ITT Sheraton was the hotel arm through which ITT Corporation owned, operated, managed and franchised the Sheraton system from 1968 until Starwood acquired ITT in 1998.
Position
ITT Sheraton was the hotel arm through which ITT Corporation owned, operated, managed and franchised the Sheraton system from 1968 until Starwood acquired ITT in 1998. It belongs in the Library because it joined a mass international chain to a luxury collection, a substantial owned-hotel estate, central reservations and, for a short period, a gaming conglomerate.
Its most durable luxury result is LHL-226 · The Luxury Collection. Its most important corporate acts were the 1994 controlling purchase of LHL-482 CIGA — Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi · CIGA, the reorganisation of much of the franchise estate as Four Points, and the assembly of Sheraton, CIGA and Caesars inside the hospitality-and-entertainment ITT that Starwood bought.
Classification
This is a Part II historical group record, not a current hotel brand. ITT Sheraton was simultaneously a parent company, an operator, a brand steward, a franchisor and an owner or lessee of selected assets. Those positions carried different duties and economics, so the master does not use “owned” as shorthand for every hotel bearing the name.
The register marks the group dissolved because its independent ITT-controlled perimeter ended in 1998. The classification does not assert that every subsidiary was legally liquidated on the closing date; the surviving brands, contracts and assets passed into Starwood and later Marriott.
The Relevant Dates
Sheraton began in 1937, but ITT Sheraton as a corporate subject begins with ITT's acquisition in 1968. The closing date is exact: ITT became a wholly owned Starwood subsidiary on 23 February 1998.
The years before 1968 explain what ITT bought. The years after February 1998 belong principally to LHL-480 · Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and, after 2016, LHL-456 · Marriott International.
What Ended
The sale ended ITT's control over Sheraton, CIGA, The Luxury Collection, Four Points and Caesars. It also ended the attempt to place hotels, casinos, sport, entertainment and information services within one independent public company under the ITT name.
The hotels did not disappear together. Sheraton, Four Points and The Luxury Collection remained operating brands, CIGA continued inside Starwood for a time, and Caesars was sold later. What vanished was the parent architecture and the ITT Sheraton identity that connected them.
Sheraton Before ITT
Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore acquired their first hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1937. Their company expanded by buying existing hotels and applying one chain identity across properties rather than waiting to develop a purpose-built national estate.
That acquisition-led lineage matters because ITT inherited a functioning hotel system, not an empty trademark. The pre-ITT company already possessed public-market access, international ambitions, reservations technology and a recognised full-service name.
Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore
Sheraton's own history names Henderson and Moore together as founders. The record establishes joint responsibility for the first acquisition but does not separate which partner authored each later operating, financial or technological decision.
They should therefore be credited as co-founders without assigning unproved individual inventions. Their People disposition is considered separately below under the Library's authorship test.
An Acquisition-Built Chain
The founders expanded through existing buildings, which made the chain a portfolio of inherited architecture and local histories from the beginning. The value of the parent lay in common identity, standards, sales and distribution rather than a single repeatable building type.
ITT continued that logic at a greater scale. It bought a chain, then added hotels, luxury assets, CIGA and gaming businesses around it. The result was commercially integrated but historically composite.
The Sheraton Name
A chain name allowed unlike hotels to sell a common promise. For owners and lenders, it connected an individual building to central reservations, advertising and operating knowledge; for guests, it reduced the uncertainty of choosing a hotel in an unfamiliar city.
The name did not erase ownership. A Sheraton could be held by ITT, leased by an ITT subsidiary, operated under a management agreement or run by a franchisee. The sign was common while capital and control varied.
The 1947 Listing
Sheraton Corporation of America became the first hotel chain listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1947, according to the surviving brand's official chronology. Public listing gave the chain a form of capital access and scrutiny that helped distinguish it from a privately held hotel collection.
The milestone predates ITT and must not be credited to the later parent. ITT acquired a listed-chain heritage whose corporate finance had already become part of its growth model.
Reservatron
Sheraton launched Reservatron in 1958 and describes it as the industry's first automatic electronic hotel reservation system. Whatever later systems replaced it, the strategic idea endured: the parent made scattered hotels searchable and confirmable through a common network.
Distribution was therefore central to Sheraton before computer networks became ordinary hotel infrastructure. ITT inherited that competence and later rebuilt it as Reservatron IV.
International Expansion
Sheraton's official history records expansion into the Middle East and South America during the 1960s. The chain was becoming an exporter of American hotel management and distribution before ITT acquired it.
International growth frequently depended on local ownership, government relationships and management contracts. A flag abroad did not necessarily mean that the American parent owned the land or building.
The Hundredth Hotel
The Sheraton Boston opened as the system's hundredth hotel in 1965. The milestone demonstrates the scale already present three years before the ITT acquisition and prevents the conglomerate parent from being treated as the chain's founder.
The University of Houston's archived 1965 annual report supplies a contemporary corporate source for this pre-ITT company. It is retained because later brand histories compress the operating and financial distinctions visible in annual reporting.
ITT Acquires Sheraton
ITT's 1995 distribution statement says ITT Sheraton had been a wholly owned subsidiary since 1968. The acquisition placed a hotel chain inside a much larger conglomerate whose other businesses extended across insurance, manufacturing, defence, electronics and communications.
The parent supplied capital and corporate reach, but the hotel system remained an identifiable subsidiary. “ITT Sheraton” therefore describes both brand presentation and corporate control, not a claim that every Sheraton hotel became direct ITT real estate.
Parent and Lodging Arm
ITT Corporation was the parent; ITT Sheraton was its lodging arm. This distinction becomes important in 1995, when the conglomerate split and the hospitality-and-entertainment company retained the ITT Corporation name while the industrial company became ITT Industries.
The same distinction applies to the 1998 sale. Starwood acquired ITT Corporation, including ITT Sheraton, rather than purchasing only the Sheraton trademark from an otherwise continuing ITT hotel parent.
The Conglomerate Bargain
Under ITT, Sheraton could use group capital to acquire and refurbish hotels, enter gaming, buy CIGA and invest in technology. The benefit was the ability to make moves larger than the hotel subsidiary might have financed alone.
The cost was strategic complexity. By the mid-1990s investors had to value hotels, casinos, sport, entertainment and information services together, while hotel operations themselves mixed asset ownership, leases, management contracts and franchises.
Four Operating Relationships
ITT's own filings grouped Sheraton properties as owned, leased, managed or franchised. Ownership placed the building and operating result closest to the company; a lease transferred possession and operating risk for a term; management placed staff and operating authority under Sheraton while another party owned the asset; franchising licensed the name and system to an independent operator.
These were not cosmetic categories. They determined who funded the real estate, who employed hotel staff, who bore property-level volatility and how ITT earned its return.
Owned Hotels
At an owned hotel, ITT Sheraton or a controlled subsidiary carried the asset and the operating business. Revenue included the hotel's room, food, beverage and other sales, while payroll, maintenance, utilities, taxes and capital needs remained direct exposures.
Owned flagships could protect standards and capture property appreciation, but they consumed capital and made earnings more sensitive to local cycles. They also made an eventual group sale partly a real-estate transaction rather than only a transfer of contracts.
Leased Hotels
For leased properties, an ITT Sheraton subsidiary generally leased land and building, owned furniture and equipment, paid operating expenses and retained managerial discretion. The filing describes rents commonly linked to revenue or gross operating profit, subject to a fixed minimum.
At June 1995 the owned and leased portfolio carried approximately USD 545 million of mortgage and lease indebtedness. Lease economics therefore sat between ownership and fee management: less land capital, but continuing fixed and operational obligations.
Managed Hotels
Under long-term management agreements, property owners supplied the hotel and operating funds while ITT Sheraton hired, trained and supervised managers and employees. It prepared budgets, allocated owner funds for maintenance, and supplied reservations, advertising, marketing and promotion.
Management fees were generally a percentage of hotel revenue, sometimes with an incentive fee tied to operating performance. The parent sold an operating system; the owner retained the capital asset and most property-level investment risk.
Franchised Hotels
Franchisees operated their own hotels under Sheraton marks and participated in the network. ITT Sheraton approved locations and plans, reviewed design, inspected properties and supplied brand and distribution, but did not directly manage the hotel staff.
At June 1995 there were 217 franchised hotels operated by other business entities. Their number made franchising essential to system scale even though franchise fees represented a much smaller revenue line than the gross revenue consolidated from owned and leased operations.
The Owner Is Not the Operator
A management contract could put Sheraton employees and systems inside a building owned by somebody else. A franchise could put the Sheraton name on a hotel whose employees answered to a franchisee. An owned hotel could still be subject to debt, ground leases or joint-venture interests.
