Pheim Asset Management

Pheim Asset Management

Tan Chong Koay established Pheim Asset Management in Singapore in 1994, building the firm from a lean regional startup into a recognized name in Asian and ASEAN equities. The firm expanded into Malaysia, opening a Kuala Lumpur office that manages funds under the Dana Makmur Pheim brand. Koay's investment philosophy, documented in his book "Pheim's Asian Investing Formula," emphasizes bottom-up stock selection within a macro-aware framework, favoring companies with sustainable earnings growth, strong management, and reasonable valuations. Pheim runs a concentrated equity strategy, with a historic focus on small-to-mid-cap companies listed across Southeast Asia's major exchanges — Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. The firm's hallmark product is the Pheim Emerging Companies Balanced Unit Trust, a Shariah-compliant vehicle that blends equities and sukuk, targeting long-term capital appreciation. Public filings have historically shown portfolio exposure to Malaysian plantation, consumer, and construction counters, as well as select Singapore-listed industrials and REITs. Pheim often takes active, engaged positions rather than passive index tracking, reflecting Koay's conviction-driven approach. The firm achieved wider institutional recognition when the Dana Makmur Pheim fund in Malaysia was named one of Lipper's top-performing equity funds over multiple time frames, including a notable multi-year run in the mid-2010s that placed it at the top of its peer group for risk-adjusted returns. Tan Chong Koay himself received the Morningstar Fund Manager of the Year award for the Malaysian equity category. Pheim remains a compact operation, with investment decisions centralized under Koay and a small team of analysts based between the two offices. In recent years, the firm has maintained its existing fund lineup without launching new vehicle structures. Pheim operates as one of the few independent, founder-controlled asset managers in a Singapore market dominated by global banks and state-linked firms. Its multi-decade track record through the Asian Financial Crisis, the 2013 taper tantrum, and the COVID cycle provides a rare continuously-managed dataset in ASEAN small-cap equities. Koay's personal capital is co-invested alongside clients, and the firm has resisted acquisition or external capital that would dilute its investment autonomy — a governance stance that defines its positioning for allocators seeking an unconflicted, seasoned practitioner in Southeast Asia.