Barry Sternlicht

If Hilton Hotels Corp.'s takeover bid for ITT Corp. ends up being trumped by Barry Sternlicht and his Starwood Lodging Trust, Hilton could lay much of the blame on the U.S. Tax Code. Sternlicht, 36, built Starwood Lodging from the ruins of a bankrupt hotel investment firm rooted in the San Fernando Valley using an arcane tax loophole to renew Wall Street's interest in the company.

Real estate entrepreneur Barry Sternlicht, who founded Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., said he would start a luxury-hotel chain to compete with high-end properties including St. Regis. The Crillon brand may be opened in cities including London, Rome and New York. The brand will be modeled on the Hotel de Crillon in Paris, which Sternlicht's Starwood Capital Group acquired with its purchase of Societe de Louvre this month. Sternlicht's new brand will be competing with the St.

Real estate entrepreneur Barry Sternlicht, who founded Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., said he would start a luxury-hotel chain to compete with high-end properties including St. Regis. The Crillon brand may be opened in cities including London, Rome and New York. The brand will be modeled on the Hotel de Crillon in Paris, which Sternlicht's Starwood Capital Group acquired with its purchase of Societe de Louvre this month. Sternlicht's new brand will be competing with the St.

If Hilton Hotels Corp.'s takeover bid for ITT Corp. ends up being trumped by Barry Sternlicht and his Starwood Lodging Trust, Hilton could lay much of the blame on the U.S. Tax Code. Sternlicht, 36, built Starwood Lodging from the ruins of a bankrupt hotel investment firm rooted in the San Fernando Valley using an arcane tax loophole to renew Wall Street's interest in the company.

Casino company Riviera Holdings Corp., which had rebuffed a takeover bid from investors including Barry Sternlicht, said it had received a buyout offer of $373.9 million from a group led by Ian Bruce Eichner and Dune Capital Management.

Starwood Lodging Trust, the nation's largest hotel real estate investment trust, may agree to buy Westin Hotels & Resorts this week, people familiar with the talks said. Seattle-based Westin could fetch as much as $1.5 billion in a sale, analysts said. Buying Westin would give Starwood Lodging a well-known upscale hotel brand to affix to its string of more than 100 hotels. Starwood Lodging wants its own brand to save costly franchisee fees it pays for other hotel flags.

A group of private investors has agreed to buy hotel-casino operator Riviera Holdings Corp. for $211.5 million, with an eye on the company's Las Vegas Strip property, the company said Thursday. The investment group, Riv Acquisition Holdings Inc., will pay $17 a share. Shares of Las Vegas-based Riviera rose 80 cents Thursday to $18.94.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., operator of the Sheraton, Westin and W Hotels brands, has named former Coca-Cola Co. President Steven J. Heyer as chief executive to succeed company founder Barry S. Sternlicht, effective Oct. 1. The firm said Sternlicht would assume the position of executive chairman, reducing his day-to-day role to focus on long-term strategies for the firm as well as capital investment and real estate matters. Shares of Starwood rose $1.69 to $46.26 on the NYSE.

Third Wave Acquisition Corp., a so-called blank-check company headed by Starwood Hotels and Resorts founder Barry Sternlicht, filed with regulators Tuesday to raise as much as $350 million in an initial public offering. The Greenwich, Conn., company said in a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it would offer 35 million units at a price of $10 each.

WCB Properties and Starwood Capital Group bought an office and retail complex in San Diego for $71 million, one of the largest office property sales in the metropolitan area this year. The two firms purchased the 389,000-square-foot Hazard Center, in the city's Mission Valley area, from Connecticut General Life Insurance, according to broker Cushman & Wakefield, which represented the seller. The property's 15-story, granite-clad office tower is fully leased, with such tenants as Aetna Inc.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., the world's largest hotel owner, agreed to buy Vistana Inc. for about $645 million in cash, stock and assumed debt, to enter the time-share resort business. White Plains, N.Y.-based Starwood said it will pay $19 a share, 10% more than Vistana's closing price Friday. Vistana holders would receive $5 a share in cash and the rest in Starwood stock. Starwood also would assume about $240 million of debt. Orlando, Fla.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., the world's largest hotel owner, appointed a committee of directors to investigate Chairman Barry Sternlicht's controversial investment in Priceline.com Inc. The panel was appointed in response to a lawsuit filed against Starwood by a group of shareholders, Sternlicht said. The suit alleged that Sternlicht breached his fiduciary responsibility by investing personally in Priceline instead of having Starwood make the investment.