Why do i have different bounding box handles?

I've been searching for the answer to this and cannot find it anywhere, so hoping someone can help? I've been sent a file of an illustrator outlined font, but the bounding box handles have asterisks in them (see below) rather than being standard handles. 

I have figured out that I just need to "Expand" the object for it to become standard, so that's not an issue, Ijust want to understand how this was created and why they are there... every day is a school day and i'd love to know how this was created! Can anyone advise?