The group entry therefore avoids “Sheraton owned 423 hotels.” The accurate 1994 statement is that the network marketed 423 properties: 209 owned, leased or managed and 214 franchised.
The 1992 Loss
The 1995 filing shows that the hotels segment reported a USD 28 million operating loss in 1992 after a USD 45 million provision to write down hotel investments. This is the clearest recorded loss in the operating history reviewed for the master.
The result also shows why a group history cannot be written as uninterrupted expansion. Hotel real estate can lose value, development costs can be impaired, and ownership exposes the parent to those corrections directly.
Expansion in the Downturn
ITT Sheraton began an accelerated expansion and refurbishment programme in 1990 and 1991, using the hospitality downturn to acquire or improve assets before the expected recovery. The strategy combined contrarian investment with tighter brand standards.
It was not purely asset-light. The later shift toward owned hotels, including CIGA and other luxury acquisitions, confirms that ITT deliberately used capital ownership as part of brand repositioning.
Recovery by 1994
Hotel-segment revenue rose from USD 3.16 billion in 1993 to USD 3.70 billion in 1994; EBITDA rose from USD 167 million to USD 239 million and operating income from USD 87 million to USD 152 million. The filing attributes improvement to North America and Asia-Pacific, acquisitions and cost reductions.
The comparison includes the effects of an expanding perimeter. It should not be read as same-hotel performance alone, because CIGA, The Phoenician, The Park Grande and other acquisitions contributed.
Scale in 1994
ITT reported more than 45 million Sheraton customers in sixty countries during 1994 and described a network of approximately 420 properties. The exact year-end table gives 423, illustrating the difference between a rounded corporate headline and a dated operating count.
The register's “world's largest” language comes from management's description of the combined hotel-and-gaming company. It is recorded as a claim with attribution, not as an independently audited industry ranking.
The Property Mix
At 31 December 1994, 209 properties, or 49 per cent, were owned, leased or managed under long-term agreements; 214, or 51 per cent, were franchised. In 1993 the comparable split was 176 and 230.
The movement toward the operating and owned side reflected acquisitions and management's stated effort to improve standards. It also increased the capital and organisational burden carried by the group.
Geographic Revenue
The hotel segment generated 45 per cent of 1994 revenue in North America. The remaining reported mix was 18 per cent Europe, 19 per cent Asia-Pacific, 10 per cent Africa and the Middle East, 6 per cent Latin America and 2 per cent headquarters or other.
This distribution made Sheraton genuinely international while leaving North America the largest single revenue source. CIGA strengthened Europe and luxury; Asian management relationships supplied growth without requiring identical ownership in each market.
Owned and Leased Performance
For the six months ended June 1995, ITT reported 69 owned and leased hotels in the relevant table, with 70.7 per cent occupancy and an average daily rate of USD 132.54. Owned hotel-casinos and Caesars World were excluded from that table.
The exclusion is material. A number presented as “ITT Sheraton owned hotels” can change when casinos, CIGA and pro forma acquisitions are included or excluded, so the master names the perimeter with every scale figure.
Revenue Is Not Fee Income
Owned and leased hotels contributed gross hotel revenue, whereas management and franchise arrangements produced fees and sometimes reimbursed costs. Comparing their revenue lines without understanding consolidation overstates the apparent importance of owned hotels and understates the scale reached through contracts.
The same caution applies across hotel groups today. A parent can control standards and distribution across a very large system while owning only a minority of buildings.
Franchise Economics
ITT's filing describes an initial franchise payment, room-based charges and a continuing licence fee calculated as a percentage of room revenue. Franchisees also paid for participation in the broader system and remained subject to inspection.
The bargain was reciprocal. The independent owner received name, reservations, marketing and operating standards; ITT received growth and recurring fees without putting the full building cost on its balance sheet.
Four Points
In 1995 ITT Sheraton began converting nearly all franchise hotels to the new Four Points Hotels name and expected nearly all new franchises to use it. The stated target was the business-oriented traveller.
This was segmentation by operating model as much as by guest. Smaller franchised hotels no longer had to carry the same implication as the larger owned, leased and managed Sheratons, while the Sheraton connection continued to lend recognition.
What the Conversion Cost
Creating Four Points clarified the system but removed many franchise properties from the core Sheraton name. It therefore recorded a deliberate loss of Sheraton-branded unit count in exchange for cleaner positioning.
The conversion also shifted reputational risk into a new name rather than eliminating it. Owners still depended on ITT distribution and standards, and guests still read “Sheraton” as a family endorsement.
