NANJING, CHINA — H. Roger Wang was in a jam.
He had come a long way -- emigrating from Taiwan to America, earning an MBA at Southeastern Louisiana University, managing a drug store in Los Angeles and becoming a developer with offices in Beverly Hills.
By the early 1990s, he had made his way to this city in eastern China to build a 60-story office tower, using proceeds from some of his Southern California developments.
But after three years, only six floors had been completed. And then his partner pulled out, leaving him short $96 million. No one wanted to move into a partly completed building with lots of construction above them still to come.
Desperate for cash, Wang hatched a plan. He would open a department store offering foreign-brand goods and what was then a novelty for Chinese shoppers: satisfaction -- or their money back.
His staff told him it would never work. "People will take advantage of it. You'll be sorry," they said.
As it turned out, few people abused Golden Eagle's refund policy. On the contrary, Wang says, it built goodwill among customers, who also appreciated that cashiers handed out crisp new bills and that the restrooms always had soap and tissue -- something still hard to find at many stores in China.
That was the first of a dozen high-end stores that Wang would open in China, in mostly smaller cities such as Yancheng, Nantong and Yangzhou. Along the way, he has quietly become one of America's richest men; Forbes estimated his net worth at $1.3 billion in 2007.
Wang stepped out of the shadows and into the headlines this month when he filed suit against Bear Stearns, accusing the brokerage of misleading him and his wife into buying 150,000 shares days before the firm agreed to an emergency buyout by JPMorgan Chase for $2 a share (a price later raised to about $10).
The suit claims Wang agreed to pay $6.56 million for the stock at prices up to $71.96 a share. Neither Wang nor Bear representatives would comment on the suit.
It was a rare financial misstep for Wang, 59, but hardly the first brazen move.
When Wang was opening his department stores in small cities, even friends were skeptical.
"In those days, [Chinese] didn't have a lot of money," said Andrew Cherng, chairman of Panda Restaurant Group, the Rosemead-based chain of more than 1,100 Panda Express eateries. "I wondered, 'How's he going to make money?' " said Cherng, a Yangzhou native who has known Wang for 20 years.
