Experience
Jonathan Jianing Qi
Principal. He reads the filings, forms the judgement, writes the report in English, and signs it. The same person does all four, and that is the whole proposition.
Transaction advisory at PwC in Beijing, on cross-border transactions and operational engagements across Asia-Pacific, Africa and Southeast Asia. Before that, risk advisory at Deloitte. Afterwards, air capacity manager at a Chinese supply chain group. MSc Management, University of Bristol. BA (Hons) Accounting and Finance, University of Liverpool. Mandarin is a first language; reports are written in English.
How the firm is set up
Contracting
You contract with Plumbline China Ltd, in English, under English law, and pay in sterling. Our liability cap is stated on the face of our terms of business rather than buried in them.
Fieldwork
We are based in China and carry out site work ourselves. No subcontracted inspectors, and no travel window to wait for: visits are scheduled to suit you.
Independence
We do not trade in the goods we verify, take no commission from suppliers, and accept payment from nobody but you. Anyone selling you product has a reason to tell you it is fine.
Where the judgement comes from
What the firm brings to it
A selection from the firm’s combined experience across transaction advisory, operational consulting and supply chain. Clients are not named and identifying detail is withheld.
Three engagements that shaped the method
A cross-border acquisition above USD 10bn
Project management across the Asia-Pacific workstreams: coordinating regional and divisional leads, holding the timeline, preparing the packs the decision-makers read.
What it changes here: a report nobody can act on is worthless. Every report we write ends in a decision.
On-site diligence in Africa
Financial, IT and HR due diligence on the ground for a Fortune Global 100 acquirer: identifying risks, proposing mitigations, supporting the negotiation that followed.
What it changes here: the discipline of separating what you were told from what you could document. That is the table at the centre of every site visit report.
Buyout diligence in Southeast Asia
Industry research and anonymous practitioner interviews, producing the competitor benchmarking a private equity client used to negotiate price.
What it changes here: findings are worth what they save you. Conditions are written as negotiating positions.
Performed as part of PwC engagement teams. Described here as professional experience of the firm’s people rather than as work of this firm. No client is identified.
Three things learned with our own money
Four claimed certifications, no documents
Reviewing our own outbound materials, four qualifications were presented as held. None had a document behind it. They came out of the materials that day.
Why it matters to you: claimed certifications are the most asserted and least verified thing in any pitch. We check the certificate number against the issuing body, every time.
A valid permit in the wrong company name
A permit issued before a change of company name still carries the old name. The permit is genuine, the entity is the same, and on paper the two do not match.
Why it matters to you: this is check one. Sometimes an innocent lag; sometimes the permit belongs to someone else. You need to know which.
Filings, listings, and getting off them
Operating a Chinese company means doing this first-hand: annual disclosures, how the abnormal operations listing arises, what it blocks, and what it takes to come off it.
Why it matters to you: we read these records as people who have had to satisfy them.
How to commission
Four steps, and you can start without speaking to anyone
Order online, or ask for a scope
A verification report is £250. Send us the counterparty’s name and we invoice you the same working day. For site visits and larger engagements, tell us the counterparty and roughly what you are committing, and we confirm scope and fee the same working day.
We say so if a smaller piece of work would do
If the right answer is cheaper than what you asked for, that is what you will be quoted. If it is work we will not take, we say that too, and why.
Report in 48 hours
Two pages, verdict on the first line, source extracts appended. Larger engagements run to an agreed timetable.
A call about the findings, included
Every engagement includes a call to go through what was found and what to do about it. A report you cannot ask questions about is half a report.
Get in touch
Send the counterparty you are least sure about. It is the fastest way to judge whether the work is worth having.
contact@plumblinechina.com
We reply to everything ourselves, usually within a working day.