Chinese investors put their money — and hopes for green cards — in Oregon.
BY BEN JACKLET
Wilson Chen looks out the window of Suite 820 of the Portland skyscraper his company owns and smiles. “This was the first big deal that we had in the U.S.,” he says. “It was an unforgettable event for us. We put a lot of money into this building. We are taking good care of it.”
As if on cue, a window washer belays down to spray liquid onto the glass and wipe it clean, and Chen laughs for the first time of the interview.
Chen came to Oregon from China with $3,000 to his name 17 years ago. Then he was a poor graduate student. Today he is the president of the company that owns Portland’s iconic KOIN Center, along with five hotels in San Francisco and a huge soybean oil factory and a five-star oceanside resort in his hometown of Shantou in Guangdong Province.
Chen’s buying spree as president and CEO of Portland-based American Pacific International Capital was made possible by the recession. But it is not over now that the recession has passed, because the money he represents — direct foreign investment from Asia and especially China — is growing exponentially. The soft-spoken former hydrologist plans to buy more buildings this summer as another wave of troubled properties washes back to the banks. He is also positioning himself to make prosperous use of a once obscure but now red-hot government program that enables foreigners to earn “green cards,” signifying lawful permanent residency, by investing directly in new or troubled U.S. companies and creating American jobs.
The federal EB-5 program, as it is known, already has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars from Chinese investors into Vermont ski resorts, Hollywood hotels and Seattle real estate. Soon it could be financing woody biomass projects in struggling Oregon timber towns, adult-care facilities on the Oregon Coast, massive urban redevelopment projects in Portland and even the long-stalled Columbia River Crossing bridge project.
During the period in which Chen went from being a broke grad student in Corvallis analyzing watershed run-off to a well connected financier snapping up hotels and factories, China evolved from a nation of potential to one of destiny: the world’s second-largest economy, the U.S. government’s largest creditor and Oregon’s top trading partner. As China’s powerful economic growth continues, Chinese investors with newfound wealth are moving into the U.S. economy at a rate not seen since Japan’s golden era in the 1980s.
“We’ve got an opportunity now,” says Tim McCabe, director of Business Oregon, the state’s economic development arm. “There are a lot of investors in China, and a lot of money… We’re seeing a lot more activity, and this is just getting started.”
In spite of its West Coast location, its ample resources, its strong history of partnering with Japanese businesses and its sizable exports to China, Oregon has been slow to attract Chinese investment. But recent deals hint at a monumental shift:
- A Hong Kong-based investment group last year bought the 166-employee Cascade Pacific Pulp mill in Halsey in a deal expected to be the first of many such acquisitions.
- The Chinese footwear giant Li Ning is investing $10 million into its North American operations headquartered in Portland, a symbol of China’s shift from manufacturing to design.
- A whopping 10 million board feet of Oregon wood is pouring out of Coos Bay each month, most of it bound for China. New export terminals also are being built on the Columbia River to feed Chinese demand for coal and soybeans.
- Schools from Concordia University in Portland to Southern Oregon University in Ashland are actively recruiting Chinese students.
- State representatives are fighting to ease travel restrictions for Chinese visitors, and enough tourists are expected that Port of Portland executive director Bill Wyatt predicts there will be a direct flight between Portland and China within the next 10 years.
But the most widespread change — and the most jobs — could come from a slew of EB-5 projects planned by Chen and his company, American Pacific International Capital, along with Karen Williams of Carroll Community Investments and other developers based in Los Angeles and Vancouver, BC
Williams says the EB-5 projects her group is planning would create “well over 1,000 jobs” in remote forests and struggling urban centers throughout Oregon by financing urban development projects and woody biomass operations.
{pullquote}Each investor is contributing $500,000 minimum but the impact is way bigger than that. And it is long term.{/pullquote}
Chen’s projections are even more ambitious. His EB-5 plan calls for creating 2,000-3,000 jobs in Oregon over the next three years and 7,000 over the next five to seven years by investing in a wide variety of new and existing businesses that need fresh capital to expand.
