I have become a big fan of Muddy Waters Research. Muddy Waters is a micro company that focuses on debunking Chinese stocks, mostly for fraud. Muddy Waters is the brainchild of Carson Block, who describes himself as “an entrepreneur who’s practiced law and pioneered an industry in China. Our team members are likewise veterans of China’s business trenches who similarly understand how business is really conducted in China. Through their successes and struggles, they’ve developed the knowledge and contacts to navigate China’s muddy waters.” Muddy Waters has been first to reveal a number of Chinese publicly traded companies pretty much had no clothes.
Muddy Waters recently came out with an article full of good advice, entitled, “The Six Rules of China Due Diligence,” with the following six tips:
- Approach the company as a potential customer does. “You want to see what the China side customers see. Fraudulent companies have far less confidence that they can fool a Chinese company in their industry than they do about fooling a starched shirt analyst. Moreover, they’re usually less willing to take legal risks in their home market (China) than they are in the United States.” In other words, look to see how the Chinese company with whom you are interested is treated by other Chinese companies.
- Take all company-provided introductions with a grain of salt. “When companies set up meetings or conversations between you and their suppliers or customers, take them with a grain of salt….In a country where a lot of managers earn less than $500 per month, it’s not hard for an unscrupulous company to buy someone’s loyalty for the duration of a meeting or phone call. You should instead rely on your own networks to help you understand the company and industry. If you don’t have those networks, you unfortunately shouldn’t be making investment decisions in China by yourself.” I completely agree.
- Try to construct your own fraud scenario. ”At some point in evaluating every investment, you should stop and ask yourself how you could have staged everything you’ve been shown or done with the company. It’s good for American investors to practice this mentality because it makes us less credulous. More importantly, this kind of thinking makes clear how surprisingly simple measures (e.g., switching factory signs before you arrive, painting old machinery) can be so effective in fooling the credulous investor.” I absolutely love this advice and I urge everyone to follow it.
- Forget about the paper. Focus on the operations. “In today’s world where you can buy a competent color printer for less than $200, it’s hard to understand why investors place so much faith in bank statements, invoices, and contracts. China’s deal making world abounds with stories of forged bank statements and other documents leading to disastrous deals. Unfortunately, most auditors apply the US audit playbook in China – reviewing and taking documents at face value….Instead, you have to look at the operation itself. How much does the output seem to be, how much material is moving into and out of the factory, does the office seem to be a hive of activity, how many employees can you count, what is the square footage of the facilities? These are all basic questions one should concern themselves with during site visits. And it pays to visit two to three (or more) times – a good fraudster can put on a show, but they’re unlikely to be able to do it the same way each time. Watch for the subtle differences. Ultimately if you cannot find a good way to measure the company’s sales or productivity (as in the case of a service company), you should think carefully about proceeding with the investment.” I completely agree with the advice to put the Chinese company’s operations under a microscope, but I completely disagree with the advice to ignore the paper, as I discuss more fully below. I advocate puttting the paper under a microscope as well.
- Always speak with competitors. “Competitors with real businesses can usually tell you one of two things about a fraudulent competitor – either that it’s obscure (sometimes the “competitor” is hearing about the company for the first time); or, that they know it’s a fraud. Many competitors will be reluctant to speak openly at first about a fraudulent competitor if they know you’re a potential investor in the fraudulent company. However, if you’re a potential customer who is shopping around for a vendor, it can be a different story.” This is excellent advice, but one should also take the views of competitors with at least a bit of salt.
- Do not delegate. “A lot of experienced China investors have stories about subordinates who colluded with a target company to attempt (and sometimes succeed) to defraud the investor. Be attuned to the dichotomy between the investment funds at stake and the income/wealth of the people on whom you rely for judgment.” Very true. At least half the time when my firm has been brought into a fraud situation, we have to ask ourselves whether the “trusted subordinate” was incredibly stupid or in on the fraud.
The seventh rule (my added rule) is to put the documents you receive under a microscope because the fraudulent company will nearly always make some mistake in the document. In my career, I have caught the following, all of which threw up massive red flags:
- Company claimed to have a multi-million dollar account at a non-existent bank;
- Company documents showed a subsidiary in the Marshall Islands, yet always spelled the country as Marshal Island. It had no such subsidiary;
- Company claimed to have a branch office in a particular city, yet its documents on that branch office (including supposed government documents) put that city in the wrong province;
- Company claimed to be bringing in twice as much product as physically possible on a particular ship;
- Company claimed to have been shipping out product on a particular ship that did not exist during the first few years when the product was allegedly being shipped;
- Company claimed to have won an IP lawsuit in a country’s Supreme Court (they produced the Supreme Court’s decision and everything), but there had never been such a case.
I could go on and on….
What do you think? What measures do you like for checking the bona fides of Chinese companies?
