Shareholders from both Marriott and Starwood approved the companies’ merger at separate shareholders’ meetings today, paving the way to the creation of the world’s largest hotel company.
Marriott's president and CEO Arne Sorenson, says, "With today's successful stockholder approval milestone, we are that much closer to completing our transaction.”
The approval comes after an intense bidding war for Starwood between Marriott and China’s Anbang Insurance—which also snatched up Strategic Hotels and Resorts in March from Blackstone for $6.5B.
Anbang put up the highest offer for the hotelier, a $14B one to cap off the bidding war, but then the Chinese insurer backed out just as quickly as it had swooped in, leaving Marriott the spoils, Street Insider reports.
Marriott is lucky the eastern giant backed off when it did; the company’s executive chairman, Bill Marriott says, “we were done” if Anbang followed through on its offer. [StreetInsider]
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