Four Business Units
ITT Sheraton organised marketing around four business units: Luxury Group, Business Convention Group, Resort Hotels and Franchise. The structure recognised that a palace hotel, a convention hotel, a resort and a smaller franchise could not be sold through one undifferentiated proposition.
It was an early brand-architecture answer inside a chain that still relied heavily on the Sheraton name. The later Starwood portfolio made those distinctions more explicit through separate brands.
Global Sales
In 1995 the marketing organisation included more than 130 sales professionals in twenty-four offices across fifteen countries. Central sales converted a dispersed property network into one negotiable account for multinational companies and meeting planners.
This is one of the group functions an individual hotel could not efficiently reproduce. A local property supplied rooms and service; the parent supplied account coverage across cities and borders.
Corporate Programmes
The Global Preference/SET Preferred programme involved more than 450 major multinational corporations and generated more than USD 120 million in revenue for Sheraton hotels, according to the filing. The Connections programme simplified booking multiple meetings across locations.
These programmes made the network more valuable than a list of buildings. They also made owners dependent on the parent for negotiated demand that could be difficult to replace if a flag was withdrawn.
Sheraton Club International
Sheraton Club International was the frequent-guest programme whose member preferences could be stored in Reservatron IV. It linked recognition and customer data across properties before Starwood Preferred Guest replaced the wider loyalty architecture after the acquisition.
The programme belongs to ITT Sheraton's commercial infrastructure, not to any one hotel. Its disappearance is another corporate loss: the customer relationship survived, but the programme name did not.
Reservatron IV
ITT implemented Reservatron IV in 1992. The system delivered current availability, rates, room types and destination information for approximately 420 Sheraton properties and approximately thirty-three CIGA properties, while confirming special requests and retaining guest preferences.
A wholly owned Sheraton subsidiary operated the system through offices worldwide. Technology was therefore a direct group capability and a major part of what Starwood acquired in 1998.
Distribution as the Parent Product
Reservations, sales, loyalty, advertising, standards and training were the reusable product beneath the visible hotel names. They let a third-party owner buy into demand and operating knowledge without selling the building to ITT.
This infrastructure also allowed the parent to move a property between internal categories. A Sheraton franchise could become Four Points; a historic hotel could enter The Luxury Collection; a palace could keep its local name while gaining global distribution.
China in 1985
Sheraton became the first international hotel chain to operate a hotel in the People's Republic of China in 1985, according to the brand's official history. The Great Wall Sheraton in Beijing became a visible example of management expertise crossing political and commercial systems.
The achievement belongs to the ITT period, but it did not mean simple American ownership of the property. Its significance was operating and brand entry into a market that would later become central to global hotel development.
The Luxury Group Before CIGA
The surviving trade chronology dates the ITT Sheraton Luxury Collection to 1992, when twenty-eight premier hotels were designated and The St. Regis New York served as flagship. That chronology predates the 1994 CIGA acquisition.
The collection therefore began as segmentation within Sheraton. CIGA transformed its depth and identity, but the evidence does not support saying that the name first appeared only after CIGA was bought.
The CIGA Acquisition
In 1994 ITT paid USD 523 million for a 70.3 per cent interest in CIGA. The Italian group brought approximately thirty-three properties and a lineage of European palace hotels, strengthening both geographic balance and luxury credibility.
ITT did not acquire every remaining share at that stage. CIGA retained minority ownership and its own corporate history, which is why it receives a separate record at LHL-482 CIGA — Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi.
Other Luxury Acquisitions
The same expansion period included USD 550 million for three other hotels, while filings identify The Phoenician, the Crescent properties and The Park Grande among acquisitions reflected in the hotel segment. ITT was buying landmark assets as well as a company and contracts.
These purchases made the Luxury Group more than a marketing overlay. They placed significant real-estate exposure behind the attempt to raise standards and compete at the top of the market.
What CIGA Supplied
CIGA supplied historic buildings, established local names, European operating knowledge and an aura that could not be manufactured quickly by a standardised chain. Its hotels made a collection based on individuality commercially believable.
Sheraton supplied global reservations, sales and capital. The combination foreshadowed the modern soft-brand bargain: a property keeps much of its identity while joining a larger commercial system.
The Luxury Collection
ITT Sheraton created the collection name and then made CIGA central to it. Marriott's later corporate history compresses the story by saying CIGA created The Luxury Collection; the earlier 1992 chronology and 1994 purchase record show a two-stage development instead.
