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Sean Murray: Today on deBanked
News, American Express is

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acquiring Kabbage?  Whattt!!!
We've got a word also on Broker

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Fair 2021. And tech is making a
big bet on New York office

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space. It's all coming up. Let's
go over to Johny Fernandez.

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Johny Fernandez: Hey Sean, so
I'm standing right outside the

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New York office headquarters of
American Express. Now, earlier

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this week, it announced that it
had purchased an online small

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business lender called Kabbage.
Now, what has people talking is

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its price which has not been
disclosed yet, but we do know

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that its rival OnDeck recently
sold for less than 10% of its

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IPO value. And a key distinction
in this purchase is that Amex

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said that it will not purchase
the company's loan portfolio,

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but rather its technology data
and people. Anna Marrs,

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president of Global Commercial
Services at American Express

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said that the company has been
expanding beyond their

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commercial card products for
years. American Express first

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announced a merchant financing
program as early as September

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2011. And they had been an
unspoken competitor of Kabbage

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ever since. But in the public
relations and technology game,

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Kabbage seemed to be winning the
war. As a combined force, it

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could be a game changer in small
business lending. Now this area

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of New York City is significant
because across the street is the

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headquarters of Goldman Sachs, a
legitimate fintech player, after

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the introduction of Marcus. We
also know that if you head down

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the block south from here,
you'll bump into Convene by

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Brookfield Place, which many in
the financial world know will be

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the home to Broker Fair 2021
deBanked has produced nine

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conferences since 2018. Its
signature annual event for the

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commercial finance industry,
Broker Fair, will once again

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take place in New York City. And
when the industry returns in

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person, it's gearing up to come
back big. Broker Fair 2021 will

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be on March 22 2021 and we will
be airing the event live all day

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and also conducting different
interviews throughout the event.

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And if you're interested in
learning more about the event,

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you can log on to
brokerfair.org. That's all for

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me now. I'm Johny Fernandez with
deBanked News. Sean, back over

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to you.

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Sean Murray: Thanks, Johny. I
myself will definitely be there,

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because I'm the host of the
whole show. And when the

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industry does return in person,
well we've got a few surprises

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in store for everybody. I want
to touch on something that was

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raised last time when we talked
about Facebook. Facebook, as you

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may recall, is acquiring 730,000
square feet of office space

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directly across Penn Station.
Now we've got Amazon, and Amazon

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has recently acquired an entire
building in New York. It's the

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former Lord and Taylor office on
Fifth Avenue. Now Amazon says

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that they're not going to be
moving anyone in until 2023.

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That might be due partially to
the pandemic, but it's pretty

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clear that tech companies have
taken a long term and bullish

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viewpoint on office space in New
York. Now not everybody is

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exactly on the same page here.
This tweet is not about office

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space, per se, but it's from the
co-founder of Morning Brew,

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which is a popular finance
newsletter, and he thinks that

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real estate prices in New York,
in the city, are never coming

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back to pre COVID levels ever.
Now time will tell if he is

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right, but as a longtime New
Yorker myself, I tend to

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disagree with that statement.
That's all for today. Thank you

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for watching. I'm Sean Murray,
with deBanked News.