The EB-5 program was created in 1990. It enables foreign investors who put $1 million into projects that create at least 10 jobs to receive green cards, provided the jobs remain after a two-year trial period. The program becomes doubly attractive for investors if an applicant can convince the federal government to approve an EB-5 regional center. The purpose of these regional centers is to funnel foreign investments into troubled areas with high levels of unemployment. Business Oregon is in charge of identifying those troubled areas around the state, while the regional center’s team is in charge of finding the money and investing in qualifying projects. For EB-5 projects in high-unemployment areas, the investment only needs to be $500,000 instead of a million, and indirect jobs as well as direct jobs can be counted toward the 10 jobs required per green card.
Currently there are 120 EB-5 regional centers in 35 states but none in Oregon. More than half of the centers — 63 — were approved in 2010. By far the biggest users of the program are investors from China seeking green cards. The program allows up to 10,000 green cards per year, a potential infusion of $5 billion to $10 billion in new capital to create jobs with no cost to taxpayers.
In June 2010 the Portland Development Commission put out a “request for expressions of interest” in establishing EB-5 regional centers in Oregon. PDC central city manager Peter Englander says EB-5 money could jump-start major projects that have stalled as traditional financing options have dried up, such as the Burnside Bridgehead, the Centennial Mills waterfront redevelopment and the Oregon Sustainability Center.
“The thing I like about this program is that you have to show the jobs,” says Englander.
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Wilson Chen arrived from China with $3,000 to his name. Now he is the president of the company that owns Portland’s KOIN Center in downtown Portland. // PHOTO BY LEAH NASH |
Chen calls the EB-5 program a win-win situation: “It’s a win for the investor and for the state,” he says. “Because these people bring money to get the economy going and create jobs. Also when they become a green-card holder they will come to Oregon and pay income tax to the state and the federal government. On top of that they have to put their house here, they need to travel and they need to buy stuff. Each investor is contributing $500,000 minimum but the impact is way bigger than that. And it is long term.”
However, if the developer fails to prove that the foreign investor has created 10 jobs, the government will not grant the investor a green card. The jobs must be deemed sustainable after a two-year conditional period.
“You need to deliver,” says Chen. “You need to give the proof of the jobs.”
Chen earned his PhD from Oregon State University in 1996. He started an environmental consulting firm but found it difficult to bring in work because of language and cultural barriers. So he used his computer skills and work ethic to find information technology positions during the dot-com boom years. Even as that bubble burst, China continued its rise. Chen began to hear from family friends who were interested in moving money into the West once the timing seemed right. The investment group grew, and when the time came Chen and his backers pounced aggressively on dramatically undervalued assets. They bought the KOIN Center for about $50 million less than the $106 million the California Public Employees’ Retirement System paid for the building in 2007 after CalPERS defaulted on a $70 million loan.
Their EB-5 strategy will have to be more methodical, tied as it is to government approvals. They plan to start small with a pilot project out of the Oregon Pacific building in downtown Portland. Formerly the home of the Greek Cusina restaurant shut down by the city for fire code violations, the building would be renovated into a mixed-use development financed by 15 foreign investors hoping to gain green cards.
“The Oregon Pacific project is very small,” says Chen. “We want to make sure we are taking a conservative, safe path in all our projects. We took about six months to prepare our application, just to do a lot of research. Because once it starts it won’t stop. This will be the first but it will be followed by others.”
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James Mei opened one of the first American law offices in China. // PHOTO BY LEAH NASH |
Chen’s attorney and golf buddy, Davis Wright Tremaine partner James Mei, has been bridging the gap between China and Oregon for more than two decades. He moved to Oregon from Shanghai in 1985 and attended Willamette University, graduating with a law degree in 1989. He joined Davis Wright Tremaine in 1993 and helped it become one of the first American law firms to establish an office in China. From there he helped Nike close its first equity deal in China and worked with key Oregon companies such as Lattice Semiconductor and Tektronix as well as top global businesses such as Ford Motors, Intel, Microsoft and Starbucks.
Most of the early deals Mei worked on involved helping American companies to gain a foothold in China, manufacturing products at first and later selling them in China as Chinese buying power grew.
With time the money began flowing in both directions. “After years of attracting investment and double-digit growth, the Chinese shifted to outbound investment,” Mei says. State-owned Chinese powerhouses led the way, followed by smaller private groups such as Chen’s investors.
Mei has experience with the EB-5 program — he worked with a Taiwanese investor seven years ago to navigate the system and obtain green cards for his family — and he sees the logic behind the renewed interest in the program. In his view it grows from powerful trends: the lingering credit crunch that makes it hard to finance projects without new sources of money; the rising value of the Chinese currency driving greater buying power; an improved bureaucratic process for attracting foreign investment driven by need; and China’s one-child policy and the determination among the newly rich Chinese to get the absolute best for their children, including access to education in the U.S.