The accurate authorship line is therefore shared but ordered: ITT Sheraton launched the category from its premier hotels; CIGA gave it a defining palace-hotel inheritance; Starwood later separated and expanded the brand; Marriott now owns it.
A Soft-Collection Logic
The collection let historic hotels lead with their own names and places rather than conform entirely to a single physical prototype. The group supplied distribution, quality oversight and an umbrella luxury position while the hotel supplied architecture, memory and local specificity.
That model became widely reproduced across large hotel groups. The Library credits LHL-226 · The Luxury Collection as the direct surviving brand created in the ITT Sheraton perimeter.
The St. Regis New York
The St. Regis New York was an ITT Sheraton asset and the flagship of the 1992 Luxury Collection. It is recorded separately as LHL-H-122 The St. Regis New York and later gave its name to LHL-224 · St. Regis Hotels & Resorts.
ITT did not create the St. Regis chain. Starwood used the New York hotel's name, service rituals and prestige to build the multi-property brand after acquiring ITT; the distinction protects the hotel, collection and later chain from being collapsed into one origin.
CIGA Hotel Connections
The ITT-CIGA inheritance reaches LHL-H-197 · Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido, LHL-H-198 · The Westin Palace Madrid, LHL-H-315 · The St. Regis Venice, LHL-H-329 · The Gritti Palace and LHL-H-357 · Santo Mauro, a Luxury Collection Hotel.
Present flags differ because Starwood and Marriott later sold assets, changed brands and retained or replaced management contracts. A current Marriott name does not mean Marriott owned the hotel throughout its CIGA or ITT era.
Brand Register Map
LHL-226 · The Luxury Collection is the one dedicated brand entry in the supplied register that directly records creation by ITT Sheraton. LHL-224 · St. Regis Hotels & Resorts connects through The St. Regis New York but was scaled as a brand by Starwood, not ITT.
Sheraton Hotels & Resorts and Four Points do not have dedicated brand codes in the supplied register. No codes are invented for them. LHL-482 CIGA — Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi identifies CIGA as a corporate group and LHL-480 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide identifies the successor group.
The Full Hotel-Brand Perimeter
At the end of independence, the hotel-brand perimeter comprised Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, Four Points by Sheraton and The Luxury Collection. CIGA remained an acquired corporate and property lineage within the group rather than merely another interchangeable Sheraton flag.
Caesars belonged to the wider gaming perimeter. Sheraton Club International and Reservatron IV were programme and infrastructure names, not hotel brands. This list separates brands from subsidiaries, programmes and individual houses.
The Desert Inn
ITT entered United States land-based gaming through the 1993 acquisition of the Desert Inn properties in Las Vegas. The move extended the hotel company into regulated casino operations with different capital, licensing and risk requirements.
The casino was not simply another Sheraton hotel. Gaming regulation reached parent ownership and financing, complicating both the 1995 corporate split and any later takeover.
Caesars World
ITT completed the approximately USD 1.7 billion acquisition of Caesars World in March 1995. Caesars Palace and the wider casino system made the hospitality parent a much larger gaming operator only three years before Starwood acquired it.
The acquisition increased scale but also mixed two distinct brand logics: Sheraton sold lodging and distribution across many ownership forms, while Caesars combined destination casinos, hotel operations and tightly regulated gaming licences.
Madison Square Garden
ITT and Cablevision acquired Madison Square Garden in 1995, bringing the arena, New York Knicks and New York Rangers into the same broad company as Sheraton and Caesars. The venture was managed and voted on a fifty-fifty basis.
The combination illustrates the reach of “hospitality and entertainment” and the difficulty of valuing the group as a pure hotel company. ITT later sold its stake while defending itself against Hilton.
The 1995 Corporate Split
ITT proposed dividing the old conglomerate into three public companies: industrial businesses, insurance, and hospitality, entertainment and information services. The hospitality company, initially called ITT Destinations, took the ITT Corporation name after distribution.
The split made hotels and gaming more visible to investors but did not make the resulting company simple. Sheraton, CIGA, Caesars, Madison Square Garden and information services still sat together.
New ITT
Management projected the new company at approximately USD 6.5 billion of pro forma 1995 revenue and USD 875 million of pro forma EBITDA, assuming recent acquisitions had been present for the full period. Those figures were projections, not audited full-year results from an unchanged perimeter.
The filing called the combination the world's largest hotel and gaming company. The phrase is retained with management attribution because the ranking mixed lodging and gaming and depended on the measure chosen.
