Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc, owner of the Sheraton and Westin brands, accepted a sweetened $13.6 billion (9.4 billion pounds) acquisition offer from peer Marriott International Inc, spurning China's Anbang Insurance Group's latest bid. The bidding war for Starwood has pitted Marriott's ambitions to create the world's largest lodging company with about 5,700 hotels, against Anbang's drive to create a vast investment portfolio of high-yielding U.S. real estate assets. Earlier this month, Anbang agreed to pay Blackstone Group LP $6.5 billion for Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc, whose 16 luxury properties include the Four Seasons Washington D.C., after buying New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel last year for $1.95 billion. If Anbang stays in the race and launches a successful new bid for Starwood, the acquisition would be the largest ever by a Chinese company in the United States. Starwood's merger agreement with Marriott now prevents it from communicating with Anbang, but the Chinese company could still make an offer for Starwood's board to consider before its shareholders vote on the Marriott deal on April 8. Anbang would not comment on Monday on whether it was planning a new bid. "It's likely that the Anbang consortium will increase its offer because that group may be motivated more by obtaining Western assets and shifting capital outside China than by generating value or earnings accretion," Nomura Securities International Inc analysts wrote in a note. Marriott raised the cash portion of its offer to $21 per share from $2 per share, valuing the total bid, which also includes stock, at $79.53 as of Friday's close of trading. The company had clinched a deal with Starwood in November for $72.08 per share. "In the further diligence we have completed in last five months, we have become even more convinced of the tremendous opportunity presented by this merger," Marriott Chief Executive Officer Arne Sorenson told analysts on a conference call.
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