decision on when they moved to a Phase II. And they, you know. The bar is relatively low when you go from a Phase I to a Phase II. And they were, you know, focused on the competitive environment, which we believe we will be able to show continues to be intense with lots of competitors post-transaction. So we believe the facts will play out in our favor and are very confident that we will close this in the first quarter.

Hillary Lee
Hillary Lee
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Got it. Thanks. And just as a follow-up, well, different subject, but you know, just wondering what kind of trends you saw through the end of 2Q into July and August. I know they're typically slower months for you, like you had said earlier, but just wondering if you've seen anything. And, you know, regarding the CrowdStrike issue, like, how much, if any, effect did it have on the business? Like, did you guys get a lot more, customer service calls or a lot of more cancellations on your end? Just wondering if you could provide any detail there. Thanks.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Sure. Yeah. I mean, the trends into July, as you quite rightly said, Hillary, July, August, tend to be softer months for us. I would say, you know, the trends into July are consistent with the guidance that Karen gave for, you know, H2 earlier. Obviously, we factored those trends into the guidance for the second half of the year. In terms of the impact of CrowdStrike, you know, I have to say that our teams responded to the situation very quickly and very well. We picked up on some issues as our business opened up in, you know, in APAC, that, you know, it was clear that some issues were coming from the CrowdStrike software upgrade, and we work extensively with CrowdStrike.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

And so we were able to, you know, go into the firewall and stop that update, you know, in other parts of the world, including critically the U.S. And so, you know, I'm very pleased to say we actually managed to work through the issues very successfully, and we were operational throughout. And of course, that was extremely important because there was a significant amount of disruption to the airline industry and to our customers. And of course, when there's disruption, that's when our customers, frankly, you know, need us the most. So we certainly saw increased call volume. We obviously saw increased changes, cancellations. We utilized our proactive traveler care solution extensively, which reaches out to customers to advise them of cancellations and changes and proactively supports them to make sure they get where they need to go.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

It was an incredibly busy period. We had a lot of people working, you know, overtime through the weekend to ensure that we're there for our customers. Look, the bottom line is we managed through the process, you know, very, very well. Both our technology teams and our servicing teams were absolutely outstanding. We have had so many notes from customers thanking us for our support through that period. You know, I think, you know, we managed through it very successfully. In terms of the impact to the business, look, I don't expect that to have a material impact.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

You know, yes, there, there was some disruption over a, you know, 2-day or 3-day period, but I, I don't think when we come to the end of the quarter that we're going to see that as a significant impact.

Hillary Lee
Hillary Lee
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Got it. Great. Thanks for the answers and color. Congrats again on the quarter.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. There are currently no other questions registered at this time, so as a reminder, it is star one on your telephone keypad to ask a question. There are no questions waiting at this time, so I'll pass the conference back over to you, Paul, for closing remarks.

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Okay, well, look, in closing, just thank you very much to our team across the world for their dedication to our customers, the strong results they've delivered in the first half of this year. We are very confident that 2024 is going to be another year of share gains, strong growth and profitability, and Free Cash Flow and continued margin expansion. Thank you to all of you for joining us today and your continued interest in the company. Thank you.

Operator

That concludes-

Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
CEO at American Express Global Business Travel

Goodbye

Operator

... today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Executives
Analysts
    • David Thompson
      CIO at American Express Global Business Travel
    • Duane Pfennigwerth
      Analyst at Evercore ISI
    • Hillary Lee
      Analyst at Morgan Stanley
    • Jennifer Thorington
      VP of Investor Relations at American Express Global Business Travel
    • Karen Williams
      CFO at American Express Global Business Travel
    • Lee Horowitz
      Analyst at Deutsche Bank
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