Frontier: Exploring the Top Ten Emerging Markets of Tomorrow

Introduction to Frontier

By Mark Mobius

Mark Mobius began investing in developing countries over four decades ago. Now aged 78, he still spends over 250 days a year traveling to manage more than $40 billion of assets as the Executive Chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group. His Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust returned 360% in the past ten years, ranking No. 2 among peers.

Over the past 25 years we've seen emerging markets grow into a multi-trillion dollar asset class. But today, we have the opportunity to invest in a whole new set of emerging markets: the frontier markets.

It's widely recognized that these are the emerging markets showing even quicker growth. In the past decade, the ten fastest growing economies were all emerging markets – and eight of them were frontier.¹

Frontier markets are geographically and economically diverse and are found all over the world – in Africa, Asia, Latin America and central and eastern Europe. The countries include Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Romania, Argentina and many more – over 40 in total.

These countries have been under-researched or ignored totally as they were too small and perceived as being too risky or difficult to enter because of foreign exchange restrictions and other investor barriers. Each month, tens of thousands of company research reports are produced in the United ...