n Express card was introduced in 1958 under which users had no credit limits and had to pay off balances each month. In 1968 the company bought Fireman's Fund American Insurance and Equitable Securities. James Robinson was the CEO from 1977 top 1993, and he expanded the company through acquisitions that included half of Warner Cable communications (Warner Amex Cable 1979), Shearson Loeb Rhoades brokerage house (1981), The Boston Company (banking, 1981), Balcor (real estate, 1982), Lehman Brothers Holding Company and Investors Diversified Services (brokerage, 1984), and E.P. Hutton (brokerage, 1987). The company also introduced the Optima card, a revolving credit card, to compete with Mastercard and VISA. Not all of these acquisitions have been retained. Fireman's Fund American Insurance was sold gradually from 1985 to 1989. Balcor is presently in liquidation. Warner Amex Cable was sold in 1986. The company's financial units were combined as Shearson Lehman Brothers in 1987.
In 1992 a federal judge approved a plan to investigate leaks about a smear campaign conducted by American Express against Edmond Safra, once chairman of American Express Bank-TDB, and later that same year the company acquired Lifeco Services corporation, the fifth largest travel agency in the United States. In 1993 American Express turned over management of all but the three magazines it sold to Time, Inc. The company then undertook a new advertising campaign for its credit cards by suggesting that VISA was charging too much in interest rates, much as VISA had earlier lambasted American Express for its limited merchant base.
In 1994, American Express shed Lehman Brothers, which was seen as a boon because the two business cultures had never mixed well. This was seen as a case of American Express coming to its senses and getting rid of the flashier financial services to return to its core business of Travel Related Services (TRS), American Express ...