Strategic Hotels & Resorts is an American REIT in the hospitality industry. [1] It was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange as BEE. [2] The company owns 18 luxury hotels, 17 of which are located in the United States and one of which is in Germany. [3]
The New York Stock Exchange is an American stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at US$30.1 trillion as of February 2018. The average daily trading value was approximately US$169 billion in 2013. The NYSE trading floor is located at 11 Wall Street and is composed of 21 rooms used for the facilitation of trading. A fifth trading room, located at 30 Broad Street, was closed in February 2007. The main building and the 11 Wall Street building were designated National Historic Landmarks in 1978.
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north and the Alps, Lake Constance and the High Rhine to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.
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Through his investment firm, Cascade Investment, Bill Gates has purchased 1.74 million shares of Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc.’s common stock at a total price of $21.45 million – totaling 9.8% of the company's shares. Gates is the sole owner of the investment firm. [4]
Cascade Investment, L.L.C. is an American holding and investment company headquartered in Kirkland, Washington, United States. It is controlled by Bill Gates, and managed by Michael Larson. More than half of Gates' fortune is held in assets outside his holding of Microsoft shares. Cascade is the successor company to Dominion Income Management, the former investment vehicle for Gates' holdings, which was managed by Andrew Evans.
William Henry Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, author, philanthropist, and humanitarian. He is best known as the principal founder of Microsoft Corporation. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, CEO and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014.
In September 2015, Strategic Hotels & Resorts sold itself to The Blackstone Group for $6 billion. [5]
The Blackstone Group Inc. is an American multinational private equity, alternative asset management, and financial services firm based in New York City. As the largest alternative investment firm in the world, Blackstone specializes in private equity, credit and hedge fund investment strategies.
In March 2016, only 3 months after the Blackstone transaction closed, Anbang Insurance Group purchased Strategic for a price that was announced as $6.5 billion. [6] The deal ended up being for $5.5 billion, however, after Blackstone was forbidden by the US Government to sell the Hotel del Coronado to overseas buyers with the other Strategic properties, due to its location adjacent to Naval Base Coronado. [7]
Hotel del Coronado is a historic beachfront hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre: the wooden Victorian beach resort. It is the second largest wooden structure in the United States and was designated a California Historical Landmark in 1970 and a National Historic Landmark in 1977.
Naval Base Coronado (NBC) is a consolidated Navy installation encompassing eight military facilities stretching from San Clemente Island, located seventy miles west of San Diego, California, to the Mountain Warfare Training Camp Michael Monsoor and Camp Morena, located sixty miles east of San Diego.
In November 2018 it was reported that, under pressure from the Chinese government to offload overseas assets, Anbang had hired Bank of America to solicit buyers for Strategic Hotels & Resorts. [8] On August 12, 2019, Bloomberg News reported [9] that Mirae Asset Financial Group from South Korea was a lead bidder for the portfolio.
The Bank of America Corporation is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company based in Charlotte, North Carolina, with central hubs in New York City, London, Hong Kong, Minneapolis, and Toronto. Bank of America was formed through NationsBank's acquisition of BankAmerica in 1998. It is the second largest banking institution in the United States, after JPMorgan Chase. As a part of the Big Four, it services approximately 10.73% of all American bank deposits, in direct competition with Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase. Its primary financial services revolve around commercial banking, wealth management, and investment banking.
Bloomberg News, is an international news agency headquartered in New York and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg Markets, Bloomberg.com and Bloomberg's mobile platforms. Since 2015, John Micklethwait has served as editor-in-chief.
Mirae Asset Financial Group is a financial services group in Asia, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Mirae Asset provides comprehensive financial services including asset management, wealth management, investment banking, and life insurance. Mirae Asset was founded by Hyeon Joo Park in 1997 and introduced the very first mutual funds to Korean retail investors in 1998. On a global consolidated basis, total group’s client assets exceed US$400 billion. Mirae Asset has a presence in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Mongolia, Singapore, the U.K., the United States and Vietnam. Mirae Asset Financial Group's Mirae Asset Daewoo is the largest investment bank in South Korea.
