NEW YORK—Marriott won over Starwood with a sweetened bid worth more than $14.4 billion just days after a Chinese insurance company appeared to steal it away from the hotel chain with a more lucrative offer.
The buyout, which may still be contested by China’s Anbang, would create the world’s biggest hotel company and give Marriott a stable of tony properties run by Starwood, like the St. Regis New York.
Starwood, which owns Sheraton, Westin and St. Regis, over the weekend became the first U.S. hotel operator to gain access to Cuba, a day before the arrival of President Barack Obama. It is the first visit to Cuba by a sitting president in almost 90 years as relations between the two nations thaw.
A Tuesday, July 17, 2012 file photo, shows Starwood Hotels W Hollywood hotel logo in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File
