Mark Mobius, the pioneering emerging market fund manager, is still as bullish as he has been in the past on emerging market investing, despi...

Mark Mobius, the pioneering emerging market fund manager, is still as bullish as he has been in the past on emerging market investing, despite the recent turmoil in those markets during the last few months. Speaking at a press lunch in London which WealthBriefing attended, Mr Mobius said investors with a short time horizon should get out of emerging markets. “If you have a one, two or even six month investment time horizon – then get out now, but that piece of wisdom would apply for all equity markets. If your time horizon is around five years or more then there is plenty of good value to be had in emerging markets,” said Mr Mobius. Mr Mobius, who oversees $30 billion in emerging-market equities for Templeton Asset Management, said the current turmoil and sharp downward correction in many emerging markets was “a time to get happy”. “We see many opportunities to buy in the current market.” Mr Mobius and his team at Templeton use a strong fundamentals-based approach to investing in emerging markets and have little time for momentum investment strategies, despite their often popular appeal in these markets. “We are not investing in momentum plays and believe there are plenty of opportunities among emerging market companies to make a great deal of money from,” he said. Mr Mobius has a strong track record with emerging markets, starting the Templeton fund in 1987 with less than $100 million. He spends a considerable amount of his time traveling to the market he invests in – it is rumoured that Mr Mobius is traveling 300 days of the year – and has access to top level contacts in many of these markets. “We often take our investment guidance from what the very rich are doing in these economies. If they are investing in a company – particularly if there is a lock-in period – then this is a pretty good buy sign.”