Recall last November, Marriott and Starwood announced a merger. The deal was set to close at the end of this month, but earlier this week there was another offer for Starwood.
A group led by China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co. offered a superior competing bid to acquire Starwood. Marriott had a few days to counter this offer.
And counter the offer they did! Marriott has made a new bid of $13.6 billion (the old offer was $13 billion). The new offer is 20% in cash, and the rest is Marriott stock. Anbang’s bid was $13.3 billion in cash.
Starwood has agreed to the sweetened $13.6 billion deal with Marriott.
Maybe the bidding war is over, maybe not….we’ll see.