Goodbye to a pioneer
STEPHEN CRANSTON: A legend fund manager rides into the sunset
It is hard to imagine Mark Mobius with a pipe and slippers at home. More likely he will buy Steinhoff’s cut-price Gulfstream and continue flying around the world
It’s always a great pleasure to meet Templeton Emerging Markets chairman Mark Mobius — something I will miss after he retires at the end of the month. If you look simply at the returns from his funds, there was nothing extraordinary about him. He was no Donald Bradman piling on the centuries: Peter Lynch at Fidelity, Bill Miller at Legg Mason, and our own Allan Gray fit that bill better. Mobius’s role was as ambassador for the game. You couldn’t miss him with his bald head and white suit. When he came to Joburg and the Financial Mail interviewed him, all his white suits were at the dry cleaners — we have some rare pictures of him in a blue suit. When Mobius started the fund 30 years ago, "emerging markets" was considered a promoter’s euphemism for the Third World, even for Donald Trump’s recent epithet for poor countries. When the International Finance Corp raised a modest U$50m to invest in these countries, it decided that terms such as "less-developed countries" and "Third World" ...
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