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The Thesis
Mobius traveled to countries most investors feared — Turkey, Nigeria, Vietnam, frontier markets — finding undervalued companies decades before emerging markets became mainstream.
The Story
Mark Mobius joined Franklin Templeton in 1987 to run the Templeton Emerging Markets Fund with just $100 million. At the time, "emerging markets" barely existed as an asset class. Mobius traveled to over 100 countries, visiting factories, meeting management teams, and finding investment opportunities in places most fund managers were afraid to go. He invested in markets like Turkey, Nigeria, South Korea, Brazil, and Vietnam long before they appeared on institutional radar screens.
Over three decades, Mobius grew the emerging markets business at Franklin Templeton to over $50 billion in assets. His investments captured the enormous growth of developing economies, and he earned the nickname "the Indiana Jones of Emerging Markets" for his adventurous travel schedule. Mobius proved that going where others won't — literally visiting companies in frontier markets and building relationships on the ground — creates information advantages that generate alpha. His willingness to invest in unfamiliar and politically risky markets, when valuations compensated for the risk, made him a legend of global investing.
Key Insight
Go where others are afraid to invest — the biggest information advantages exist in markets that most investors can't or won't visit in person.
“The time to invest in emerging markets is when everything looks terrible.”
Mark Mobius
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