John D Kuhns

Education

Born in Lake Forest, Illinois to college professors, Kuhns spent his formative years in Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., where he was educated in the public schools.

A member of the Class of 1972 at Georgetown University, he graduated from with an A.B in Sociology and in Fine Arts. Kuhns was a four-year starter at middle linebacker on the Georgetown varsity football team. Leading the team in tackles for two years, and the second leading tackler in his other two campaigns, Kuhns was elected a team captain in his senior year. He was inducted into the Georgetown University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994.

A sculptor, Kuhns received a scholarship to study fine arts at the University of Chicago in 1973 after a Georgetown professor, without Kuhns’ knowledge, submitted his art portfolio to the school. He graduated with a Master’s in Fine Arts degree in 1975. Subsequently, he attended Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts, graduating with a Master’s in Business Administration degree in 1977. During his summer between years at business school, he worked on the bond trading desk at the investment banking firm of Salomon Brothers in its Boston office.

Career

Kuhns’ career as an investment banker began when he joined Salomon Brothers in New York in 1977 in its public finance department, working on publicly owned electric utility projects. Later, he left with a group of Salomon Brothers partners to form J.J. Lowrey & Co., a bond trading and project finance investment bank, where he was a general partner.

In 1986, Kuhns acquired control of the Laidlaw, Adams & Peck investment bank, one of the oldest continuously operated financial firms in the United States, and changed the firm’s name to Kuhns Brothers & Laidlaw. Under his direction, Kuhns Brothers has financed many companies, including the IPO for CalEnergy, one of the world’s largest geothermal power corporations. Kuhns has focused on financing domestic alternative energy companies, power technology ventures and infrastructure companies, as well as many foreign issuers, mainly from China, since 1989.

As an entrepreneur, Kuhns has taken 5 of his own companies public.

In 1981, Kuhns founded Catalyst Energy Corporation, one of the first publicly traded independent power producers in America. In 1986, the company completed its IPO and became listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NYSE: CE. Catalyst became the largest independent power company generating electricity for sale to utilities in 1988. The company became known for its ability to take advantage of loopholes, such as buying a St. Louis steam generator, and leasing the generator’s distribution pipes from the state of Missouri. Because Catalyst did not own the distribution pipes, it was exempt from many regulations. In 1984 while CEO of Catalyst, Kuhns made his first visit to China, going to Chengdu to purchase hydroelectric generating equipment, and becoming the first American to do so in the process. In 1987, Kuhns supervised the IPO of Catalyst’s steam power affiliate—Catalyst Thermal Energy Corporation. By 1988, Catalyst had revenues of $417 million and assets worth $1 billion, and was the fastest growing public company in America from 1982 to 1987 according to Inc. Magazine.

Kuhns continued to develop and invest in alternative energy and renewable energy projects throughout China and other parts of the developing world. In 1992 he founded and was the chairman and CEO of The New World Power Corporation, a wholly renewable-based independent power producer. His work with New World focused on alternate energy. At New World, he developed and financed hydroelectric projects in Costa Rica, China, Argentina, and Mexico, and wind farms in the United Kingdom and the United States.

In 2006 as chairman and CEO, Kuhns formed China Hydroelectric Corporation, an owner and developer of hydroelectric projects in China. China Hydroelectric Corporation began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010.

Kuhns organized the China Hand Fund, which invests in companies in China in 2007.

In 2012, Kuhns became executive chairman of NanoFlex Power Corporation (formerly Global Photonic Energy Corporation), a developer of intellectual property which holds over 600 patents worldwide in advanced solar technology. Kuhns had been an investor and board member of the company since 1999. NanoFlex went public in 2013.

In 2016, Kuhns established and funded Bougainville Fund Management, LLC, a private equity fund management company organized to make and manage investments in Bougainville, an island archipelago in the South Pacific. Currently an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea, Bougainville—which possesses billions in gold, copper and silver—is scheduled to conduct a referendum vote on its independence on June 15, 2019. Bougainville Fund Management’s initial investment is the Bougainville Gold Exchange Limited, a business established and licensed to buy, deal in and export gold, which is now the largest on Bougainville. Subsequently, the company, together with a customary landowner partner, was granted a license to conduct mechanical alluvial gold mining. The license was the first such gold mining license to be issued on Bougainville.

Books

Kuhns published a novel, loosely based on his career and business success in China. China Fortunes was released in 2010 by Wiley. The book follows a protagonist named Jack Davis, "an American financier lured by the spectacular promise of the confusing land, from early success and a meteoric IPO that seems too easy, to treachery and loss, and triumphant financial and emotional renewal."

Jing Daily described it as a "vivid illustration" of "the opportunities and obstacles experienced by foreign businesspeople in the early days of China’s sometimes uncomfortable embrace of capitalism…China Fortunes manages to tread the fine line between entertainment and education, never losing sight of the adventure and mind-expanding aspects of living and working in China as a foreigner." The book received positive reviews with Terry McDonell, the former managing editor of Sports Illustrated calling it, "a smart and stylish take on what business really is in modern China. Kuhns knows both cold, and most important, he can tell a great story…ironic, fast moving and sharply observed. It will lock you in."

Kuhns has finished, but has not yet published, a second novel based on smuggling over the Sino-Burmese border in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan.