Successful strategy for an investment banker in China

I have worked as an economic consultant in China for about five years on a part-time basis. I am retired so I choose not to work full-time. From my experience, an investment consultant in China can adopt the following strategy if he wants to quickly succeed in China.

Step One
Contact several investment bankers in the United States who are interested in going big in China. Then sign a consulting agreement with them to represent them in China.

Step Two
The next step involves several options.
Option one. Establish a representative office (RO) of the investment banker in China.
Option two. Establish an independent investment company in China.
Option three. Establish an independent investment consulting company in China.

Step Three
Promote the company in China just like one does in the United States. It involves tremendous expenses and success is not guaranteed, but there are ways to increase the odds.

• Build up good relations with government officials. They provide sales leads.
• Attend seminars and conferencces.
• Cultivate middleman.

Special Chinese characteristics

• What we consider public knowledge in the United States are considered sensitive and confidential trade secrets by a Chinese company. They will not release them to an unknown person who says he knows some investment bankers whose names he cannot release.
• A Chinese businessman does not trust a middleman. He does not even want to talk to him.
• A middleman does not work with another middleman.

Summary
The reward of an investment consultant is very lucrative in China. One successful case has netted a Chinese investment consultant in Yangzhou in excess of 10 million yuans and so he retires on one case.

It is a new field in China and the Chinese are still learning the ropes so the competitive advantage is on the side of the United States. However, it is easy to waste time in China if one does not employ proper strategy.

A successful strategy is very important.

Prepared by Mustang Ma (ma.xiaoshan@gmail.com) in Guangdong on June 27, 2008

New development - hotel, resort, vacation villa, marina

Last week I was invited by a property developer in Zhoushan to visit his development on site. His planned development is on some islands in the city of Zhoushan, province of Zhejiang, China.

Zhejiang province (http://www.zj.gov.cn) ranks number one in terms of privately held enterprises and privately held money. Zhoushan city (http://zs.zj.gov.cn) is a coastal city off the largest seaport of Ningbo.
Zhoushan is not a wealthy city. Instead, it is a famous travel destination and where the wealthy people in Ningbo go for leisure, sports and entertainment.

Zhoushan consists of hundreds of islands, large and small. The largest and the closest island to Ningbo is known as Dinghai. We took a ferry from Ningbo (Beilun) to Dinghai. Right now a bridge is being built to join Ningbo and Zhoushan. It is reported that the bridge is scheduled to be in use in May 2009.

Once we were on Dinghai, we drove a few minutes to a private harbor. The developer privately owns this harbor. It has a waiting room, a parking lot with 80 parking spaces, and a harbor for his private fleet of ships and boats.

We left our car on his parking lot, and we went to his island by one of his boats. It takes only three minutes.

According to the developer, within the next five years, he will build a five-starred hotel, a marina and vacation villa on two islands. Then he will expand his development onto other islands.

He has already started to construct a five-starred hotel and resort on the island named Phoenix Island. On the day I visited the hotel, we stay in the hotel, so the main hotel is already completed, but the leisure, sport and entertainment portions are yet to be completed.

He presented his plan for developing the marina and vacation villa on another island, which will be connected to Phoenix Island by a causeway.

According to his plan, he will build 120-vacation villa and 500 marinas on that island. He is raising fund for the development. If anyone is interested in helping with the development and funding, please contact Mustang Ma (maheausan2000@yahoo.com) for further detail. Go to http://picasaweb.google.com/ma.xiaoshan for a photo show of my trip.

Mustang Ma
Profile on the Internet Http://www.linkedin.com/in/mustang001