But the most important factor, as Mei sees it, is business acumen. “More and more people in China can afford to do this because they have achieved so much success,” he says. “They know how to make money.”
Mei traveled to China recently to meet with three huge Chinese firms interested in building high-speed rail lines connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Eugene and Seattle. He notes that Chinese engineers have completed more than 5,000 miles of tracks, giving China the largest high-speed rail network in the world. By comparison, the ongoing planning process for high-speed rail projects in the United States is expected to last about 25 years.
Karen Williams served as general counsel for the PDC and head of the Seattle-based law firm Lane Powell’s public-private development group before joining John Carroll’s investment firm in January 2010. The firm has pulled off more than a billion dollars worth of projects including the light rail line to the Portland International Airport, the Portland streetcar and the new Mercy Corps headquarters. In the past it has relied on complex but familiar financial tools designed to spur investment and limit risk. But those tools are no longer sufficient to make deals happen. “Projects aren’t getting done because they can’t generate enough revenue to cover the debt payments,” Williams says. That’s why she’s following the money into EB-5 investments.
In February 2011 Williams and her team submitted their first EB-5 proposal in collaboration with the Portland-based International Sustainable Development Foundation. Their plan is to set up a regional center in Oregon and to channel money from Chinese investors into a wide variety of sustainability-themed projects throughout the state, ranging from building renovations to renewable energy plants. “We’re really focusing on bringing capital into Oregon,” she says. “We think Oregon needs infusions of capital for all kinds of projects.”
In particular Williams envisions EB-5 money providing a substantial boost to rural Oregon’s woody biomass industry by providing a new source of money from investors who are willing to accept relatively small paybacks because of the green card incentive. Those investors need to put their money into job-creating projects, and unlike solar and wind projects, woody biomass is a jobs-heavy source of renewable energy, with harvesters out in the woods gathering raw material and factory workers at the plant converting wood into electricity. Economic development professionals have been trying for years to create woody biomass jobs in struggling former timber towns such as Burns and Prineville. EB-5 money could make those projects pencil out by trading jobs for green cards.
Williams says direct foreign investment could help her group complete diverse projects in portions of the state that are often overlooked. She declines to offer specific examples while the government is still considering her application, but points out that there is no shortage of rural enterprises in need of capital. “It’s a chance for us to help smaller communities to bridge the divide and get access to capital,” she says.
Joseph McCarthy, principal of the Los Angeles-based American Dream Fund, has similarly ambitious EB-5 plans for Oregon. McCarthy was born and raised in Milwaukie and still keeps a townhouse in Lake Oswego, but most of his experience in placing foreign investments has been in Los Angeles. His firm recently put together a complex deal raising $20 million in foreign investment for a 305-room hotel in Hollywood.
McCarthy says he was surprised to learn that Oregon had no EB-5 regional centers as of 2010. After studying the state’s strategic plan for growth he submitted a proposal that targets 13 different industry sectors, such as renewable energy, apparel design and tourism.
{pullquote}More and more people in China can afford to do this because they have achieved so much success. They know how to make money.{/pullquote}
McCarthy, who lobbies for the program on a national level, learned about EB-5 when he was a policy adviser to Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire. A Seattle immigration lawyer named Henry Liebman was (and still is) channeling huge sums of foreign capital into urban real estate, and McCarthy recognized the opportunity in what Liebman was doing. “The investor is willing to accept below-market rates of return, provided you can get them a green card,” McCarthy says. He sees no problem with that: “We offer immigration privileges to foreigners for a variety of reasons… It’s not unreasonable to offer them the opportunity to invest in this country and create jobs, and to receive a green card in return.”
McCarthy expects to hear back from the government on his EB-5 proposal in Oregon this spring.
David Luo is also eager to hear back on his EB-5 proposal for Oregon. Luo is a project manager for American United Development Group, a Vancouver, BC-based company with a long history of bringing foreign investment into Canada through a similar program. But the Canadian program has slowed down since the government doubled the required investment for a green card from $400,000 Canadian to $800,000.
“The doubling of the amount required in Canada has already created a shift from Canada to the U.S.,” says Luo. “The number of people applying for the Canadian program has dropped and the number applying to the U.S. is increasing rapidly.”
