Everyone wants to buy a dollar-worth of assets for 50 cents. That is at the very heart of value investing – to buy an asset at a price that could be valued at significantly more. But what exactly is value?

Are they always shares that are trading below the sum of their net assets? Or are they shares in stable companies that have been underappreciated by the market? There is another way of looking at value – they could be shares in fast-growing companies where the potential for growth has been underestimated for a variety of reasons.

The concept of separating price and value is handled with surgical precision by Lim Peir Shenq and Cheong Mun Hong. They draw on their vast stock market experience to take readers on a whistle-stop tour around six Asian bourses in search of value investments. They touch on the thorny topic of corporate governance and why it should matter when we invest.

Peir Shenq and Mun Hong pay special attention to the use of strategies. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach for value investing, the use of a consistent approach to identifying value cannot be stressed strongly enough. In other words, if you don't know what you are looking for, then how can you possibly know when you have found it?

The two writers cleverly categorise value under three main headings, namely, asset value, current earning power value and growth value. Through a step-by-step process, they provide a useful guide to help readers to understand the different ways to identify value and when a company could be considered to be undervalued.

There is also a useful discussion of screens and how they can be used with good effect to help separate out the wheat from the chaff. Peir Shenq and Mun Hong also provide some useful tips on how to reduce the number of shares that need to be filtered.

The 5-Finger Rule is a clever way that they have developed to remember the basics of investing, and not just value investing. The rule behind the Rule is that an investor should only consider investigating a business further if it fulfills at least half the criteria.

There is a very instructive chapter on how to read annual reports. Most investors can find the once-a-year tome from companies quite a chore to plough through. But Peir Shenq and Mun Hong show you how to get to the nub of any report quickly. What exactly should we look out for when we read the letter to shareholders? How honest and candid is the letter? Does it tell shareholders everything that has gone on at the company, warts and all?

The two writers pepper the book generously with real examples that readers can use as case studies for their own investments. This is not just a book about value investing. Instead, it is a manual for value investing with an Asian twist that investors with an eye on the fastest-growing region in the world will reach for whenever they have questions that need answers.