• Managing the Dragon: building a billion-dollar business in China - BOOK REVIEW
By Jack Perkowski, Bantam Press, p/b, 325pp, £9.99

SOME YEARS AGO, Tim Clissold wrote an excellent book, Mr China, which very humorously and effectively described the efforts of himself and an American entrepreneur, backed by a huge investment fund, to develop businesses in China, principally in the automotive sector. With one disaster following on from another, the theme of the book — though not, in fact, its conclusion —was how easy it was to pour literally hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain in pursuit of business opportunities.

Clissold’s book was well received, and well reviewed (including by us in the Review). He did not refer directly to the American entrepreneur by name, calling him only “Pat”. Those in the know recognised the figure of Jack Perkowski – and indeed we in CBBC met Jack Perkowski in the mid-1990s as his business was developing. Suffice to say, Jack Perkowski did not come out of the book well.

Well, now, this is his riposte. With the emphasis firmly on the positive – as the sub-title of the book suggests – the author relates how he has created some highly successful businesses in China, with a turnover of half a billion dollars and en route to that magic figure of a billion.

Part autobiography, part business book, the story is an intriguing one. Jack Perkowski grew up in Pittsburgh, a third-generation immigrant, and experienced hardship as a young boy. But talent, application and a burning desire to succeed in life — not to mention his being a good American football player — took him via Yale University to Wall Street.

There, he made his fortune and his reputation as a dealmaker extraordinaire. Tiring of the parochialism of Wall Street, he went on a whim to Hong Kong in the early 1990s, believing that the future lay in Asia. He relates how he read a statement by Bill Simon, a former secretary of the US Treasury, saying, “If I were 40, I would move to Hong Kong.” And that seemed to be enough.

Upping sticks and leaving his family behind, he met as many people as he could in Hong Kong and came to the conclusion that the future lay, more specifically, in China. So off he went there, and liked what he saw: opportunity, especially in the automotive sector. “I didn’t know the language and had never studied Chinese history, so I had no choice but to dive right in,” he writes.

Inevitably, it was a steep learning curve and mistakes — especially with the early choice of joint venture partners — were made. But he did learn fast, and he had confidence. He also had a huge investment fund, provided by American backers. This is where Tim Clissold enters the picture and, for a more entertaining description of the factories that they visit and the ordeals they go through as they seek to build businesses, Clissold’s is certainly the book to read.

But for analysis of what worked and what didn’t, Jack Perkowski’s account is very useful. By establishing many joint ventures, he becomes clear about what type of general manager he needs and seems to have little trouble in finding them. There are many detailed accounts of individual meetings, which suggests that either he has an excellent memory or he kept a diary.

The business, called Asimco, is now entering its next phase - to become a global company, combining “the best in China” (local managers, with experience of the West) with “the best from the rest of the world” (Western managers, who understand how to integrate the businesses into the world economy).

He has no doubt that, at some point, he will have created a billion-dollar business. Who am I to doubt him? When I met Jack Perkowski came CBBC in the mid-1990s, I wrote that his ambitions were unrealistic, and yet, here he is, 13 years later proving me wrong.

Some of his homespun philosophy and observations, however, do not startle. The fact that you can pay US$100 per head for an expensive meal in a fancy restaurant and a few renminbi for an equally delicious bowl of noodles from a street seller is not particularly revelatory. Some readers may appreciate that, but most visitors to China will have found that out for themselves.

Neither was I persuaded by his view that there are only two rules for operating in China: no 1, that everything is possible and, no 2, nothing is easy. That may look good in a PowerPoint presentation, but looks trite on the page. It is quite clearly the case that some things are not possible to do in business, and, equally, as many CBBC members tell us, in the right setting, some things are very easy to achieve. —Humphrey Keenlyside.

The views expressed are those of the reviewer and do not necessarily reflect those of the China-Britain Business Council.