Chinese officials looking to sell Anbang’s portfolio of 15 U.S. hotels received offers from 17 bidders, including Brookfield Asset Management, Fortress Investment Group and Blackstone Group.
The bids for Chicago-based Strategic Hotels had a spread of more than $1 billion and reached as high as $5.8 billion, according to Financial Times, which also identified South Korea’s Mirae Asset Management and GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, as potential suitors.
The portfolio includes the JW Marriott Essex House on Central Park South in New York, the Intercontinental in Chicago, the Westin in San Francisco, several Ritz-Carlton properties and several Four Seasons hotels.
Blackstone’s bid is noteworthy because it sold the portfolio to Anbang in 2016 for $5.5 billion, three months after buying it for $6 billion.
Anbang last year chose Bank of America to help with the portfolio sale,[which is now scheduled for this summer.
The sale would be Anbang’s most significant foreign deal since the Chinese government took over its operations. Anbang’s former chairman Wu Xiaohui was sentenced to 18 years in prison last year for fraud and embezzlement. [Financial Times] — John O’Brien