News and notes from around the interweb:
- While American reduces the checked baggage allowance for domestic first and international business class, British Airways is reducing it for international business class (from 3 to 2) for tickets issued after May 10.
- Scott Mayerowitz shares a fascinating graph on jet fuel prices
- The New York Times runs something of a hit piece on the opaque nature of Chinese insurance conglomerate Anbang, which is vying to buy Starwood.
Nonetheless an interesting window into politically well-connected China, and does leave you wondering if they’re as big and successful as they say. Which doesn’t matter to Starwood’s shareholders, of course, as long as they’re able to guarantee financing for the acquisition. (HT: @gobears99)
one Anbang shareholder — a coal mining company in China’s western region of Xinjiang — is owned by another mining company, Zhongya Huajin, that listed a Zhuo Ran as its first legal representative, though that person has since resigned.
Zhongya Huajin shares an official website address with a different Anbang shareholder, a Beijing real estate company. Collectively, those companies own nearly 4.6 billion shares of Anbang, or more than 7 percent. The companies could not be reached for comment, and their common website now contains only links to pornography and gambling services.
- Nashville woman went through security checkpoint without being screened and got on Delta flight without a boarding pass. The gate agent called the cops.
- Boeing job cuts could reach 10% this year (HT: @UTFozzie)
- It turns out stays at MGM hotels in Las Vegas will count towards Hyatt’s super-generous new promotion that starts Friday
- I told Boom Bust on Monday that acquisition of Starwood by a Chinese buyer could be good for consumers because it means more players competing in the hotel space rather than fewer.
Gary, your title reads oddly. It is similar to the misstatement “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”. The way in which you have written it makes it sound as if the Chinese company is buying Starwood’s porn and gambling. In place of the apostrophe and ‘s’ following the word Starwood, you should substitute the word ‘has’.
Anbang ownership also covered in the WSJ (paywall) http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-bidder-for-starwood-has-mysterious-ownership-structure-1459203527
“Which doesn’t matter to Starwood’s shareholders, of course, as long as they’re able to guarantee financing for the acquisition.”
@Gary wants this deal so badly the sense of right or wrong seems to have left him! It should matter more than just how much green is at play! Consider this.
In 2004, Anbang was worth just $75 million as tiny regional insurer. In 2016, Anbang is worth some $25 billion and may well succeed in doing the biggest M&A deals by a Chinese company in history. The CEO of Anbang married former PRC’s Premier Deng Xiaoping, influence that many believe the company owes it phenomenally rapid rise to. And now, this apparent tie to sex underground. It seems to me that this company’s new found wealth should make not only Starwood’s board and shareholders, but also US regulators, very vigilant.
Even as an avowed free trader, I’d say that something smells very fishy…
…G’day!
Agree with the other comment…I was looking to see how Starwood is linked to pr0n
Sounds like Anbang may bring excellent new options to spend spg points on 🙂
Chinese black money flooding into America and making housing unaffordable and the polticians here can’t help kiss Chinese ass.
@DCS are you suggesting I’m mistaken? I’m not making a claim about preference here, it’s a descriptive not a normative statement when I write “Which doesn’t matter to Starwood’s shareholders, of course, as long as they’re able to guarantee financing for the acquisition.”
You may think it SHOULD matter but haven’t even offered that it DOES.
@Gary I understand how you feel. I don’t want Starpoints to go away like they would under Marriott either. But likening the NYT story to a hit piece is way off base. They did same rudimentary background and fact checking. That what they came up with looks really bad for Anbang does not make it a hit piece in any sense of the word.
@Gary — Lexical and syntactic analysis and your characterization of the NYT’s attempt to shed some light on this company as a “hit piece” get one to where I got regarding this post…unless it was another knee-jerk reaction to NYT?
i thought this was going to explain the rather odd fact that 2 years ago, while shopping starwood’s site for black friday items to resell and take advantage of some spg points (hopeful) arbitrage(ish) situation – that i found them to be selling some kind of vibrators. after i did my research i was all on board actually – light, compact (low shipping!) and high value (seemed to be able to resell and recover the cost easily!) – unfortunately they were out of stock…