BEIJING, Dec. 30(Xinhuanet) -- Hilton Hotels Corp.agreed on Thursday to buy 400 hotels of Britain's Hilton Group Plc for $5.71 billion (3.3 billion pounds).

    The merger will reunite the Hilton brand after the business split in 1964 with the U.S. company running all Hilton hotels in the United States and the UK group operating the brand elsewhere around the world.

    Hilton Corporation's chief executive, Stephen Bollenbach, said the transaction marked "the final and logical step in a process that began in 1997 with the signing of our strategic alliance".

    Hilton Hotels will pay about $1.2 billion of the purchase price with cash on hand and finance the rest through a bank facility led by Bank of America and UBS.

    Hilton Group owns 64 of its 400 Hilton and Skandic hotels in 80 countries. Most of the company's profit comes from the U.K. and Western Europe. The company's properties include the Hilton Park Lane and Metropole in London.

    Upon completion of the sales agreement, Britain's Hilton Group will become purely focused on its Ladbrokes-based betting business, the world's biggest gambling operation.

    Conrad Hilton bought his first hotel in 1919 and the first Hilton brand hotel was built in Dallas in 1926.

    The company expanded across the U.S. and then bought its first European hotel in Madrid in 1953 before financial strains forced a split in 1964

    The Hilton family, whose most famous member is the American socialite Paris Hilton, still retains a 5% stake in Hilton Corporation.

    (Agencies)