Anbang Insurance Group had completed most of its US$6.5 billion acquisition of Strategic Hotels & Resorts, helping to bolster the Chinese company’s credibility as a global buyer after its abrupt withdrawal from the bidding war for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide earlier this year, Bloomberg reported.
The insurer bought 15 of Strategic’s 16 properties, according to people with knowledge of the deal. It’s the second-largest US acquisition by a Chinese buyer, after the US$7 billion sale of Smithfield Foods to Shuanghui International Holdings – now known as WH Group Ltd – in 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and New York-based research firm Rhodium Group.
Beijing-based Anbang bought Strategic from Blackstone Group LP, which had taken the company private last December for about US$6 billion.
Anbang, led by chairman Wu Xiaohui, entered the US market with its February 2015 purchase of the Waldorf Astoria for US$1.95 billion, the most ever paid for an American hotel. The company plans to convert most of the roughly 1,400 hotel rooms into high-end condominiums starting next year, according to a person with knowledge of the plans.