Correspondence 0001104659-24-128565 from BEST Inc. (CIK 0001709505)
BEST Inc. (CIK 0001709505)
Date: Dec. 13, 2024 · CIK: 0001709505 · Accession: 0001104659-24-128565
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
Referenced dates: December 2, 2024
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Skadden,
Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom llp
A Delaware
Limited Liability Partnership
世達國際律師事務所
JingAn
Kerry Center, Tower II, 46/F
1539 Nanjing
West Road
Shanghai
200040 CHINA
DIRECT
DIAL
(86-21) 6193-8225
DIRECT FAX
(86-21) 6193-8325
EMAIL ADDRESS
yuting.wu@skadden.com
TEL: (86-21) 6193-8200
FAX: (86-21) 6193-8299
www.skadden.com
December 13, 2024
FIRM/AFFILIATE
OFFICES
-----------
BOSTON
CHICAGO
HOUSTON
LOS ANGELES
NEW YORK
PALO ALTO
WASHINGTON, D.C.
WILMINGTON
-----------
BRUSSELS
FRANKFURT
HONG KONG
LONDON
MUNICH
PARIS
SÃO PAULO
SEOUL
SHANGHAI
SINGAPORE
TOKYO
TORONTO
Mr. Brian Soares
Ms. Christina Chalk
Office of Mergers and Acquisitions
Division of Corporation Finance
Securities and Exchange Commission
100 F Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20549
RE: BEST Inc.
Schedule 13E-3/A filed on November 22,
2024
File No. 005-90115
Dear Mr. Soares and Ms. Chalk:
On behalf of BEST Inc. (the “Company”),
we set forth below responses to the comments of the staff (the “Staff”) of the Securities and Exchange Commission
contained in its letter dated December 2, 2024 with respect to the Amendment No. 1 to Schedule 13E-3, File No. 005-90115 (the “Schedule
13E-3/A”) filed on November 22, 2024 by the Company and other filing persons named therein. For your convenience, the Staff’s
comments are repeated below in bold and italics, followed in each case by the responses of the filing persons and certain other relevant
persons.
Please note that, except where indicated otherwise,
all references to page numbers in the responses are references to the page numbers in the updated proxy statement (the “Updated
Proxy Statement”) attached as Exhibit (a)-(1) to the Amendment No. 2 to the Schedule 13E-3 (the “Amendment
No. 2”), filed concurrently with the submission of this letter in response to the Staff’s comments.
Securities and Exchange Commission
December 13, 2024
Page 2
The Amendment No. 2 incorporates the changes made
in response to the Staff’s comments. In addition, a marked copy of the Amendment No. 2 indicating changes against the Schedule
13E-3/A filed on November 22, 2024 is being provided separately to the Staff via email. Capitalized terms used but not defined herein
have the meanings assigned to such terms in the Amendment No. 2.
We represent the special committee of the board
of directors of the Company. To the extent any changes made in the Amendment No. 2 relate to information concerning any person other
than the Company, such changes are included in this letter based on information provided to the Company by such other persons or their
respective representatives.
Certain Financial Projections, page 39
1. We note your response to prior comment 9 and reissue the comment.
Please revise the assumptions listed at the bottom of page 40 to include the Company no longer
incurring the costs associated with being a publicly-listed company, as disclosed on page
44.
The Staff’s comment is duly noted.
The Company respectfully advises the Staff that the Management Projections on page 40 included the costs associated with being a publicly-listed
company, but Kroll excluded such costs (as provided by the management of the Company) in its discounted cash flow analysis because such
costs would likely be eliminated as a result of the Merger. In response to the Staff’s comment, the Schedule 13E-3/A has been revised.
Please refer to page 44 of the Updated Proxy Statement.
Opinion of the Special Committee's Financial
Advisor, page 41
2. We note your response to prior comment 13 and reissue the
last sentence of that comment. Please clarify whether the assumptions added in response to
that comment are included in the assumptions disclosed on page 40 or in the second set of
bullet points on page 42 of the revised proxy statement, or are additional assumptions underlying
the Management Projections that would assist security holders in evaluating Kroll's fairness
opinion and analyses.
In response to the Staff’s comment,
the Schedule 13E-3/A has been revised. Please refer to pages 40 and 42 of the Updated Proxy Statement.
Securities and Exchange Commission
December 13, 2024
Page 3
3. We note your response to prior comment 14 and reissue the
comment. The revised disclosure on page 43 continues to suggest that security holders may
not rely on Kroll's opinion. Please revise to remove that language. Alternatively, please
provide us with the legal basis for your belief that security holders cannot rely on Kroll's
opinion to bring actions under Cayman law, including a description of any Cayman law authority
on such a defense.
In response to the Staff’s comment,
Kroll has advised the Company that its engagement letter with the Special Committee does not create any contractual relationship between
Kroll and the shareholders of the Company. See Joyce v. Morgan Stanley, 538 F.3d 797 (7th Cir. 2008) in which the 7th Circuit dismissed
state law claims by target shareholders against the target company’s financial advisor arising out of the inclusion of a fairness
opinion in a merger proxy statement holding that, under the terms of the financial advisor’s engagement letter, no contractual
or extra-contractual duties to stockholders arose. The court there stated that “…we see no way that the Shareholders can
show that their relationship with Morgan Stanley possessed the ‘special circumstances’ necessary to give rise to an extra-contractual
fiduciary duty.... The exhibits leave no doubt that Morgan Stanley did not accept any such responsibility, and so no fiduciary duty toward
the Shareholders ever arose. The engagement letter, which defines the advising relationship, explicitly noted that Morgan Stanley was
working only for the corporation... The fairness opinion also disclaimed a duty to the Shareholders... Thus, Morgan Stanley never owed
any contractual nor extra-contractual duty to the Shareholders.” We respectfully note that Kroll’ engagement letter with
the Special Committee contains similar provisions expressly providing that Kroll and the Special Committee did not intend to create any
fiduciary relationship between the shareholders of the Company and Kroll.
