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Amex buying Rosenbluth.

Article Excerpt
Hal Rosenbluth has his work cut out for him. He and his colleagues must convince a skeptical client base to stick with an organization that is going from, in his words, "fiercely independent to fiercely combined" with the company clients most often were trying to avoid when they chose Rosenbluth International.

Both Rosenbluth and president and COO Alex Wasilov said they would spend the near term attempting to convince clients to stay aboard. "I'll stay for as long as it takes for clients and employees to be happy," Rosenbluth said.

The potentially immense rewards, as sources assumed the price American Express will pay for Rosenbluth is somewhere north of $200 million, Depend on client retention. "Retaining customers is a key part of this deal, but we're not disclosing any terms," said American Express Global Corporate Services president Ed Gilligan.

Acquisition terms that fluctuate based on some measure of performance are not unusual. Navigant recently made a payment of more than $3 million to the former owners of Sato because an arbiter determined Sato had lived up to expectations.

"It's hard to speculate on client retention components, other than to say they would be a function of how cheap or expensive the deal is," said Sidoti & Co. analyst David Gold.

Amex, which expects to...