‘In the summer of 2022, I interned as a Summer Analyst at Rhee Capital, a boutique asset management firm in Hong Kong. I primarily worked on researching Vietnamese equities and then preparing company summaries for the Chief Investment Officer. Some of the companies that I covered include Techcombank, Vinhomes, FPT Retail, No Va Land, and etc. I also conducted macro research on Vietnam’s housing market, banking sector, and real estate development industry.

Working at Rhee Capital was a formative learning experience for me. Among other things, it taught me the need to double check against the claims that management were making. My personality inclines me to trust in what is written in the annual reports and what is said in the conference calls, but the way that financial markets operate today, what management says and does may be completely different, and if we take management by their word, that could lead to erroneous investment decisions and poor financial returns.

Furthermore, sometimes, what is left unsaid by management is also important, and this too requires further due diligence. For example, if financial results have declined materially but the explanation provided by the management was not very clear or compelling, then this may be because they are trying to conceal significant bad news from investors.

In addition, I also learned a clever accounting trick by property developers: if they have excess inventory that they cannot offload, instead of selling at a loss and marking down their inventory values, they rent the inventory out, thereby preserving the accounting illusion.

Overall, I enjoyed my internship at Rhee Capital very much, and I would like to express my gratitude to the Chief Investment Officer for giving me the opportunity to intern here.’