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From: Daniel Reyes <daniel.reyes@halberd.com>
To: deal-team-albatross@halberd.com
Cc: Vivian Holst <vivian.holst@halberd.com>,
    Marcus Vale <marcus.vale@halberd.com>,
    Priya Iyer <priya.iyer@halberd.com>
Subject: Project Albatross - kickoff and workstream allocation
Date: Mon, 04 May 2026 08:31:12 -0400
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Team,

Kicking off Project Albatross today. This is a preliminary outside-in
commercial DD on Aurora Eggs, the NZ shell-egg producer Vivian flagged a
couple of weeks ago. The aim of this sprint is a preliminary view to take
to senior partner Friday. Does this look like a deal we want to engage on
further (request the CIM, sign NDA, move into confirmatory)? If yes,
indicative bid follows the CIM read several weeks out, not now.

A few things to be clear about up front:

This is pre-LOI. We do not have a CIM, a polished bank presentation, or
data-room access. What we have:

  - Nicholas Chen's outreach email (forwarded around)
  - Aurora's public-facing material (their website)
  - Our internal deal-screening workbook, pipeline tracker entry
  - Up to four expert relationships' worth of transcripts (Iris is locking
    in the calls)
  - Public industry sources we've gathered

The four parallel workstreams. I want each of these completable independently
from the deal materials, no waiting on each other. Senior partner sees all f=
our
on Friday.

  1. Market structure & competitive landscape: single-page market overview
     rendered in LaTeX with a TikZ diagram. Two files required:
     market_overview.tex and market_overview.pdf. The PDF must compile from
     the .tex (we recompile-check on submission). Depiction over prose:
     a title and at most a sentence or two of intro, no body-text brief.

  2. Market sizing, forecast & cage-ban transition model: Excel workbook.
     Up to four tabs (historical sizing / forecast / transition scenarios /
     assumptions). Five-year forecast driven by population and per-capita
     consumption. MECE segmentation by channel and production system.
     Explicit named transition scenarios, at least three, covering how
     the colony cohort moves over the next 24-36 months under the 2027
     retailer pledge. Top-down vs bottom-up reconciliation surfaced and
     explained, not hidden.

  3. Target assessment, opportunities & risks: PowerPoint deck for the IC.
     Normal preliminary-findings deck size, anywhere from ten to twenty-five
     slides. Asset profile, performance vs comps (with scale haircuts),
     top-line and bottom-line opportunities, risks with prioritized register,
     key findings synthesis.

  4. Findings & open-questions briefing video, plus an accurate time-aligned
     .srt subtitle file. Three preliminary findings, three open questions
     for confirmatory DD. Subtitles need to match the audio word-for-word.
     Hugh turns audio off in IC if subtitles are wrong.

A few framing things to keep in mind:

  - The MPI animal-welfare numbers everyone quotes are from 2022. Phase 2
    (the retailer-driven cage-free pledge by end-2027) has shifted things
    since. Cross-check.
  - Comp benchmarks (Cal-Maine, Inghams adjacency) need haircuts for scale
    and product mix. Don't quote Cal-Maine multiples directly.

Vivian is sending the must-test list under separate cover today.

- Daniel

Daniel Reyes
Principal, Halberd Capital Partners
daniel.reyes@halberd.com | +1 (212) 555 0149