Kroll has also advised the Company that
although certain U.S. state courts applying U.S. law have posited that the fiduciary relationship between a special committee of a U.S.
corporation and its shareholders under state corporate law may establish privity between the shareholders and any persons in contractual
privity with the special committee,1 Kroll
believes that such legal authority is not applicable in the present case. The Company is organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands
and the relationship of the Special Committee and the Company and its shareholders is governed by Cayman Islands law. Kroll is advised
by its Cayman Islands attorneys that under the laws of the Cayman Islands there does not appear to be any similar doctrine to “extra-contractual
fiduciary duty” and no such fiduciary relationship therefore arises between Kroll and the Company’s shareholders as a result
of Kroll’ rendering of a fairness opinion to the Special Committee in this transaction.
1
See Schneider v. Lazard Freres & Co., 159 A.D.2d 291 (N.Y. App. Div. 1990).
Securities and Exchange Commission
December 13, 2024
Page 4
Kroll is advised by its Cayman Islands attorneys as follows:
(1) Cayman Islands common
law, including the doctrine of stare decisis (or precedent), is applied by the Cayman
Islands courts. If there are no binding Cayman Islands decisions, decisions from English
courts and those of other English common law jurisdictions are persuasive. However, Cayman
Islands courts are bound by the decisions of the Privy Council, London, sitting on an appeal
from a Cayman Islands decision.
(2) They are not aware
of any precedent in Cayman Islands law which has ruled that a financial advisor, as a counterparty
to a contract with a special committee of a company, owes any duties, including contractual,
tortious (see below) and/or fiduciary, to the shareholders of such company, such that a cause
of action could be pursued directly by such shareholders against the financial advisor.
A claim in contract requires for there to be privity of contract such that non-parties to
the contract have no right to bring a contract claim (In The Matter Of Omni Securities
Limited (No. 3) [1998 CILR 275])
(3) If faced with a claim
by a shareholder that the financial advisor to a special committee of the board of a Cayman
Islands’ company owed fiduciary duties to the shareholders of such company, the Cayman
Islands court would likely strike out the claim. As a matter of Cayman Islands law,
a third party, such as a financial advisor to the company, does not owe fiduciary duties
to either to the company (for which the duty is typically contractual) nor to the shareholders
(of which there is no fiduciary duty at all). A claimant shareholder would therefore
have no standing to bring the claim. A chose in action (a claim) belonging to a company,
for example as a counterparty to a contract with a financial advisor, for breach of contract
and/or a tort, can only be brought in a court of law by the company itself. A
shareholder has no right to seek to vindicate the company’s cause of action: Foss
v Harbottle (1843) 2 Hare 461.
(4) The categories of
fiduciary relationship in Cayman Islands law are not closed (English v Dedham Vale Properties
[1978] 1 W.L.R. 93 at 110) and common categories include: trustee and beneficiary; agents
and principals; solicitors and clients; promoters and the company they are promoting; partners
to each other; guardians to their wards; receivers on whose behalf s/he act; directors and
companies etc. (para 7-004, Snell’s Equity, 33rd edition, Sweet & Maxell).
There is, however, growing judicial support for the view that: “a fiduciary is someone
who has undertaken to act for or on behalf of another in a particular matter in circumstances
which give rise to a relationship of trust and confidence” (Bristol & West Building
Society v Mothew [1998] Ch. 1 at 18). It seems unlikely that a financial advisor
to the special committee of the board of a company could have a relationship of trust and
confidence with the shareholders of the company therein.
Securities and Exchange Commission
December 13, 2024
Page 5
(5) In the Supreme Court
of the United Kingdom case of Sevilleja v Marex Financial Ltd [2020] UKSC 31 it was
held that shareholders are barred from bringing claims which seek to recover a sum equal
to the diminution in the market value of its shares, or equal to the likely diminution in
dividend, due to a rule of law known as “reflective loss” such that when a shareholder
acquires a share he accepts the fact that the value of his investment follows the fortunes
of the company and that he can only exercise his influence over the fortunes of the company
by the exercise of his voting rights in general meetings. The rule was established
by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Prudential Assurance Co Ltd v Newman Industries
Ltd (No 2) [1982] Ch 204 at 224 and the decision of the House of Lords in Johnson
v Gore Wood & Co [2002] 2 AC 1 which precludes recovery of loss, where the ‘loss’
is merely a reflection of the loss suffered by the company. Equally therefore, shareholders
would be barred from bringing such “reflective loss” claims against the company’s
third party financial advisor.
(6) The exception to the
reflective loss rule is that shareholders may be able to bring a derivative action on behalf
of a company against a third party financial advisor to the company if it can be shown that
those in control of the company (i.e., the board of directors) do not want to pursue a valid
claim on the company’s behalf (Prudential Assurance Co Ltd v Newman Industries Ltd
(No 2) [1982] Ch 204 at 211). The claim would still belong to the company, who
would be the named plaintiff, and not the shareholders, however.
(7) A shareholder could
bring a claim against a financial advisor wrongdoer in respect of a breach of duty owed in
tort, for damages that are personal losses, so long as these do not include “diminution
in the market value of its shares, or equal to the likely diminution in dividend” (i.e.,
reflective loss) (Johnson v Gore Wood & Co [2002] 2 AC 1 61C to 62D). A
non-reflective loss tort may be actionable if a legal duty of care exists based on a tripartite
test: harm must be reasonably fo