than that. I always welcome it if they put in more equity funding. For the collateral, if they have the same kind of collateral with the bank, that’ s very good. Also, we look at whether they have different collateral assets as even better. So separate the collateral from the bank, and also see if the collateral is liquid, and that the value is the fair market value, and if it’ s over 150 percent of the money they borrow, I feel comfortable with that.
EB5 Investors Magazine: Do you have a separate underwriting department that analyzes the deals?
Anna: We don’ t have a special underwriting department, but we do have a due diligence process. We will pay for a third party to study particular things that we don’ t understand very well— to study that area and give feedback reports. When you’ re talking about underwriting, that’ s also one of the reasons why I choose to have the regional center or the PE fund separate from the project itself. The reason why we choose to have such partners is that they are very experienced with the immigration centers. They know what they’ re aiming for with their projects. The second reason is that they’ re better able to control the financial risks— this is their primary task. And then I choose those partners who have a good track record, good business assets experience, and especially if we have dealt with them for a couple of years and understand how they react in negative cases and how they perform. From there we build trust. To that end, that’ s why we don’ t have our own underwriting firm and why we work with those partners. But we do, in particular areas, have a due diligence process.
EB5 Investors Magazine: What’ s the estimated volume of EB-5 that you do per year?
Anna: Not much really. We have around 50 projects. That’ s the average. But this year we did a bit better— maybe a 20 percent increase.
EB5 Investors Magazine: Do you have the capacity to take on more projects now?
Anna: We have reliable partners we’ ve been working with and who we feel very comfortable with, so of course we will place their considerations first, and we feel very comfortable with that. But I want to have more partners from the wealth management side rather than the EB-5 side.
EB5 Investors Magazine: What are your plans for expansion of your company?
Anna: I don’ t think we have ambitions to expand throughout China. That’ s our strategy. We’ re focused in Shenzhen. We’ ve been here 19 years and we have a good market reputation. The market has more extensive needs, so we need to provide very professional, comprehensive services to satisfy the market better. This is our strategy, rather than expansion of other branch offices around China.
EB5 Investors Magazine: On the overseas side, how do you handle relocation services? Is that outsourced or do you have an affiliated company in the destination country for your clients?
Anna: When we talk about relocation, that’ s not only housing and the daily counseling, but also for wealth management to satisfy their needs. People can’ t evaluate housing by themselves. For that reason, I refer them to a housing agent or insurance agent because they can get the business from them, but we select the agents we’ re working with to make sure that they meet our standards. We outsource, but we focus a lot on the selection of partners for wealth management.
“ The market has more extensive needs, so we need to provide very professional, comprehensive services to satisfy the market better. This is our strategy, rather than expansion of other branch offices around China.”
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