Blackstone Group has agreed to sell Strategic Hotels & Resorts to China’s Anbang Insurance Group for $6.5 million, according to Bloomberg News. The sale comes only three months after Blackstone initially purchased the luxury resort company for $6 billion. The deal has not yet been made public.
Blackstone was planning on selling individual properties in the Strategic portfolio, which comprises 16 hotels and resorts, before Anbang offered to buy the whole company. Strategic properties include Four Seasons in Washington, DC, Scottsdale, Arizona, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming; Ritz-Carlton properties in Laguna Niguel and Half Moon Bay in California; the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego; and the JW Marriott Essex House in New York.
Anbang Insurance Group purchased New York’s Waldorf Astoria for $1.95 billion from Hilton Worldwide in 2014, and recently led a consortium to takeover Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide despite the fact that Starwood is currently in merger negotiations with Marriott International. The results of a takeover proposal have yet to be determined.
