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EB5 Investors: Moving on to the project side, how do projects contact you or how do you find or choose your projects?
He: We have assisted numerous regional centers from their inception of doing business in China to their current success. As a result, our industry contacts provide us with information about upcoming projects.
We also receive referrals from different regional centers or developers that we work with or through their attorneys. Interestingly we also receive a number of referrals directly from our investors.
We always have our door open to any new developers and regional centers, the market is constantly changing, so are the projects, so we need to stay up to date. Projects are welcomed to contact our company and we will conduct our initial review of the project and follow up thereafter.
EB5 Investors: It certainly seems that a lot of your business is based on referrals both from the investor side and the developer side.
He: Yes, like I said, we started out early, at a time when there were almost no EB-5 projects being offered in China. So, we helped bring in several regional centers and some of those regional centers are now very powerful names in the industry. As a result, people know the name Wailian, and know what we have achieved, so they trust us and come to us.
EB5 Investors: Why is it so difficult for regional centers to reach investors directly in China? Why is it common to go through a migration agency?
He: This involves some legal complexities. Like I said earlier, the brokers in China must be licensed in order to offer EB-5 services, otherwise it will violate Chinese law. Another factor is the trust issue; when doing business with Chinese investors, there can be huge cultural differences. Also sometimes regional centers are not even aware of their licensing requirements in China, depending on what kind of office they have there.
For example, at the EB-5 summit that we hosted this past March, I learned about a certain case where a project worked directly with investors and clients based on a referral directly from their attorney. Because there are some very long I-526 processing times, a couple of investors from the project got very, very worried and concerned. They had no one to speak with because there was no representative from the project or the developer in China. The developer was unable to be reached and many of the investors did not speak English, so it was very difficult for them to gather any information. This ended up causing a panic with the overall investor group. I spoke with two of those investors who came to the conference because they knew that would be the only chance for them to meet somebody from the project side. Had the project retained a migration agency from the very beginning, the investors would know who to contact to answer any questions regarding their investment, without causing panic.
EB5 Investors: I know a lot of developers do attend these conferences because they are looking to find investors. How does that process work at a conference?
He: The purpose of the conference is to provide a platform for the developers, projects, regional centers, agents and potential investors to learn about one another. The main purpose for the developers / projects / regional centers is not for them to be able to sell to the investor directly— they still need to work with immigration agents in China— but it is a very good opportunity to showcase the project to the market, to see if Chinese investors like the type of project they are offering and the structure of the project. It’ s a very good opportunity for developers to see how the market reacts to the project, or test whether the project documents and marketing materials are strong enough to stand on their own, or if anything is confusing to the investors. Many of these developers and projects are new to the Chinese market and it can be quite difficult for them to understand the process of doing business in China. They may get a referral from their attorney or from a friend to meet one or two immigration brokers in China. But through this conference, they have an opportunity to meet with tens or hundreds of immigration brokers, so they have more choices. That is the point of the conference— to increase the probability of finding a suitable partner in China. At the conference, we not only provide an opportunity for developers to showcase their projects, but we also invite industry professionals, including top name immigration lawyers, securities lawyers and economists who talk about current trends and what people should know about the EB-5 program. So it’ s also an educational and informational event for projects and for immigration brokers to meet industry professionals that they otherwise may never meet.
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