Anbang Insurance Group appears to have found a buyer for its multibillion-dollar U.S. luxury hotel portfolio, which includes JW Marriott Essex House in New York and Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in Los Angeles.
An affiliate of South Korea’s Mirae Asset Financial Group is working to arrange financing and reach terms for the purchase of the Chinese insurer’s 15 luxury hotels, according to Bloomberg.
An acquisition by the South Korean asset manager could value the 15 properties at more than $5.5 billion, Bloomberg reported.
In addition to the Marriott and Loews, the properties include the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco and the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Brookfield Asset Management and a group tied to the U.K.’s billionaire Barclay twins also showed interest in buying the hotel portfolio, according to the report.
Anbang bought the properties from Blackstone Group for about $5.5 billion in 2016. At the time, the Chinese company was buying up trophy assets throughout the world, including paying $1.95 billion in 2014 to acquire the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.
In 2018, the Chinese government seized Anbang, and its Chairman Wu Xiaohui was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted by a Chinese court of orchestrating a $12 billion fraud. [Bloomberg] — Keith Larsen