China's HNA to sell some or all of $6.3 billion Hilton stake

China’s HNA Group Co Ltd, the heavily indebted aviation-to-financials conglomerate, plans to sell some or all of its $6.3 billion stake in Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc, underlining its need to shed assets and tackle a cash crunch.

The sale, announced on Thursday through a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, comes about a year and a half after HNA bought a 25 percent stake in Hilton for around $6.5 billion to become its biggest shareholder.

Today, HNA owns 26.1 percent of Hilton.

Following a $50 billion investment spree in the past two years, HNA has sold assets such as land and office buildings in recent months to pay down a large pile of debt that is straining its finances.

In just the first 11 months of last year, HNA’s bank loans and bonds surged by more than one-third to 637.5 billion yuan ($101.1 billion), a HNA China bond market filing showed.

HNA had taken out a loan for its Hilton shares as well. A December 2017 SEC filing showed HNA had increased a loan against its Hilton shares to $3.5 billion from $3 billion. The lenders are JPMorgan Chase & Co, Credit Suisse AG, Deutsche Bank AG and UBS AG.