Cheah Cheng Hye spent three decades building Value Partners into one of Asia’s most respected asset managers, earning a reputation as a patient value investor. At 71, he has redirected a quarter of his $1.4 billion family office into physical gold, a position that places him far outside the norms of ultra-high-net-worth investing . The average family office allocation to precious metals stood at just 2% in 2024, according to the UBS Global Family Office Report 2025 .
The shift is not a recent tactical move. Cheah began buying precious metals in 2008 with small positions, then accelerated a decade later through large purchases of physically backed gold ETFs . His holdings now include gold mining stocks, physical bars, and coins, and the cumulative gain on these investments has reached $251.1 million, a return of 167% . A year ago, precious metals represented roughly 15% of his family office portfolio; today that figure is approximately 25% .
Cheah’s core rationale rests on a concept he calls “vault flight.” The freezing of Russian assets after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, followed by tensions involving Venezuela and Iran, convinced him that politically exposed wealth is safer when held closer to home . Wealthy Asian families, he argues, are repatriating funds to insulate themselves from U.S. sanctions or potential asset seizures . For these investors, physical bullion stored in a secure jurisdiction is the preferred refuge.
His own gold is held in a Hong Kong government warehouse at the city’s airport, a structure he favors over “paper gold” products . “If you have the physical gold in the warehouse or in your bank safe, nobody owes you anything,” Cheah told Bloomberg News . The statement captures both a skepticism toward Western financial plumbing and a conservative instinct about counterparty risk.
Cheah’s recommended portfolio framework is a 60-20-20 split: 60% equities, 20% bonds, and 20% precious metals led by gold . He has also expressed strong optimism on silver, which has roughly tripled over the past year, far outpacing gold’s gains . His approach avoids derivatives and structured products, and he does not borrow to invest . “I only buy, I never sell,” he has said, describing precious metals as part of his lifetime savings rather than a trading position .
The institutional dimension of Cheah’s gold strategy is often overlooked. Frustrated by Western vault arrangements after he began buying in 2008, he launched the Value Gold ETF in 2010, designed to store physical bullion at Hong Kong’s airport facility . He remains the fund’s largest holder, with a stake worth approximately HK$1.3 billion, or roughly $167 million . The ETF structure allowed him to scale his physical holdings while maintaining direct control over the underlying metal.
Cheah’s timing has been supported by a broader market shift. Gold, silver, copper, and tin all reached record highs in early 2026, driven by expectations of Federal Reserve easing and heightened geopolitical tensions . The World Gold Council’s outlook for 2026 identifies geopolitics as a key driver of investment demand, with central bank buying and ETF inflows expected to remain elevated . J.P. Morgan Global Research forecasts gold averaging $6,000 per ounce by the fourth quarter of 2026, rising toward $6,300 by the end of 2027 .
The “vault flight” thesis extends beyond Cheah’s personal portfolio. Other Asian family offices are bypassing middlemen to trade physical gold directly, allocating significant portions of their portfolios to the metal . In India, family offices have increased gold allocations and built multi-country investment structures to navigate geopolitical unpredictability, with some describing bullion as a form of “term insurance” against tail risks . The common thread is a shared assessment that the post-2022 sanctions landscape has permanently altered the risk calculus for cross-border wealth.
Cheah’s track record is not without blemishes. His final years at Value Partners were marked by a steep decline in assets under management, which fell to as low as $5.1 billion in 2024 . A planned deal with HNA Group collapsed in 2017, and his eventual exit as chairman followed GF Securities’ investment in the firm, a transition reportedly marred by culture clashes . These episodes provide context for understanding his pivot: a storied career in public markets, followed by a deliberate turn toward private wealth preservation.
The seed capital for his bulk gold purchases came from a well-timed move in 2015, when he reduced his shareholding in Value Partners just before a major market correction . That liquidity event provided the foundation for the physical metal accumulation that followed. The sequence suggests a coherent arc: public-market success, liquidity crystallization, then reallocation into assets he considers immune to the vulnerabilities of the financial system.
For global investors, Cheah’s allocation serves as a case study in how one of Asia’s most experienced investors assesses geopolitical risk. His position is extreme by conventional standards, but it is not impulsive. It reflects a deliberate judgment that the rules governing cross-border wealth have changed, and that physical assets held in friendly jurisdictions offer a form of protection that paper claims cannot replicate.
The question for peers is whether Cheah is early, late, or simply different. Family offices globally remain underweight gold relative to their own targets, with allocations estimated at 1-2% versus targets of 5-10%, according to Standard Chartered . If more wealthy families follow his logic, the demand implications for physical bullion could be substantial. Cheah’s bet is ultimately a statement about the future of financial sovereignty, made by someone who spent a career mastering the system he now partially distrusts.