Bermuda's two Princess hotels appear set to be sold, as part of a deal including hotels in the Caribbean and in US resorts like New York and Scottsdale, Arizona.

Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal is close to signing a deal to buy six hotels in the Princess chain from British conglomerate Lonrho for around $560 million, financial sources close to the prince said yesterday.

"Negotiations are almost over and a deal should be signed within a month,'' a Riyadh source told Reuters.

"The deal does not include two hotels that have gambling, one of them is in Barbados and the other in the Bahamas,'' he added. "Lonrho is aware of the prince's position on this.'' Lonrho officials were not immediately available to comment. Nor were Princess officials in Bermuda or New York.

But people close to Princess Hotels here have been expecting an announcement for some weeks. They noticed "important VIPs who have been in and out of the hotel''.

Meanwhile, Saudi sources said the prince, who is a nephew of King Fahd of the conservative Moslem kingdom, was buying six five-star hotels in Bermuda, the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean for 350 million ($563 million).

They said the prince planned to merge the hotels with the San Francisco-based Fairmont Hotels, in which he owns stakes.

"I will be the sole owner of Princess Hotels,'' al-Waleed told a Saudi-owned newspaper in October, when he expected the deal to be done that month. In his latest international acquisition, Prince al-Waleed said last week he had purchased five percent of stock in Trans World Airlines in what his office said was a new investment trend.

British newspapers reported this month that Lonrho was unlikely to be able to sell the ten-property Princess hotel chain in one block as it had originally wanted and hinted the conglomerate was considering splitting the chain.

Analysts said the hotel sale was a necessary step before Lonrho, in which South Africa's Anglo American has a 28 percent stake, could finally sell off its African trading operations from its mining rump.

The group's split-up was announced over a year ago.

Prince al-Waleed -- who turned 40 on March 7 -- controls an international portfolio that includes Citibank, an investment firm, a supermarket chain, a broadcasting operation, and huge property holdings including the Fairmont and Four Seasons hotel chains.

He has helped bail out the Euro Disney theme park near Paris and Canary Wharf in London's Docklands.

Earlier this year he bought Paris' luxury George V hotel for $172 million.

Last year he signed a deal with US pop star Michael Jackson setting up Kingdom Entertainment to cooperate on concerts, films, television, fun parks and hotels.

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