A massive Chinese company is trying to get its hands on some of America's most iconic hotel brands
Anbang on Monday agreed to drop $6.5 billion to buy a portfolio of luxury hotels from Blackstone Group. It also led a bid to bust up Marriott's merger with Starwood Hotels.
The first deal includes 16 hotels, from the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole to the Westin San Francisco, and the JW Marriott Essex House in New York.
The second, if Anbang is successful, would include than 1,200 properties, including the Westin, St. Regis, and Four Points brands.
But while Anbang is making a splash in the hotel industry, it's not a hospitality company.
It's actually an insurance company (its full name is Anbang Insurance Group), with subsidiaries in financial leasing, banking, and asset management, in addition to its insurance wings.
Many of Anbang's recent deals have been in financial services and insurance, including its acquisitions of the Iowa-based Fidelity & Guaranty Life and Belgium-based FIDEA, and its stake in South Korea-based Tongyang Life Insurance.
That said, Anbang, with $254 billion in assets according to its website, has also been focusing its efforts on the real estate market, and hotels fit into that pattern.
It bought 717 Fifth Avenue, a huge New York City building, in 2015. It also proposed to buy a German real estate company that operates around the world.
Now with its bid to upset the Marriott-Starwood deal, you can expect to hear lots more about Anbang in 2016.