From the New York website: China Life Insurance purchased a $2 billion stake in Starwood Capital Group’s U.S. hotels.
After the sale, the Chinese sovereign wealth fund will be the leading investor in the 280 hotels across 40 states, Bloomberg reported. Starwood Capital Group will continue to serve as an asset manager on some of the properties.
The deal comes as Chinese investors increasingly snap up commercial properties in the United States. For instance, Chinese insurer Anbang Insurance Group, which owns the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, purchased 16 hotels from the Blackstone Group this year for $6.5 billion. The deal closed in September. In August, China Orient Asset Management Corp. paid $143 million to buy a majority stake in four Flatiron District office buildings controlled by the Kaufman Organization. In May, China Life purchased a minority stake in One New York Plaza for $700 million.
In the first half of 2016, China-based investors pumped roughly $5 billion into commercial purchases in the U.S., a 19 percent year-over-year jump, according to the Wall Street Journal. [Bloomberg] — Kathryn Brenzel