FAQ

Daniel loves investing and is still managing his family and his own monies. Given the preponderance of Value Investing courses, self-help groups and “boutique” value investing funds that have risen in the past decade, we recognize a thirst for an authentic value investing fund that is helmed by safe hands. DCG’s commitment is to be safe stewards for our family’s capital and yours. We invest with a process that we believe will stand the test of time. And as partners in this journey, our commitment is that like Warren Buffett’s snowball effect, we intend to compound your capital and ours, together, for a long time to come.

The new “Singapore” class shares is based on client feedback that they want a “perfect” alignment with their interest. Some clients feel better with zero management fees and a pay “only” for performance fee structure. Having nearly doubled our starting investors capital, we feel it is timely to open DCG to the needs of more Singaporeans. Hence the new ‘S’ class. A Class and S Class shares invest in the same underlying DCG Asia Value Fund. The new S Class is available for first subscription on 1 July 2017. Subscription forms and monies must be received two weeks before 1 July 2017 (the Dealing Date).

Management Fee/Performance Fee

For Asia Value Fund A Class: 1.25%/12.5% p.a.

For Asia Value Fund S Class: 0%/20.0% p.a.

For Low Risk Balanced Fund: 0.65% p.a. (No Performance Fee)

DCG Asia Value Fund invests primarily in Asia ex Japan Equities. The Fund currently has investments in China (PRC and Hong Kong), Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia.

The Fund invests in multiple markets across Asia. As such, there will be exposures to risk of currency depreciation against the currency which the Fund uses to report its returns and asset values either in SGD or USD. Generally, we do not hedge out FX as it is often expensive to do so. Nevertheless, in making decisions to invest in overseas markets we expect potential capital gains to overwhelm any expected loss from currency depreciation.

We do not allocate investments to the markets based on Macro economic data, or “top-down” method. At DCG, we select stocks using bottom-up approach, focusing on the economics of the businesses. We search for values from ground up and look for absolute returns.

We sell stocks when:

  • Stock price is near or surpasses its intrinsic value.
  • Better switch candidates come along.
  • Our original investment thesis is no longer valid or fundamentals deteriorate irreparably.

The Fund’s capacity is US$500 million. We may close the Fund to new investors once this size is reached as we will not sacrifice performance for the sake of AUM growth.

The Fund’s securities are held in an MAS licensed custodian bank, currently Deutsche Bank Singapore Branch. Cash are held at the custodian bank and/or in Fixed- Deposit in tier-1 Singapore-based banks. The custodian bank will only release cash to the Fund Manager for a pre-authorised list of expenses such as management fee.

An independent portfolio administrator, Portcullis Fund Administration provides monthly independent valuation reports to all the Fund’s investors via mail or email. Similarly, the custodian bank provides a monthly statement of accounts on the assets held in favor of the Fund.

The Fund’s annual financial statements are audited by the Fund’s auditors, Ernst and Young Solutions LLP. Investors can request for the Fund’s audited financial report which has to be completed within 6 months from the Fund’s year end date (30 June).

To know more about our main service providers, please click the links below.

Equities (stocks and shares) investing is generally considered to be more risky compared to cash and bonds. Nevertheless, over the long term, equities have been shown to offer the prospects for higher but more volatile give superior returns. Over the years there have been periodic episodes of stock markets “crashes” like 1997 Asian Crisis, 2000 TMT bubble, 2003 SARS, 2007/8 Global Financial Crisis.

At DCG, we are less concerned with stock price volatility. Rather, we are concerned with the risk of permanent impairment of capital.

