Fok learned this the hard way after discovering that some factories were effectively stripped down to bare shells by the time he had obtained a court order and arrived at their gates.

'It is not ordinary bean counting,' he noted laconically.

'A liquidator requires financial analysis skills, cool-headedness, investigative expertise, legal knowledge and negotiating tactics, and liquidating distressed factories is getting more complicated partly because of the new labour law.'

Since he began working on such assignments 15 years ago, Fok has managed about 1,000 liquidations in Hong Kong and on the mainland.

Recently, he has found a higher awareness among mainland workers of their rights and welfare after the new pro-employee labour contract law was introduced in January last year.

In some cases, workers demanded more compensation than they were entitled to by threatening to jump off from the factory rooftop.

'We once spent hours to persuade a worker to come down from the roof,' Fok said of a saga that unfolded at a plant in Dongguan.

'Many workers no longer swallow what management offers and often take to the streets and bring labour disputes to local governments for arbitration.'

Another tricky challenge is handling furious suppliers who are often so desperate to recoup receivables that they threaten to take matters into their own hands.

This has prompted Fok and his partners to hire four Shaolin-trained bodyguards and switch hotels frequently.

In one case, a supplier kidnapped some Ferrier Hodgson staff and held them for 48 hours demanding repayment of one million yuan (HK$1.13 million) in unpaid debts. The matter was resolved after the liquidators settled the payment, Fok said.

However, the settlement immediately enraged a rival group of supplier creditors, who sent the liquidators fleeing for their lives while their bodyguards were fighting off the angry creditors, he said.

'That was like a live movie,' Fok said. 'We knew the danger, that's why I told my staff to hide a mobile phone card and not to tell anybody which hotel they stay in, to change hotels frequently and keep a low profile.'

The factories Fok took control of were often in chaos with legal documents and company seals absent, while liquidators tried to rescue the distressed assets and keep production lines humming.

In keeping factories afloat, Fok also plays a role in operation and management. In one factory, he was challenged by a team of security guards he hired from a mainland agency, which caused more trouble than help.

'When I hired the security guards, they were hardy young men in straight uniforms,' he said. 'But when they started working at the factory, they were replaced with a group of middle-aged guys with big guts.

'Since then, the factory suffered from more theft cases and I got complaints from local government officials that the guards got drunk at night and caused a nuisance. Some were even harassing female workers at the factory next door.'

A year after the onset of the global financial crisis, the Pearl River Delta is still licking its wounds from a tidal wave of factory shutdowns, says Fok. In many cases owners simply vanished, leaving behind unsettled debts and wages.

'The shutdowns have stabilised in the past few months, compared with the worst time in October and November last year,' said Fok, citing the government's financial assistance and bank creditors' greater leniency in resolving cash-flow problems of factories.

'Many factories fare a bit better now,' he said.