Why a Minor-League Chinese Insurer Is Buying the Waldorf

Chinese investors, who have been pouring money into New York real estate, have finally nailed their trophy property. Over the past year conglomerate Fosun International paid $725 million for a downtown Manhattan office tower , and Shanghai-based Greenland Hong Kong Holdings bought control of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn (albeit without the Barclays Center). Now a China-based company has sealed the type of Japanese-buying-Rockefeller-Center deal that signals the country’s arrival.

An insurance company from China is going to be the new owner of the Waldorf Astoria. Anbang Insurance has agreed to pay Hilton Worldwide Holdings $1.95 billion for the landmark hotel on Park Avenue. As Bloomberg News reported, that would be the highest price paid for a single existing hotel in the U.S. and would take to $2.7 billion the amount that Chinese buyers have put into New York real estate this year.