When Blackstone sold Strategic Hotels & Resorts — the owner of 16 luxury hotels in the US — to the Chinese insurer Anbang for $5.5bn in 2016, it did not need to consider the risk that Strategic would become the property of the Chinese state. This is, somewhat ironically, because hotel companies, whatever their name, are not strategic assets. Last week’s news that Beijing has seized Anbang and accused its former chairman, Wu Xiaohui, of fraud and embezzlement, was probably met with an indifferent shrug at Blackstone headquarters.
2016年，黑石(Blackstone)以55億美元的價格把在美國擁有16家豪華酒店的戰略酒店及度假村(Strategic Hotels & Resorts)賣給了中國保險公司安邦(Anbang)，當時黑石並不用考慮如下風險：戰略酒店及度假村可能會成爲中國政府的財產。這有點諷刺，因爲無論叫什麼，酒店企業都不是戰略資產。上週的新聞稱中國政府已接管了安邦並指控其前董事長吳小暉集資詐騙與職務侵佔，對這條新聞，黑石總部的人很可能會滿不在乎地聳聳肩。