Though Mr Mobius is the face of many funds over the years he has built a network of 11 offices in places such as Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. In the local offices 49 investment professionals with various cultural backgrounds are employed. Mr Mobius wants his people to behave as one team and there are weekly teleconferences in which everyone has to participate actively.
The investment approach aims at the discovery of und
ervalued shares. When selecting investments the first step is to run quantitative screens on their proprietary database with respect to valuation.
The thousands of investment possibilities that pass this test are subject to further research which results in an eight page report in which five years of company history are discussed. The next step is a team evaluation to discuss this report.
Afterwards the portfolio is constructed with the most undervalued shares given the highest weightings. The portfolio, which consists of 130 names, is well diversified. Dedicated employees monitor the risk profile of the fund. When constructing the portfolio the constituents of the benchmark index do not play a role.
Because of the network of offices, the number of employees and the fact that Mr Mobius is always travelling the team conducts an enormous amount of company visits. Mr Mobius prefers to visit three companies a day.
The selection of emerging markets shares is still very different from conventional investing in developed markets. First of all corporate governance is generally less developed. It is difficult to get hold of and to interpret information. In addition specific knowledge on family-owned business is needed to prevent surprises.
The accessibility and liquidity of emerging markets has improved a lot during Mr Mobius’ career. When he started he was able to invest in only six countries compared with 40 now. Liquidity constraints have become rare.
Emerging markets now make up 12% of the total world market capitalisation. Templeton’s emerging markets department manages €17 billion, which is increasingly coming from inhabitants of emerging countries themselves.
Currently the fund has large positions in Korea (Samsung amongst others) and China (such as China Mobile). Against the star status of Mr Mobius the fund’s performance has been average over recent years, with a current three-star rating.