Mr. China - Couverture souple

Clissold, Tim

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1841197882 ISBN 13 : 9781841197883

Editeur : Robinson Publishing, 2004

Synopsis

Unusual book

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

In the early nineties, China finally opened for business and Wall Street wanted to get in on the act. When the investment bankers arrived from New York with their Harvard MBA's, pinstripes and tassly shoes, ready to negotiate with the Old Cadres, the stage was set for a collision between Wall Street's billions and the world's oldest culture. The book tells the true story of a Wall Street banker who had climbed to the top but found that it wasn't enough. Looking for glory, he came to China to surf on the next new investment wave and teamed up with an ex-Red Guard and an Englishman living in Beijing. In less than two years, they raised four hundred million dollars and bought up factories all over China. But they learned the hard way that China plays by its own rules. Left sitting in their board rooms whilst the Chinese marched off in their own different directions, they looked on as their four hundred million slid towards the abyss. Faced with no option but to fight, they embarked on a series of desperate battles to regain control from powerful local Chinese. Their struggle in such unfamiliar territory provides a unique and amusing insight into the fallibility of Wall Street and the chaotic workings of modern day China. It reveals the human face of a vast and complex country struggling to modernise but determined to stick to its own rules.

Revue de presse :

For those on Wall Street with their MBA certificates hanging proudly in the office, China is the last great economic frontier, theoretically readily for Westernisation and modernisation, fuelled by oodles of cash. Sadly for them, it's not quite like that. The thin veneer of novelisation is a threadbare cloak for Clissold's exasperated memoirs of his time as a frontiersman in China, trying to translate over USD400m of Wall Street-loaned cash into a viable, working business empire. But the combination of Red Party politics, an unwieldy government and generations of idiosyncrasy militates against the conqueror. Money goes missing, committees fail to be swayed, loyalties waver and the sheer size of the place deadens the possibilities. A country where the workers nibble rabbits' heads is not one where a Brooks Brothers suit cuts much ice in this cautionary tale, prosaically told. Clissold remains caught between a country that he loves and who's people fascinate him and the lure of big, big money, but, in its redemptive arc, its the love that wins through, though not without the rueful acceptance that if you play a game, its best if you know the rules first. --Kirkus

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Robinson Publishing
• Date d'édition: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1841197882
• ISBN 13: 9781841197883
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 288