Information Services
The post-split parent also contained telephone-directory and information-service businesses. These operations contributed cash flow but had little direct connection to hotel guest experience or brand architecture.
Their presence explains why an ITT group valuation cannot be treated as a simple price paid for Sheraton. Starwood's transaction acquired a corporate bundle and then had to decide what belonged in a hotel-led future.
Capital Complexity
CIGA, Caesars, the luxury hotel purchases and Madison Square Garden required billions of dollars within a short period. Owned and leased hotels carried mortgage and lease obligations, while casino regulation constrained financing and ownership.
ITT had assembled unusually valuable assets, but it had also made the balance sheet and governance of the hospitality company more consequential. That complexity shaped both the Hilton campaign and the range of values later attached to the Starwood deal.
Hilton's Hostile Bid
Hilton launched an unsolicited tender offer and proxy contest in January 1997. The campaign sought both the assets and the shareholder votes needed to replace an incumbent board capable of using defensive measures.
The battle was not an abstract contest between hotel brands. It concerned control of a company holding Sheraton, CIGA, Caesars and other assets, and it forced ITT to defend its strategy, board structure and valuation in public.
The Court Fight
A United States federal court described the dispute as a test of board powers during a hostile takeover and of shareholders' voting franchise. It found that Nevada law did not authorise an incumbent board to entrench itself by effectively removing shareholders' ability to vote on directors.
The court also questioned ITT's argument that Hilton's USD 70 offer posed a severe threat when ITT's own plan was valued lower by its adviser. Governance became part of the economic record, not a footnote to the hotel transaction.
The Comprehensive Plan
ITT proposed a restructuring that would separate businesses, increase leverage and alter board arrangements while the Hilton contest continued. Management presented the plan as a way to realise value without selling the company.
The court's scrutiny limited defensive manoeuvres that would have impaired the shareholder vote. The episode records a cost of conglomerate control: strategic reorganisation became inseparable from management entrenchment allegations.
Asset Sales During Defence
ITT sold its fifty-per-cent Madison Square Garden interest and other non-essential holdings to raise cash. Time also reported the sale of five Sheraton hotels to FelCor for USD 200 million without a competitive bid and the marketing of The St. Regis New York.
These sales reduced the estate while management argued for an independent future. They are recorded as real losses of assets even though the proceeds could support debt reduction, repurchases or restructuring.
Criticism of Management
Contemporary critics argued that ITT's defensive programme protected incumbent leadership more than shareholder value. Time quoted analysts and an academic who questioned the hotel sales and the absence of competitive bidding.
The allegations are not converted into a finding of personal misconduct here. They belong in the group record because capital allocation, sale process and voting rights directly affected which hotels and brands survived inside ITT.
Starwood's Agreement
On 20 October 1997 ITT accepted Starwood's competing agreement. The announced terms were USD 15 in cash and USD 67 in newly issued paired shares for each ITT share, then valued at USD 82.
The parties described a combined system of approximately 650 hotels in seventy countries, including Starwood's pending Westin acquisition. The release also projected USD 100 million of synergies from staff, technology, reservations, purchasing, cross-marketing and loyalty integration.
Equity and Debt
The announced equity value was approximately USD 9.8 billion, while Starwood agreed to assume about USD 3.5 billion of ITT debt. That produced the widely reported USD 13.3 billion transaction value.
Starwood Capital's later history rounds the acquisition to USD 14 billion, and other retrospective accounts go higher. The register's approximately USD 14.3 billion should therefore be read as a headline enterprise-value estimate, not a single uncontested accounting amount. ⚑
The Closing Mechanics
ITT became a wholly owned Starwood subsidiary on 23 February 1998. Shareholders could elect cash or paired shares, subject to proration; the closing letter records USD 85 cash per share for the cash portion and 1.543 paired shares for stock consideration.
The difference between the October announcement and February closing terms is one reason transaction headlines vary. Market prices, elections, debt and the definition of consideration all affect the number reported.
What Starwood Acquired
Starwood acquired brands, corporate entities, owned and leased hotels, management and franchise agreements, central reservations, sales relationships, loyalty data, development rights, employees and gaming operations. It also acquired obligations, asset-sale commitments and the challenge of integrating a target much larger than its earlier hotel platform.
This was not merely the purchase of the word Sheraton. The value lay in the system that connected hundreds of differently owned properties and millions of customers.
