An American private equity fund manager named Lee Cashell flew to Ulan Bator from Hong Kong 11 years ago and bought three Soviet-era apartments with US$ 30,000 he had borrowed from a friend.

He fixed them up, sold them for a profit and started a boutique real estate business.

Cashell quickly went from flipping apartments to building them. Today, his US$ 155 million firm, Asia Pacific Investment Partners, owns a cement factory and several apartment blocks with retail projects in the pipeline. He hopes to list his company on the Hong Kong exchange in the next 18 months.