Seoul, South Korea-based Mirae Asset Global Investments is making its mark on the Bay Area luxury hotel market again. In a transaction worth $5.5 billion, the Asian investor purchased fifteen hotel properties across the United States from China’s Anbang Insurance Group, multiple reports stated. In the deal, three Bay Area hotels also traded, the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay and the Four Seasons Silicon Valley.
This is the largest alternative investment deal ever for the financial firm, according to a report by The Korea Times. “A number of global behemoths, including Brookfield, GIC and Host Hotels & Resorts, participated in the bid to acquire the 15 hotels,” a Mirae Asset Global Investments official was quoted in the report. “Mirae Asset Global showed its global presence by acquiring them.”
Anbang had owned the properties since 2016, when it acquired them for $5.5 billion, from Blackstone-owned Strategic Hotels & Resorts. Since then, however, Anbang had been seized by the Chinese authorities, and its chairman was sentenced to 18 years in prison. The assets were sold in an effort to secure cash reserves, the report states.
This is not Mirae’s first foray into hotels in the region. In October of 2015, the company purchased the venerable Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco for $450 million, or just over $760,000 per room. Earlier this year, the investment firm also paid $22.5 million for a property located at 4701 N. First St. in San Jose, where it is proposing to develop a 200-room hotel.
Elsewhere in the United States, Mirae already owns Fairmont Orchid hotel on the Big Island of Hawaii, which it purchased from Woodbridge Capital Partners and Oaktree Capital Management for $200 million, and it was planning to spend another $20 million on renovations. The deal with Anbang now adds 12 other marquee properties in the United States for the company, which include the following:
- Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel
- Fairmont Scottsdale Princess
- Four Seasons Austin
- InterContinental Miami
- Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel
- Four Seasons Scottsdale
- InterContinental Chicago
- Four Seasons Washington, D.C.
- Montage Laguna Beach
- Four Seasons Jackson Hole
- Fairmont Chicago
- JW Marriott Essex House
