American Express has agreed to acquire TheFork, the European restaurant-reservation platform owned by Tripadvisor, for $700 million in an all-cash transaction announced on 15 June 2026. The deal, structured as a put option agreement, is expected to close before the end of 2026, subject to labour consultation and regulatory approvals.
The price reflects roughly three times revenue for a modestly sized but fast-growing asset. TheFork generated $232 million in revenue for the year to 31 March, a 25% increase year-on-year, alongside $28 million in adjusted EBITDA. The platform connects diners with more than 50,000 restaurants across 11 European countries, and American Express said the acquisition would take its bookable-dining network to 75,000 venues, building on its earlier purchases of the dining platforms Resy and Tock.
The logic for American Express is engagement rather than payments capacity. Stephen Squeri, chairman and chief executive, framed the purchase as a way to deepen the company's relationship with cardholders, while Rafa Marquez, president of international card services, pointed to dining as a primary reason customers engage with the brand. International card services has been the company's fastest-growing segment, and a European dining network expands that footprint directly. For a closed-loop operator that both issues cards and runs its own network, owning the booking layer means owning the customer data and the touchpoint, not merely processing the transaction.
For Tripadvisor, the sale is a portfolio simplification under shareholder pressure. The company flagged a strategic review of TheFork in February 2026 as it sought to concentrate on its higher-growth Experiences business, and the activist investor Starboard Value had pressed for a disposal since October 2025. Tripadvisor has struggled to recover from pandemic-era disruption while competing with Booking Holdings and Airbnb, and chief executive Matt Goldberg presented the exit as recognition of value built over more than a decade. Goldman Sachs advised Tripadvisor and TheFork on the transaction.
The deal is a marker of how payments companies are now deploying capital, and one finance leaders will read closely. Card issuers are increasingly paying revenue multiples for proprietary engagement ecosystems — booking platforms, loyalty data, experiential touchpoints — that lock customers into a network rather than expand processing volume. Card issuers are increasingly paying revenue multiples for proprietary engagement ecosystems — booking platforms, loyalty data, experiential touchpoints — that lock customers into a network rather than expand processing volume. The all-cash structure and the activist-driven divestiture on the seller side also illustrate the discipline both buyers and sellers face: acquirers must justify experiential premiums against measurable network returns, while corporates carrying non-core assets are under sustained pressure to divest and return capital.
The wider implication is that competitive moats in payments are migrating from scale and processing toward owned customer experience and data. Acquirers in this space will increasingly be asked to demonstrate how an experiential asset converts into retention, spend and margin, and finance functions will be central to building and defending that case.
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