The China Hustle Page #4

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that took us to a lot

of China-based companies.

And we made

several hundred percent

on all of 'em.

Longwei Petroleum,

bought them, $1, $1.50.

We sold, $5, $6,

500 percent profit.

L&L Energy,

bought them for under $2,

sold it between $9 and $10.

Puda Coal, bought them

for around $4,

sold them for around $7,

great company.

China Agriculture, CAGC.

$9, sold them at $28.

All great companies.

We were back.

By 2010,

Dan and the guys

at Roth and Rodman

were making a killing

on the China stocks.

It seemed like

it would never end,

and maybe it wouldn't have,

had it not been

for one earnest young

American businessman

who'd gone to Shanghai to seek

a completely different

type of fortune.

The business I set up

was the first

self-storage business

in mainland China.

It was called

Love Box Self Storage.

World-class.

And we did win an award

for self-storage facility

of the year.

On the way to setting up

that business,

I co-authored "Doing Business

in China For Dummies."

Carson's father,

a stockbroker back in the U.S.,

wanted to invest

in Orient Paper,

a company that Roth Capital

had brought to the markets

through a reverse merger.

The company claimed that

it was doing $100 million

in business a year

and shipping tons

of high-quality paper

all over China.

It was one of

the fast-growing companies

that Roth and Rodman had sold

and that investors

like Dan had bought.

The goal was

to do some research,

make sure that it was legit.

His father would

write up the report.

Again, a fairly easy

to understand

and analyze business

the opposite of

an American software company.

Carson and a friend

went to check out the factory,

but right away,

something seemed off.

It was a country road.

It was in poor shape.

That road could not support

the massive trucks

that would be going in and out

of that facility all day.

Then we got into the factory.

It was a complete dump.

Half the machines were broken,

weren't working.

Garbage rotting

out in the front yard,

no signage.

And this is their main

manufacturing facility.

There's water everywhere,

all right?

This is a company

that's a paper company.

The company had just

claimed to have clocked in

$100 million U.S. in revenue,

which was up substantially

from the year before.

How was this growing

50 percent a year?

On the balance sheet,

they were showing about...

$5 million in raw materials.

And so they had

heaps and heaps

of this old corrugated

cardboard out front.

My friend climbed

one of those heaps

to take a look at the expanse

of rotting cardboard,

and when he came down,

he said,

"If this is worth $5 million,

the world's a much richer place

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