The Value Investors: Lessons from the World's Top Fund Managers

CHAPTER 8: The Frequent Value Traveler

Mark Mobius

Templeton Emerging Markets Group

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

—Robert Frost

Mark Mobius is the executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, a subsidiary of Franklin Templeton Investments. Currently managing the group’s emerging market portfolios and overseeing an investment team that spans 17 market locations in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe, Mobius was handpicked by global investing pioneer and billionaire Sir John Templeton in 1987 to manage the first emerging markets fund listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the Templeton Emerging Markets Fund.

Starting with initial capital of $100 million, Mobius and his team have grown Templeton emerging markets funds into a business worth more than $50 billion (as of the end of 2011). From its inception on July 31, 1989, to December 31, 2011, its flagship investment trust, the Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust, generated 2,071.5 percent, or 14.72 percent annually. During the same period, its benchmark index, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, returned 866.4 percent, or 10.65 percent per annum.

Often dubbed the “dean of emerging markets” or, more affectionately, the “Yul Brynner of Wall Street,” thanks to his signature bald appearance, Mobius was one of Asiamoney’s “Top 100 ...