< The 2015 All-Asia Research Team
Total appearances: 7
Team debut: 2003Rising from runner-up, Tony Tsang’s Deutsche Bank crew earns third-place honors. The 17 analysts monitor 80 Asian property names from their bases in Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. “I value their bluntness in saying what they like and don’t like about a company,” remarks one fund manager who believes that they offer an “honest opinion instead of just hard selling a stock.” Tsang and his colleagues maintain a positive outlook on the Chinese property market, citing in part a boost from new, more-supportive government policies. Still, they are advising investors to be selective in choosing companies. “We prefer the professional developers with strong execution and balance sheets, but we do not like developers with high gearing, expensive land banks with unfavorable land bank vintage and/or lack of a long-term growth strategy,” he explains. In this vein, examples of the companies the researchers prefer include Hong Kong’s China Overseas Land & Investments, as well as China State Construction Engineering Corp. and China Vanke, which are headquartered on the mainland.