With a flood of Chinese capital poised to wash over Oregon’s weakened economy, familiar concerns are resurfacing. Bill Wyatt, who has traveled to China and back 25 times since taking over as executive director of the Port of Portland in 2001, says the prevailing tension around China’s rise reminds him of worries of Japanese dominance during the 1980s, “You hear a lot of questions like ‘What does it mean? Where are we headed? Are they going to eat our lunch?’”
Up to this point, relatively few Oregon assets have passed into Chinese hands. But experts expect that to change over time. Raymond Cheung, a partner at Portland accounting firm Geffen Mesher who represented the Hong Kong-based investors who bought the Halsey pulp mill, says: “This is just the spark. You are going to see more and more acquisitions… We need more investments like this in Oregon because they will create jobs and we need the jobs.”
Cheung was born and raised in Hong Kong. When he moved to the U.S. in 1993 to attend George Fox University, none of his friends and family knew of Oregon. He was the only Chinese speaker at the entire university, and the language barrier did not make for an easy college experience. But his hard work is paying off. Cheung is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, and he is a certified public accountant in Hong Kong as well as in the U.S. He was the first Chinese speaker to make partner at Geffen, and his international business is growing rapidly.
“Next we will see Chinese mutual funds and venture capital groups investing,” he predicts. “They will be coming in to buy.”
Akana Ma, chair of Ater Wynne’s global trade group in Portland, agrees with that assessment. Ma represents “a number of investors purchasing assets in Oregon.” He doesn’t offer specifics other than to say, “A lot of Chinese companies are actively scanning the horizon for steel mills, pulp and paper mills and other types of factories that still have useful lives.”
Ma recently helped a Chinese manufacturer of power generation equipment, Wuxi Kipor Power, set up an office in Portland in February. He is also involved in EB-5 projects in Washington state as well as Oregon.
Wyatt, like most observers, sees the trend as inevitable. “Trade is going to become more global, not less,” he says. The port has formed a relationship with one of the largest ports in the world, in Tianjin, and will begin exchanging executives this year. Wyatt expects business and travel connections between Oregon and China to grow steadily, eventually bringing direct flights. “In a 10-year time period, [direct flights are] likely.”
Then there is tourism. Wyatt says he recently returned from a three-week personal trip to Laos, where he found “an extraordinary number of Chinese tourists.” Few of those travelers have found their way to Oregon so far, but a coalition of politicians and businesspeople is seeking to change that.
Portland businessman Jin Lan runs a business consultancy called Octaxias based in Portland and with an office in Beijing. He has long promoted the sister-state relationship between Oregon and China’s Fujian Province. He says that relationship has been hampered by a difficult process for Chinese visitors to get travel visas, preventing Oregon from attracting a significant and growing source of tourism money. But he’s seen “great improvements” over the past few years. The next step is to market the state to Chinese travelers who might not be able to find Oregon on a world map. “Oregon has a low exposure in China,” says Lan “We need to increase our exposure.”
Lan, state Rep. Dennis Richardson (R-Central Point) and a coalition of Southern Oregon business leaders have organized an event in June in Medford featuring the Chinese Consul General from San Francisco. A similar event last year resulted in a $2 million helicopter pilot training contract in China for Ashland Air Rescue Systems. Event organizer David Wick says the long-term goal is to “put Southern Oregon on the map” for Chinese travelers.
The Medford event will be followed in September by a much larger one. A delegation of business and government leaders is planning to travel from Oregon to China Sept. 8-11 for the China International Fair for Investment and Trade, billed as “the world’s largest international investment promotion event.” The EB-5 program is certain to be a major topic of discussion at that mammoth conference — and Oregon can expect fierce competition to attract the Chinese money that so many states are coveting.
By the numbers
- 1.33 billion: China’s population
- 3.8 million: Oregon’s population
- $4 billion: Oregon exports to China, 2010
- 477,000: millionaires in China, 2009
- 104%: increase in millionaires in Hong Kong, 2009-2010
- 1,000%: growth in softwood timber exports from U.S. to China, 2006-2010
- $55.2 billion: Chinese investment in U.S., first half of 2010
- 120: EB-5 regional centers nationwide to boost foreign investment into U.S.
- 0: EB-5 regional centers in Oregon as of March 2011