What Did Not Remain Together
The ITT prefix disappeared from the hotel identity, Sheraton Club International was superseded, the parent entertainment perimeter was dismantled, Caesars was sold by Starwood in 1999, and hotel real estate continued to be divested. CIGA's minority and property structure also changed after the acquisition.
The disappearance of the group was therefore gradual in assets but immediate in strategic control. Starwood kept the hotel brands it wanted and edited away much of the conglomerate around them.
Sheraton Under Starwood
Sheraton became the broad full-service scale brand inside LHL-480 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Four Points supplied a more moderately priced and heavily franchised position, while The Luxury Collection became a distinct collection rather than a Sheraton subcategory.
Starwood's later success does not transfer authorship backward or forward indiscriminately. ITT created Four Points and the Luxury Collection name; CIGA supplied much of the collection's palace-hotel substance; Starwood created the international St. Regis chain and further separated the brands.
Marriott Lineage
Marriott acquired Starwood on 23 September 2016. Sheraton, Four Points, The Luxury Collection and St. Regis now sit within LHL-456 · Marriott International, while the historical ITT and Starwood groups remain the necessary explanation of how they arrived there.
Corporate succession does not make Marriott the owner of every flagged hotel. The present system remains a mix of management, franchise, ownership and licensing relationships that must be checked property by property.
People Disposition
Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore: the official record establishes them as Sheraton's co-founders and the first acquisition, but the sources reviewed do not separate individual authorship or identify a specific copied luxury-hospitality model attributable to either one alone. No new People code is invented and no nomination is made on the current evidence.
Rand Araskog: his long ITT leadership, acquisitions and takeover defence were consequential corporate acts, but scale, office and transaction leadership do not by themselves pass the Part IX test. Barry Sternlicht already holds LHL-P-033 Barry Sternlicht and is not duplicated; his authorship belongs principally to LHL-480 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and W rather than to ITT Sheraton.
LHL Connections
The successor group is LHL-480 · Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and the later parent is LHL-456 · Marriott International. The acquired predecessor group is LHL-482 CIGA — Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi · CIGA; the surviving direct brand is LHL-226 · The Luxury Collection.
The principal related brand and hotel records are LHL-224 · St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, LHL-H-122 · The St. Regis New York, LHL-H-197 · Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido, LHL-H-198 · The Westin Palace Madrid, LHL-H-315 · The St. Regis Venice, LHL-H-329 · The Gritti Palace and LHL-H-357 · Santo Mauro, a Luxury Collection Hotel.
Booking with LVXVRY
LHL-481 is not a current booking counterparty. LVXVRY may book qualifying Sheraton, Four Points, Luxury Collection or St. Regis hotels through their present channels, but it should identify the current owner, operator, flag and programme participation instead of implying a surviving ITT relationship.
The history remains commercially useful. It explains why a palace hotel may retain a local identity within a global collection, why two Sheraton-family hotels can have different owners and operating models, and why present benefits must be confirmed at property level.
The Group's Lasting Model
ITT Sheraton's lasting model was the layered hotel system: a global full-service brand, a differentiated franchise brand, a collection for singular luxury houses, central sales and reservations, loyalty data, and a selective base of owned assets.
Later groups reproduced that architecture with more brands and less real estate. The lesson is not that conglomerates are inherently superior; it is that distribution and contracts can unify hotels whose buildings, owners and histories remain different.
What It Bought and What It Cost
ITT bought Sheraton, then CIGA, luxury hotels, the Desert Inn, Caesars World and an interest in Madison Square Garden. These acquisitions created scale, European palace-hotel credibility, gaming reach and a powerful commercial network.
The cost was leverage, exposure to hotel write-downs, regulatory complexity, dilution of corporate focus and a takeover struggle that ended independence. During the defence, hotels and the MSG interest were sold; after closing, Starwood removed gaming and the ITT identity.
