HONG KONG—Blackstone Group LP is flipping a portfolio of U.S. luxury hotels just months after buying it for $ 4 billion to the Chinese owner of New York's Waldorf Astoria.
China's Anbang Insurance Group Co. is near a deal to buy Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc. from a Blackstone-managed real-estate fund, according to a person familiar with the situation. The deal comes after Blackstone took the company private in December for around $ 4 billion.
Anbang is among the most ambitious Chinese overseas acquirers, snatching up insurance companies and property assets across the U.S. and Europe. Chinese companies have done more than $ 84 billion in deals so far this year, according to Dealogic, setting them up to exceed the record $ 108 billion of Chinese outbound acquisitions reached last year.
China National Chemical Corp.—known as ChemChina—announced China's biggest overseas purchase earlier this year with a $ 43 billion deal to buy Swiss pesticide and seed company Syngenta AG. Other big deals include Haier Group's $ 5.4 billion agreement to buy General Electric's appliance unit and a $ 3.3 billion bid by Chinese equipment maker Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co. for U.S. crane maker Terex Corp.
Anbang's agreement to acquire Chicago-based Strategic Hotels will give it a substantial presence in luxury hotels across the U.S. Strategic Hotels' prime assets include luxury properties such as the Essex House overlooking Manhattan's Central Park and the Hotel del Coronado near San Diego. It owns a number of Four Seasons properties, including hotels in Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas, and a resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Blackstone is expected to turn a profit on the Strategic Hotels deal. Blackstone has built itself into the world's largest real-estate private-equity fund manager by assets, and typically holds such assets for years.
Once a sleepy provincial car insurer, Beijing-headquartered Anbang Insurance has leapt onto the global stage with several high-profile deals, including its purchase of the Waldorf Astoria New York hotel for $ 1.95 billion in February 2015 from Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., which counts Blackstone as its largest shareholder.
The Waldorf Astoria New York sale carried the steepest price tag ever for a U.S. hotel at the time, brokers said, although it wasn't the highest on a per-room basis.
Anbang has also cut a number of deals in the insurance world. It agreed to buy U.S. insurer Fidelity & Guaranty Life for $ 1.57 billion last year. It paid around $ 1 billion for a majority stake in a South Korean insurer and has purchased insurance companies in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Bloomberg News first reported that Anbang had agreed to purchase Strategic Hotels from Blackstone Group.
Write to Kane Wu at Kane.Wu@wsj.com
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