The partnership of China’s Anbang Insurance Group and private equity firms J.C. Flowers & Co and Primavera Capital Ltd. has now upped its offer for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc to almost $14 billion. The deal would be the largest of any kind by a Chinese company in the United States. The offer of $82.75 per share in cash is over four dollars a share higher than the competing offer from Marriott International. The bidding war for Starwood has pitted Marriott’s goal of creating the world’s largest lodging company with approximately 5,700 hotels against Anbang’s drive to create a vast portfolio of U.S. real estate assets
