This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
About 350 General Electric employees in Utah will soon work for American Express.
American Express Co. said Thursday it agreed to buy General Electric Co.'s corporate charge-card unit, Corporate Payment Services, for $1.1 billion in cash in order to expand lending for business customers.
The majority of Corporate Payment Services' 350 employees are based in Taylorsville, and they will have the opportunity to keep their jobs. The unit will continue to operate from its current location at 4246 S. Riverboat Drive.
Operations will remain the same; the only change is that the employees will now work for American Express, said Anre Williams, president of American Express's Global Commercial Card and Services, on Thursday.
"This is a business that was very well run, and we want to retain all of the employees and customers," said Williams.
The purchase will dilute earnings per share at American Express, the largest U.S. credit-card lender, in the ''early years'' assuming cash is diverted from repurchasing stock, the New York-based company said Thursday.
American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault is seeking to add business clients as U.S. consumers struggle to repay loans of all kinds. Fourth-quarter profit fell 9.9 percent after the firm more than doubled the amount set aside for soured U.S. credit-card debt to $1.14 billion amid a slowing economy.
''This plays to their strength, which is corporate card,'' Sanjay Sakhrani, an analyst at KBW Inc. in New York, said in an interview. ''The largest customer of the unit was GE, which is a big multinational company that should continue to spend even though there may be a slowdown in the U.S.''