Posted on 10/06/2014 7:51:01 AM PDT by illiac
Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. has agreed to sell its most prestigious hotel, Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria, for $1.95 billion to a Chinese insurance company, the hotel operator said Monday.
The sale price is among the highest ever for any hotel and represents the latest sign of intense international demand for luxury hotels and other trophy properties in major global cities. The Waldorf Astoria’s price of $1.3 million a room is also among the highest ever paid in the U.S. on a per-room basis.
The acquisition is the first major deal in the U.S. for Anbang Insurance Group Co., which beat out at least two other bidders for the property, according to a person familiar with the matter.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Don't like Hilton's lodging anyway...
Are Americans allowed to own property in China?
LOL!
Can I ask a stupid question?
How is it that a major Chinese company is buying such a property? Since China is communist, how it is that the Chinese are into capitalism in such a big way?
Is Chairman Mao turning in his grave as China adopts more and more market reforms? Would Chairman Mao recognize today’s China???
PBR to the Russians. The Waldorf to the ChiComs. What next? The country to the Latinos?
What a laugh. It’s an (_intense_) sign of the collapse of USA as we _TRANFER_ vast sums of our wealth to China and other nations, foe and “friend”.
This has been caused not by private enterprise, nor even capitalism but fundamentalely by *money*from*thin*air* and the false prosperity it gave us over the past ~century. Corruption based on materialism and manipulatin turned our institutions and Gov upside down.
The rooms are tired and need to be fully renovated. The HVAC system doesn't work. The public areas are run down and the F&B sucks. Staffing is a fraction of what it should be and I wish them luck with the unions who are more adversarial than anything the Chinese have had to deal with in decades.
It's also a shame they are stuck with Hilton as their management company.
Me thinks you over react just a tiny tiny bit much.
I won’t be surprised if they buy it back from the Chinese in a few years for pennies on the dollar.
It reminds me of when the Japanese bought Rockefeller Center, Pebble Beach, and Hawaiian hotels at the height of their boom, for hugely inflated prices. Or when the Arabs started buying high profile properties in the 1970’s.
You can’t afford not to sell, when buyers are willing to vastly overpay.
Also interesting to note, Hilton got a 100 year contract to manage the property as part of the deal.
Maybe the Chinese investors want the prestige property mainly to leverage even greater deals within the Chinese financial system, which is built on smoke and mirrors.
I remember many years ago when some Japanese investors bought the Pebble Beach resort. They lost their butts on the deal when they resold it.
Same thing will happen on this deal.
Beat me by 50 seconds.
No one wants to stay at a Chinese version of anything. They just bought the name. Very brand sensitive. Would be interested in seeing if they got the rights to use the name on other properties overseas.
Once THE hotel in NYC but that was a long time ago.
Me thinks not. When it all utterly collapses, you’ll be able to reconsider your views (:
The more holdings China has in the USA, the less chance that Russia or China will ever toss a nuclear rocket in our direction.
What are the room rates?
After the Chinese get done with the renovations there will be video and audio listening devices in every room.
That’s another reason China will not invade Taiwan. The U.S. could simply tell China to forget ever getting their money back and that the U.S. would impose a complete trade embargo.
China would collapse within just a few months if that were to happen. As for U.S. company investments in China, the U.S. government could pay off the companie with just a portion of the debt held by China.
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