I work for a Chinese chemicals company, and I've just been given instructions to explore chemicals assets for sale in the US. Deal size is anything under $200M or so, but we have good capital markets access so we can stretch if we have to. Think of us as a PE buyer, or like HNA or Wanda but smaller. We're also sub-industry agnostic as long as it's related to chemicals, preferably petrochemicals. I have absolutely no idea how to approach this since my background is not in chemicals, I've never done a transaction before, and my boss refuses to give further instructions and says just call around to explore.
How do I do that? Who do I approach? I'm currently in the Bay Area, which is not a huge hub for industrials or energy. The main chemicals bank I found, Valence Group is based in New York. Where do I even start? I'm sure I can't just call up a bank and ask for a list of companies who want to be acquired. I'm not even sure how committed we are to anything, but we're trying to explore I suppose.
Any help would be appreciated and I assure you this is not a troll.