Timeline
1937 - Ernest Henderson and Robert Moore acquire their first hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts. 1947 - Sheraton Corporation of America becomes the first hotel chain listed on the New York Stock Exchange. 1958 - Sheraton launches Reservatron. 1965 - The Sheraton Boston becomes the system's hundredth hotel. 1968 - ITT acquires Sheraton; the chain becomes a wholly owned subsidiary. 1985 - Sheraton becomes the first international chain to operate a branded hotel in the People's Republic of China. 1990-1991 - ITT Sheraton begins an accelerated acquisition and refurbishment programme. 1992 - Reservatron IV is implemented; ITT Sheraton designates its premier-hotel Luxury Collection. November 1993 - ITT enters United States land-based gaming through the Desert Inn. 1994 - ITT pays USD 523 million for 70.3 per cent of CIGA and adds other luxury hotels. 1995 - ITT completes the approximately USD 1.7 billion Caesars World acquisition and begins converting most franchises to Four Points. 1995 - The old ITT is divided; hospitality, entertainment and information services continue under the ITT Corporation name. January 1997 - Hilton begins its hostile tender offer and proxy contest. 1997 - ITT sells assets while pursuing a defensive restructuring; the shareholder-vote dispute reaches federal court. 20 October 1997 - ITT and Starwood announce the competing USD 82-per-share agreement, valued at approximately USD 13.3 billion including debt. 23 February 1998 - ITT becomes a wholly owned Starwood subsidiary and the independent ITT Sheraton perimeter ends. 1999 - Starwood sells Caesars gaming interests and begins building St. Regis as an international brand. 23 September 2016 - Marriott acquires Starwood and the surviving hotel brands move to their present parent.
Candour
The register note says ITT took control of CIGA in 1994 and “created The Luxury Collection out of it.” The first clause is supported. The second is too compressed: the trade chronology dates the ITT Sheraton Luxury Collection to 1992, before CIGA, while Marriott's later company history credits CIGA with creating it. This master carries the conflict as ⚑ and uses the narrower synthesis that ITT launched the collection and CIGA remade its substance and prestige.
The phrase “world's largest hotel and gaming company” comes from ITT management's 1995 distribution materials and depends on perimeter and measure. Property counts also vary between the rounded statement of approximately 420 and the year-end table of 423; owned, leased, managed and franchised hotels must not be added without preserving those categories.
The Starwood transaction is reported at approximately USD 9.8 billion of equity, USD 13.3 billion including debt, USD 14 billion in Starwood Capital's retrospective account, and about USD 14.3-14.6 billion in other summaries. The master does not force these into false precision. It identifies closing, consideration mechanics and debt separately.
Finally, “dissolved” is an editorial status. The record establishes loss of independent ITT control and transfer into Starwood, not the legal liquidation date of every Sheraton subsidiary. It also records the losses usually omitted from corporate histories: the 1992 operating loss and hotel write-down, asset sales during the Hilton defence, the end of Sheraton Club International and the ITT name, later disposal of gaming, and the disappearance of the independent group itself.
## Sources
Signed source titles below are active hyperlinks. Accessed September 2026.
1. [ITT Corporation · Preliminary Proxy Statement and Distribution Materials · 11 August 1995](https://investors.itt.com/static-files/aa4551c0-0902-4c3b-94e5-578f37b17420) 2. [ITT Corporation · Form 10-Q for the Quarter Ended 31 March 1995](https://investors.itt.com/static-files/789af68c-b3af-4e0e-9884-c077c04d998a) 3. [Sheraton Hotels & Resorts · Our Story: 1937 to Today](https://sheraton.marriott.com/about-us/) 4. [University of Houston Libraries · Sheraton Corporation of America 1965 Annual Report](https://digitalcollections.lib.uh.edu/concern/texts/wh246s90n?locale=en) 5. [Marriott International · Starwood Company History · 25 May 2016](https://marriott.gcs-web.com/static-files/4cb4e011-ddff-4613-984f-1e08d799227c) 6. [Hotel Business · St. Regis Brings the Gilded Age Forward · 7 June 2018](https://archive.hotelbusiness.com/st-regis-brings-the-gilded-age-forward/) 7. [United States District Court for the District of Nevada · Hilton Hotels Corp. v. ITT Corp. · 29 September 1997](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/978/1342/2136304/) 8. [Time · ITT's Strip Show · 23 June 1997](https://time.com/archive/6731014/itts-strip-show/) 9. [Starwood Lodging Trust · Starwood Lodging to Acquire ITT · 20 October 1997](https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4000798/starwood-lodging-to-acquire-itt) 10. [Los Angeles Times · ITT to Be Acquired by Starwood Lodging · 21 October 1997](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-oct-21-fi-44942-story.html) 11. [Starwood Hotels & Resorts · Letter to Former ITT Shareholders · 24 February 1998](https://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/78/78669/Shareholder_letters/hot_Starwood_ITT_Merger.html) 12. [Starwood Capital Group · Our Firm's History](https://www.starwoodcapital.com/who-we-are/our-firms-history/)