LOS ANGELES-Chinese investor Hazens Investment LLC has acquired the Sheraton Gateway Hotel near the Los Angeles International Airport for $96 million. Hazens Investment is a subsidiary of Shenzhen Hazens Real Estate Group Co., one of the China's largest construction and development firms.

“The acquisition of the Sheraton Gateway marks Shenzhen's first US-based acquisition, and there will be more,” says Eudeen Y. Chang, a member of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP's Chinese Investment Group, who represented Hazen Investment in the transaction along with Catherine DeBono Holmes and JMBM attorneys Monica Vu, Stephanie Rohde, An Nguyen, Travis Gemoets and Brandon Chock. “I have found that China-based clients are put at ease knowing that I and the firm have also helped other Chinese businesses close multiple deals; the clients feel reassured that it can be successfully done in the US.”

JMBM's experience in the hospitality industry was essential to the acquisition of the 802-room hotel, sold by Long Wharf Real Estate Partners, as was having a Mandarin-speaker like Chang on the team, who could navigate both the language and cultural differences.