Latest wisdom of Mark Mobius
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"It's always very flattering when I hear people speak in glowing terms about me, but I feel the need to just say a few words of warning when I hear words like guru," Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, said recently.
“I remember when emerging markets were going through a very volatile downturn, and a Scottish client called our office in Edinburgh demanding to speak to me. Now, no one likes to lose money, but no one hates it more than the Scots. In a dour Scottish voice, he insisted on referring to me as Mark Dubious! When that happens, it’s hard not to keep your feet on the ground.”
Mobius was in Bangkok on July 29, showing up at the MBMG Group’s “Afternoon Tea with Mark Mobius” and at a special presentation dinner arranged by Franklin Templeton to honour his 25 years with Templeton and the 25th anniversary of the launch of Templeton’s first global emerging markets fund.
“There was great excitement and fierce expectation when Vietnam opened up. In 1992 we started in Vietnam and we made some investments, and we learned that sometimes you can be too early and that you can’t always rely on everything that the other side tells you – even, and some people might say especially, when your investment partner is the government.”
Mobius’ first degree wasn’t in economics, but in fine arts. Somehow, he believes that studying art forces people to have an eye for detail and to really look beneath the surface.
“I think that’s helped me a lot. I also studied psychology and I think that’s been an enormous help to me – we all investors have psychological responses and reactions to events but recognising, understanding those is vitally important. It was only then that I studied economics.”
Asked how he managed to keep so physically, mentally and spiritually fit and focused despite a schedule so demanding that few younger men would be able to keep up, Mobius, who turns 77 this weekend, said he did maintain an exercise regime. But, above all, it was spending every day doing what he loves, travelling to fascinating places and meeting great people that keeps him motivated.
To the final question at the Templeton dinner of what other interests he might have pursued if he hadn’t become the greatest emerging market investor, he said, “When I was younger, in upstate New York, I did perform in theatre.
“I recall one play, a rather bloody whodunit, where, as the audience left the theatre after the performance, they were greeted with the grisly aspect of me hanging by the neck from a tree.”
Paul Gambles is the managing partner of MBMG International. The second part on Mobius will be published tomorrow, dealing with his investment views.