There are 4 types of major risks which contribute to the “Risk of permanent impairment of capital”.

a. Balance sheet risk –Some firms over-extend by relying on excessive borrowings which lead to cashflow problems. Others may have incurred excessive borrowings in foreign currencies, resulting in a major currency mismatch.

b. Valuation risk – overpaying for businesses. For example, investors who bought the Nikkei in 1989 when the Index was almost 40,000 probably are still nursing losses with the Index still below 20,000 27 years later.

c. Fundamental risk – a fundamental or structural change in the underlying business, it could be due to the product or services becoming obsolete or management deciding to focus on businesses which are they have little competence in. A good example would be how Nokia lost its position as a mobile phone champion to Apple and Samsung. Other famous examples are Kodak and Polaroid.

d. Governance risk –Permanent impairment can also happen when one invest in companies that are involved in fraudulent activities, manipulate their financial statements or engage in activities to siphon away money from the companies into their personal pockets or relatives.

Definition of Accredited Investor as stipulated by the Singapore Monetary Authority can be found here

 

In the event of death of any joint subscribers, the surviving joint subscriber will assume full ownership of the participating shares of the fund.

 

For Singaporean / Singapore PR and Singapore tax residents only. For non-Singapore tax residents or other permutations please contact us so that we can guide you.

These are the list of docs we need for the subscription, we can assist you with the subscription forms.

  1. NRIC (Original)
  2. Proof of residential address – utility bill/mobile bill (original – no more than 3 mths old)
  3. Proof of assets or income for accredited investor status. For joint account subscribers, please show proof that each subscriber can qualify individually.
  4. Cheque book (Cheque has to be from any one of the subscriber’s bank account, with the name on the cheque, we do not accept 3rd party cheques).

Melvin Tan

Melvin joined DCG Capital in 2011 and is a portfolio manager with more than 13 years of experience in investment management.

Previous experience: Lion Global Investors, Technology and Telecommunications; Straits Lion Asset Management, information technology portfolio implementation; Avanade Asia, software engineer.

Academic and post-graduate qualifications: Bachelor of Engineering (Honours), National University of Singapore; CFA® charterholder.

Teck Jin Tan (“TJ”)

TJ joined DCG Capital in 2014 as an investment analyst with more than 8 years of experience in investment management.

Previous experience: Target Asset Management, Greater China equity; Deutsche Bank, Hong Kong, macroeconomics and equity strategy; Singapore Police Force, securities fraud.

Academic and post-graduate qualifications: Bachelor of Engineering (Honours), Master of Engineering, Cambridge University; MBA, Columbia University; CFA® charterholder.

William Toh

William joined DCG Capital in January 2019. He has more than 25 years of investment experience.

From 2007 to 2018, he was the Chief Investment Officer of New Harbour Capital Partners and Lead Portfolio Manager of the New Harbour Asia Fund. Prior to that William was the Chief Investment Officer of Asia General Holdings responsible for managing the insurance funds of Asia Life Assurance and Asia Insurance (2001-2006). He started his investment career at GIC in 1981.

William is an Independent Non-Executive Director of Mapletree Industrial Trust Management Ltd and also serves on the investment committees of several Mapletree property funds. He is Chairman of the investment committee of the Methodist Church of Singapore (since 2013) and a member of the investment committee of Singapore Bible College (since 2008).

William studied at the University of Tasmania, Australia on a Colombo Plan Scholarship and graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Mathematical Economics. He also attended the CFA Investment Management Workshop presented jointly by CFA Institute and Harvard Business School.

Qiu Xinghao

Xinghao joined DCG Capital as a Research Assistant in Feb 2018. He has over 5 years of experience in Finance. From 2012 to 2017, he was in CPGFM as a Finance Assistant. From 2017 to 2018, he was a Finance Executive in Urban Redevelopment Authority. Xinghao holds a Degree in Business Mangement from RMIT (Singapore).

Soh Hua Qun

Hua Qun joined DCG Capital as an Investment Analyst in January 2020. From 2016 to 2018, he worked in PricewaterhouseCoopers as an auditor. In 2019, he started his investment career at SEAVI Advent Private Equity, the Asian Affiliate of Advent International. Hua Qun holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (Accountancy) Degree from the National University of Singapore. Since 2016, he has been an Associate member of the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants. He has passed CFA Level II.