Excerpts from DCG Asia Value Fund's recent letter to its investors, republished with permission

Dear Investor,


Fund Performance 


arrow-blue-outline-upThe Fund NAV ended 2014 at $168.05 with an annual return of 10.3% for the year, marginally ahead of the benchmark’s (MSCI Asia ex-Japan Index, total return, S$ basis) 10.0% gain.

We had a good first half, achieving 8.8% return, comfortably beating the benchmark’s 5.1% gain but a poor second, with only 1.4% return compared to the benchmark’s 4.6% gain. Within the second half period, we had a good third quarter result with 2.7% return compared to the benchmark’s 0.6% return. 

However in the fourth quarter, the Fund registered a 1.4% loss while the benchmark gained 4.0%. During the fourth quarter, Asian markets were especially volatile following Wall Street’s rollercoaster ride. The oil and gas sector, in particular, was pummelled by collapsing crude oil prices. 

The Fund had a small but not insignificant exposure here and some of our stocks fell as much as 43% from end-September levels. Our fourth quarter performance was also dragged down by a few other names in our portfolio. These include Future Bright, Greatview Aseptic, Luen Thai, DKSH, Tiga Pilar, Vietnam Dairy, Sarine Technologies, Arwana Citramulia and Malindo Feedmill. 

Some of our new investments made in the fourth quarter also did not perform well. Few of these are what we would consider to be permanently impaired capital and in value investing, it is always possible for purchases to be made too early as it may take a longer time for stock prices to reflect fundamentals. 

Also contributing to the relative underperformance in the fourth quarter is the lack of exposure to index heavyweight, India, which did well for the quarter with the Sensex Index rising 5.8%. 


Company and Portfolio Updates

Daniel_Chan1.15Daniel Chan, founder of DCG Capital.During the fourth quarter, we added 14 new positions to the portfolio: 10 China/Hong Kong names, one Indonesia, one Korea, one Malaysia and one Vietnam, and got rid of eight names. We took advantage of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, which opened in mid-November, and bought two Chinese stocks listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

One of these is SAIC Motor Corporation (“SAIC”), the largest auto-manufacturing group in China with a 24% national market share. If you have been in the back seat of a cramped Shanghai taxi sometime in the past 30 years, it would very likely have been one of SAIC Motor’s ubiquitous Volkswagen (“VW”) Santana taxis. SAIC is 77% Shanghai government owned-controlled and its primary products are cars, minibuses and light trucks. The bulk of SAIC’s value lies in its 50/50 joint ventures with VW and General Motors (“GM”). Shanghai VW and Shanghai GM each sell about 1.7 to 1.8 million vehicles annually, accounting for roughly 60% of total SAIC vehicle production and 90% of SAIC’s net income.

With increasing focus on pollution control, intractable traffic jams and government restriction on car ownership, we don’t expect any Chinese automaker to return to the 20% to 50% kind of annual growth rates seen in the past decade. Nonetheless a mid to high single-digit percentage volume growth over the next five years appears comfortably within reach as existing car owners look to upgrade to SUVs (Sports Utility Vehicles) or MPVs (Multi-purpose vehicles) while Chinese economic growth inland spreads the joy of new car ownership from the coastal cities. We think SAIC can do better than this.

Strong contribution from the joint venture with GM (Chevy, Buick and Cadillac) and a new slate of 2015 VW models suggests SAIC will continue to beat market growth and extend its leading market share in the foreseeable future. We also expect SAIC to benefit from the long running competition between VW and GM in the China market. In 2013, VW retook its spot as China’s top selling foreign brand after GM’s long nine year reign at the top. VW’s newly announced EUR22 billion investment in its two Chinese joint ventures over the next five years will help expand SAIC’s exposure inland. GM, on its part, is already a third of a way into its USD12 billion 2014 to 2017 expansion plan to China’s West.

Based on surveys we have seen, foreign JV brands, and in particular, VW, continues to be aspirational for Chinese consumers and tends to invoke the highest brand loyalty. SAIC’s current valuation is attractive, with a third of its RMB220 billion market cap in cash, price-to-book (“PB”) ratio of 1.4x, PE ratio of 7.7x , and a dividend yield 6.5%.

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Comments  

#1 David@tecity.oom.g 2015-02-01 08:13
:D
 

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