Emails: State employee reached out to China’s wealthiest man to gauge interest in Nashua property
By Arielle Mitropoulos
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NASHUA, N.H. (WMUR) — A state employee directly reached out to China’s wealthiest man to gauge his interest in bringing his massive water bottling company to New Hampshire, new documents obtained by News 9 reveal.
In August, a News 9 investigation revealed that the property, an empty warehouse at 80 Northwest Boulevard in Nashua, was purchased earlier this year for $67 million, more than four times its assessed value of $15 million last year, by Nongfu Spring, China’s biggest packaged water supplier.
The sale made local and national headlines in the months that followed after national security concerns were raised over the quiet sale and whether it had been scrutinized by federal investigators, given its proximity to important military bases.
News 9 reviewed 160 documents, including hundreds of emails, and discovered a Sept. 16, 2024, email in which a senior business manager with the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs contacted Zhong Shanshan, chairman of Nongfu Spring, in an email titled, “New Hampshire Building — 80 Northwest Blvd., Nashua, NH.”
In the email, the business manager wrote that he was “checking in as a follow up” to Zhong’s prior visit to New Hampshire. He touted the benefits of bringing Nongfu Spring to New Hampshire, saying that the Granite State “offers the lowest taxes in the northeast, tax credits, talent attraction services, and hands-on approach to helping you and your team start production on time.”
In an email to a broker involved in the sale on Sept. 27, 2024, the senior business manager emphasized that he reminded Zhong of the benefits of New Hampshire and the property.
During an Aug. 12 Board of Aldermen meeting, Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess had publicly outed the senior business manager, stating that he had “brought” Nongfu Spring to Nashua.
In an October report, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office found that BEA did not actively “recruit” Nongfu Spring to Nashua, but they were aware of the purchase and provided facilitation and assistance, including meetings attended in Nashua by Zhong. The attorney general’s report stated that while no illegal action was taken, there were red flags that were missed about the purchase, adding that BEA failed to notify other state officials of the sale of a large warehouse.
When asked about how Attorney General John Formella reconciles the email from the senior business manager to Zhong, a spokesperson for Formella stated their office is “comfortable with our conclusions, which were based on the entire context of the communications and interactions between state officials and Nongfu Spring. Beyond that, we believe the report speaks for itself, and we have no further comment at this time.”
According to emails, the senior business manager was also in contact several times with an apparent adviser to Zhong and managing partner of Boston Consulting Services who had attended a meeting in Nashua with at least three Nongfu engineers in November 2024 to survey the 80 Northwest Boulevard site.
The adviser floated the idea of potentially creating a movie or something similar about Nongfu Spring’s first plant in the U.S. in New Hampshire. He said that a Chinese movie had been made about a pregnant woman from Beijing “who travels to Seattle to give birth and secure U.S. citizenship for her child,” introducing the city to a billion Chinese people and turning “the city into a magnet for Chinese tourists and investors.”
“If timed right (though admittedly the current moment may not be ideal), the story of Nongfu’s first U.S. facility could potentially position New Hampshire in a similar light for Chinese audiences, especially business audiences, much like the movie did for Seattle,” he wrote in an email to the business manager.
Emails also revealed that more than half a dozen Nashua employees, as well as a state employee with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, were aware of the pending sale before it was finalized and attended at least one meeting with representatives from Nongfu Spring.
During a June 2024 interview with News 9, Donchess claimed that the only contact they had with Nongfu was after the purchase.
“The only thing that has happened with the city is that after the purchase, [Nongfu Spring] filed a planning board application to make some improvements to the building and then withdrew it — withdrew the application. That’s the only contact we’ve had with them,” Donchess told News 9 at the time.
On Monday, he confirmed that he now knows that to no longer be the case.
“It was a mistake — my statement was mistake,” Donchess said. “[City workers] attended a meeting with the possibility that a company would locate here, but I wasn’t aware of exactly the details.”
Donchess further confirmed that he is not aware of any current movement in manufacturing at the facility.
The company had hopes of hiring 300 people to start producing products by this past summer and would use approximately 840 million gallons of water per year, according to documents.
Pennichuck, which would supply the water, previously told News 9 that the company had ample water supply to address Nongfu Spring’s potential needs.
There were also other potential buyers for the property, which became vacant in November 2024, including the National Guard and Boston Metal, according to emails.
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