South Korea’s Mirae Asset Global Investments said on Wednesday it has signed a contract to acquire 15 high-end hotels in the United States from Chinese insurer Anbang Insurance Group.

The hotels in the deal are in nine U.S. cities including JW Marriot and Essex House in New York, Westin Hotel in San Francisco and Four Seasons in Silicon Valley. Anbang had acquired this hotel portfolio from private equity firm Blackstone in 2016.

Mirae Asset will take possession of the properties after the deal but leave it up to current asset managers to operate the hotels as it has done so in past hotel deals.

The size of the deal is more than $5.8 billion, according to sources, and Mirae Asset will raise funds to finance the transaction. Mirae Asset affiliates are expected to chip in the funds.

Mirae Asset said it won the deal following a fierce bidding war against global investors such as Blackstone, Brookfield Asset Management and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC).

Mirae Asset has invested aggressively in overseas real estate since 2006 when it jointly bought a skyscraper office tower in Shanghai.​

By Kim Je-lim and Minu Kim

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