万豪如何阻击安邦抢购喜达屋？

万豪国际集团首席执行官苏安励即将迎来职业生涯中一场重大考验，接下来的几周内，不知他将如何破解这一难题。实际上，我们已经见过许多类似情形：万豪集团打算收购另一家公司——喜达屋酒店与度假村集团，后者已经同意万豪的收购邀约，这笔收购原定今年年中就能达成。但中国安邦保险集团突然横空杀出，向喜达屋抛出一个更高的收购价格。苏安励该怎么办？

目前看来，喜达屋临阵倒戈的风险是很高的。尽管无论是从客户数量，还是从营收来看，万豪都是目前全球最大的酒店公司，但即便对于财大气粗的万豪来说，这项收购也是一笔举足轻重的大交易。2014年万豪集团的年收益约为138美元，而万豪收购喜达屋的要约价格也达到122亿美元。

苏安励面临的现实问题是：天价收购有可能无法给股东带来价值，这可能出于多种原因，比如两家企业整合不畅、文化冲突、战略瑕疵等等，但最常见的原因也更加世俗。那就是收购方出价太高。倘若如此，这笔交易就无可救药。而出价过高，恰恰是目前情势创造的风险。

下面来说一下为什么。安邦已经显露出一个非理性收购者的迹象，有可能以极高的价格竞价。2014年，该公司同意以19.5亿美元的价格收购曼哈顿“地王”华尔道夫－阿斯托利亚酒店。在这之前，另两家中资公司刚刚收购了纽约另两座地标性酒店——皇冠假日酒店和卡莱尔酒店。

就在上周，安邦集团刚刚同意斥资65亿美元，收购百仕通集团几个月前刚刚出资40亿美金买下的多家豪华酒店资产。在收购喜达屋的问题上，安邦愿意全部以现金收购，而万豪集团主要用股票。安邦之所以愿意高价收购喜达屋，还可能是因为它想在海外收购部分硬资产，以避免人民币进一步贬值。另一种可能是，安邦CEO吴小辉试图将一些个人财富转移到海外，就像许多中国富豪现在正在做的那样。而万豪集团则没有这些动力。

我们现在还不知道苏安励的出价底线是多少。不过，如果安邦集团成功竞购喜达屋，相对于万豪而言，喜达屋仍是一个规模较小的竞争对手，万豪仍将保持世界最大酒店业公司的地位，同时还能获得一笔高达4亿美元的“分手费”。另外，美国或其他国家的监管部门也不一定批准安邦对喜达屋的收购案。

在安邦有意收购喜达屋的消息公开后，万豪集团的股价反而有所上涨。或许是因为投资者们认为万豪也能从这笔交易中有所斩获，要么就是觉得万豪的收购价已经太高了，放弃收购喜达屋或许是更好的选择。

更有趣的是，根据现有协议，喜达屋与其他收购意向者接触的期限在3月17日截止。喜达屋和万豪的股东将于3月28日就这笔交易进行投票表决。

总之，苏安励正面临着其CEO生涯中最大的一个难题。且看他如何破解。（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

审校：任文科

It’s crunch time for Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson, and we’ll get a close-up view of high-stakes leadership over the coming weeks. In general terms his situation is one we’ve seen many times. He has a deal to buy another company, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which was agreed to last fall and set to close mid-year. Now a surprising newcomer, China’s Anbang Insurance, has made a higher bid. What should Sorenson do?

The stakes are high. This would be a big deal even for Marriott MAR -0.73% , creating by far the world’s biggest hotel company by number of rooms and by revenue. The money is significant; Marriott would spend about $12.2 billion for Starwood HOT 0.29% , while its 2014 annual revenue was about $13.8 billion.

And here’s the real issue for Sorenson: Big mergers can fail to deliver value to shareholders for many reasons – botched integration of the two businesses, cultural wars, unwise strategy – but the most common reason is more mundane. The buyer pays too much. In that case, nothing can rescue the deal, and paying too much is precisely the danger the current situation creates.

Here’s why. Anbang shows signs of being a possibly irrational buyer that might be willing to bid way too high. In 2014, the company agreed to pay $1.95 billion for the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, a trophy property, after other Chinese buyers had bought two other New York trophy hotels, the Plaza and the Carlyle. Just last week, Anbang agreed to pay $6.5 billion for a collection of luxury hotels that Blackstone Group had bought for $4 billion only four months earlier. And Anbang is offering all cash, while Marriott’s offer is largely stock. Other potential motivations for Anbang: It may want to buy hard assets outside of China before the yuan loses more value, and it may be a wish by CEO Wu Xiaohui, reportedly a billionaire, to move some personal wealth out of the country, as many wealthy Chinese are doing. Those motives wouldn’t apply to Marriott.

We can’t know the bottom line on Sorenson’s financial calculations. Among the factors: If Anbang buys Starwood, then Starwood remains a smaller competitor while Marriott remains the world’s largest hotel company, and Marriott would collect a $400 million breakup fee. There’s no assurance that regulators in the U.S. or elsewhere would approve an Anbang-Starwood deal. When Anbang’s bid became public on Monday, Marriott stock rose. Either investors think Marriott may also be in play, or they think Marriott was already paying too much and would be better off if the deal doesn’t happen.

And just to add some excitement, under the existing deal, Starwood has only until Thursday to talk to other bidders. Starwood and Marriott shareholders are scheduled to vote on the deal on March 28.

Sorenson faces some of the most important decisions of his CEO career. Watch and learn.