Re: BHR Meeting in China and Next Steps

Great update Mike.  Thank you. 

I will reach out to Oak Tree and put some thought into the review of targets. 

Devon D. Archer

(+1) 646 436 3745

On Nov 4, 2015, at 1:18 PM, Michael Leonard <mleonard@thorntonai.com> wrote:

Hunter, Eric and Devon,

Last week Jim and I spent some time with BHR. We went to the LP conference that they put on and we sat with BHR in their office and received updates on what they are doing. 

The main takeaway is that we were told many times that the BHR LP's have a lot of capital they want to put to work so the pressure is on for BHR to find more deals. To that end, there were some particular things they wanted our assistance on so I wanted to lay that out in the email:

China Grand Pharmaceutical:

China Grand Pharma is a publicly listed pharmaceutical company in Hong Kong with major operations in China. They have sent us a list of companies that they would like to acquire along with BHR. The list is attached to this email. 

The question is- Do we know anyone at these Pharma companies or otherwise have a way to reach out to them to tee up a potential acquisition?

Bombardier:

When we were at the conference we met one of the executives from China Railway Signal Corporation (CRSC) who was in attendance. They are still keen to pursue the purchase of the Bombardier Transport division. 

The question is- Do we have a way to reach out to the Bombardier top management or, more importantly, the Bombardier family which still retains voting control of the company (even though they only have a minority of the company's equity)?

Aleris:

BHR reiterated that Aleris is still an attractive target as they have an aluminum company SOE that is interested in partnering with BHR for an acquisition. 

Devon, perhaps this might be a good time to reach out to your contacts at Oak Tree and send some press from the Henniges deal saying basically "look what we closed, we are on the hunt for more acquisitions and we would like to talk to you guys again." 

Updates:

Jim sat in on the BHR weekly deal update meeting in Beijing. BHR is making good progress on other acquisitions. They made it to the second round of bidding on an Australian hospital system and are moving forward in due diligence on Osram Sylvania. The team is working hard on numerous projects.

As for other updates BHR took a large position ($50mm) in the China Reinsurance offering in Hong Kong and they have a large investment in Didi (the Chinese version of Uber). Jonathan is still confident about divesting our position in Henniges in 2017 and the next board meeting would likely be in early December. 

That is the update from meeting with BHR. Jim and I will be in New York at the Burnham offices next week to be with Ming from Harvest while he is in town. If you have any questions or thoughts about the above please send them around.

Best,

Mike

--

Michael R. Leonard
Vice President, Operations Department
Thornton Group LLC
14 Beacon Street, Suite 804A
Boston, MA 02108
Office: 617-248-9440
Mobile: 781-454-9227

<China Grand Target List.docx>