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This paper provides a case study of a medium-sized, family-owned, business from Europe, establishing a wholly-owned manufacturing facility in China. The case is of both practical and theoretical interest. It provides an example of a company entering a foreign country, first to buy and later to manufacture, without going through the formal, linear, decision-making processes favoured by the business strategy textbooks. It thereby casts doubt on the appropriateness, for smaller businesses at least, of the formal models of company internationalization in the international business literature. On the other hand, the case offers an empirical example of intelligent and successful opportunism, which fits easily into John Dunning’s more general, eclectic paradigm of foreign direct investment.