Winner: The Starwood-Marriott Merger

Why: The Starwood-Marriott merger saga finally seemed to reach some closure in March, when China's Anbang Insurance backed off in its bid to snatch Starwood from under Marriott's nose—but not before one-upping the hotel giant at every turn.

In early March it was assumed that Marriott's $12.2B bid to become the world's largest hotel company would go off without a hitch—until Anbang, hot off of a spree of trophy buys, gave Starwood a new, higher offer.

Marriott came back with its own higher-dollar bid, only to be beaten out by the eastern giant once again. But then, with Marriott staring down the barrel of Anbang's $14B made-in-China cannon of an offer, Anbang decided to walk away from the standoff, leaving the Marriott-Starwood deal unscathed.

For all of this will they-won't they drama, that deal gets March's Bisnow Deal Of The Month.

Honorable Mentions:

• Anbang's $6.5B Strategic Hotels buy: While headlines focused on the Chinese insurer's bidding war for Starwood, Anbang quietly snatched up $6.5B worth of hotels from Blackstone.
  
  

• Deutsche and JP Morgan team up for a CMBS deal: In the first CMBS deal of its kind since the financial crash, the two banking giants teamed up to underwrite an entire $818M CMBS deal themselves.

This is the third in a monthly series of articles recognizing the best deals in commercial real estate. Please send your nominations for a local Deal Of The Month here.