On September 23, 2016, Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) completed its acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT), creating the world’s largest hotel company. The US$13-billion merger combines Marriott brands, including Ritz-Carlton, Courtyard and Residence Inn, with W Hotels, Westin, Sheraton and other Starwood brands.
The combined company will operate or franchise more than 5,700 properties and 1.1 million rooms, representing 30 leading brands in over 110 countries, and will control more than one out of every 15 hotel rooms in the world. Marriott operated and franchised hotels and vacation ownership resorts with more than 4,400 properties in 87 countries; and Starwood had nearly 1,300 properties in approximately 100 countries.
Marriott was represented by its in-house counsel with a team that included Edward Ryan, David Mann, Ward Cooper, David Manderscheid and Gordon Klepper, and by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP with a team that included Stephen Glover, Jonathan Corsico, Alisa Babitz, Matthew Dubeck, Saee Muzumdar, Andrew Hirsch, Alexander Orr and Quinton Farrar (M&A), Arthur Pasternak and Benjamin Rippeon (tax), Janet Vance and Aaron Adams (finance), James Moloney (securities), Michael Collins (executive compensation and benefits) and Joshua Lipton and Joshua Soven (antitrust); and assisted in Canada by Stikeman Elliott LLP with a team that included John Leopold, Sophie Lamonde and Allison Jaskolka (corporate) and Paul Collins, Michael Kilby and Katarina Zoricic (regulatory).
Starwood was represented by Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. The Cravath team for Starwood included partners Damien Zoubek and Keith Hallam (M&A), Joseph Zavaglia (spin-off of Starwood’s time share business), Lauren Angelilli (tax), Eric Hilfers and Jonathan Katz (executive compensation and benefits); Matthew Morreale (environmental), Christine Varney (antitrust) and Sandra Goldstein (litigation). Starwood was represented in Canada on all competition law matters and filings by Bennett Jones LLP. The Bennett Jones team was led by Melanie Aitken and consisted of Adam Kalbfleisch and Kyle Donnelly.
