I was a little worried that this was where we were headed, and it turns out I was right. According to The Wall Street Journal, Starwood has accepted an improved offer from Marriott.
According to the article posted a few minutes ago,
“Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. said it has agreed to a sweetened $13.6 billion deal with Marriott International Inc. on Monday, trumping last week’s boosted bid from a group led by China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co.”
Could the Chinese make another offer? I suppose anything is possible, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. While I’m not totally surprised, my vision of Marriott is that they are a big and conservative company, and were less likely than most to engage in some kind of bidding war for Starwood. While I’m not sure this qualifies as a “bidding war,” it definitely shows that they really wanted Starwood. This is not going to make a lot of frequent travelers and Starwood fans very happy this Monday morning.
-MJ, March 21, 2016
To me this means more layoffs and higher prices to pay for the merger …