ITT to Sell Its Commercial Finance Unit : Transaction: $4-billion deal is part of firm’s efforts to divest itself of entities not related to lodging and entertainment.

ITT Corp. will sell a big piece of its far-flung empire to the U.S. arm of a large German bank for about $4 billion, the companies said Monday in one of the biggest takeover deals announced this year.

The sale of ITT’s commercial finance unit comes a week after the hotel conglomerate arranged to buy Los Angeles-based Caesars World Inc. for $1.7 billion in a major bid to boost its presence in the gambling and entertainment businesses.

ITT is selling ITT Commercial Finance to Deutsche Bank North America, the American subsidiary of one of Germany’s largest banks. ITT Commercial Finance lends money to distributors of products ranging from personal computers to motorcycles, a business known as asset-based lending.

For Deutsche Bank, the acquisition will quadruple its presence in asset-based loans to about $5.1 billion, the company said.

“This acquisition will accelerate DBNA’s strategy to become a leader in the rapidly growing business of asset-based lending,” John Rolls, DBNA president and CEO, said in a statement. “ITT Commercial Finance has established a strong industry presence reflecting its record of product innovation, systems development and strong financial performance.”

The purchase will cost about $4 billion, said Christian Allaire, a spokeswoman for DBNA, a unit of Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG. No other financial terms were disclosed.

ITT, parent of the Sheraton hotel chain, has been trying to bolster its entertainment and lodging division, which lags behind its two more established core businesses--insurance and manufacturing. As part of that effort, ITT had said it would seek bids for its consumer and commercial finance business.

Earlier this year, ITT and the cable company Cablevision Systems Inc. agreed to pay the entertainment conglomerate Viacom Inc. $1.08 billion for Madison Square Garden, which owns the New York arena of the same name, pro basketball’s Knicks, pro hockey’s Rangers, and MSG, a sports cable network.

It also bought 70.2% of the CIGA Hotel Corp., which has 31 luxury hotels in Europe, for about $550 million, and paid another $260 million for the Phoenician resort in Scottsdale, Ariz.

New York-based ITT has also been shedding businesses deemed nonessential. Earlier this year the company spun off its ITT regional cable network.