Marriott wins over Starwood with bid

Marriott International Inc won over Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc with a sweetened bid worth more than $14.4 billion, just days after a Chinese insurance company appeared to steal it away from the hotel chain with a more lucrative offer.

Starwood, which owns Sheraton, Westin and St. Regis, over the weekend became the first US hotel operator to gain access to Cuba, a day before the arrival of President Barack Obama. It is the first visit to Cuba by a sitting president in almost 90 years as relations between the two nations thaw.

The revised deal would give Starwood shareholders $21 in cash and 0.80 shares of Marriott Class A stock for each Starwood share. Starwood shareholders are also expected to get Interval Leisure Group stock valued at $5.83 per share. Taken together, that would value Starwood stock at $85.36 per share, or about $14.41 billion.