M. This is Mesters in Business with Very Renaults on Bluebird Radio. This weekend. On the podcast, I once again have an extra special guest, and I really mean an extra special guest. Dr Mark Mobius is a legend in the world of emerging market and frontier investing. He's one of the first people, first Americans, who went out and actually started kicking tires and looking at various companies all around the world. He's been doing this so long that when he first began, there were only six investable countries that you could put your money into. The rest of the world either didn't have public companies or public markets you couldn't get cash in, and now if there weren't custodians. It's amazing that this is the guy that essentially created e M. There were a couple of other folks doing something like this, but no one quite the way that Dr Mark Mobius uh did. I found this conversation to be absolutely fascinating. I had like another three hours worth of questions for him. We we barely got through an hour. If you're at all interested in what the process is like of doing e M investing, what you find that either makes you more enthusiastic about a company or a company you're enthusiastic that when you go and kick the tires you start to find out that hey, this isn't has presented. Um. This is just an absolutely tour to force fascinating conversation. So, with no further ado, my interview with Dr Mark Mobius. This is Mesters in Business with very Results on Bluebird Radio this week. My extra special guest is Dr Mark Mobius. He is the founding partner of Mobius Capital Partners. Previously, he spent forty years working and traveling in emerging market and frontier markets. Before Mobius launched in twenty eighteen, he worked with Franklin Templeton Investments for more than thirty years, where he was executive Chairman of the Templeton Emerging Market Groups. During his tenure there, he helped to expand the assets under management from a hundred million dollars to over fifty billion dollars throughout Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe. UH he ran a series of open ends, closed ends and private uh e M funds, including private equity funds. He has also been on the World Banks Global Corporate Governance for him UH. Dr Mark Mobius welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you. It's great being we do so. That is quite a storied career. Let's start in the early parts of it. You you took a very different route than most people in finance. You worked at a talent agency. You were a community Asians teacher, a political consultant. And am I reading this right? Did did you actually market snoopy merchandise in Asia? Yeah? I did, that's right. Uh. When I was in Hong Kong, I had a consulting firm and one of my clients was looking for people to manufacture of products. So she had it was a company in San Francisco quoted Term Productions. They had the rights for all of the snoopy merchandise, all the penis missiondise and she asked me to look for manufacturers in Asia. And one day I said, why don't you start selling in Asia? And they didn't think about that, so they said why don't you do it? And of course that's how I got involved in distributing these products in Asia, or at least in Hong Kong and the greater China area. Is that how a kid from Hempstead you grew up like forty five minutes from where I'm I am right now? Is that how you got involved in international business and investing? That happened the way before that, because I got a scholarship to study in Japan after I got my master's degree at bu UM and that really changed my life because you know, the culture shock of being in Japan, completely different culture of an incredible country growing very rapidly at that time. Uh, that was really what changed me, and I decided to go back. I got my pH d and M I T and then went right back to Asian sat and working so Bu Masters Kyoto postgraduate work. M I T. pH d. You also studied at Wisconsin, Syracuse, New Mexico. That seems to be a very heavy focus on education. It was. I was a professional student. I really didn't want to leave a university UM and that's the reason why I did a sort of round robin of these different universities. But then finally when I got my pH d, I said, Okay, let's let's get real, let's find out what I you know, what I should be doing in this world. And how did you end up at the Mega International Investment Trust in Taiwan? Oh? That was? Yeah? International Investment Trust was they Before that, I was working for a broker in Hong Kong, uh it was a British broker because DaCosta, and they sent me to Taiwan to open an office and also sit on the board of a joint venture they had with local banks and some other British firms, which was the very first investment management firm in Taiwan called International Investment Trust Um. And eventually the guy that was running it to a left and I took over. So I became the head of that company, which they launched the Taiwan r OC Fund, which I think the remnants of it are still listed in New York, I believe. So over the course of your career, you've traveled well over a million miles, You've into a hundred and twelve countries. I have to ask what are some of your favorite places to travel and what are some of the favorite foods you've eaten. You know, it's really interesting when I racked my brains and try to figure out where I like it the best, I really can't come up with an answer because every place I've been I've liked in some way or another. But probably if you ask me right now, where would you like to be, and probably would be the beach at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil that might be a place that would be nice to be, or a beach at Cape Town, South Africa. I love bout or life. I love beaches and that sort of thing. But frankly, I lived in Japan and Korea and Taiwan, Philippines. I love all these places. I really can't think of anyone that's particularly favorite. Let's let's talk about food, because I recall you hearing you once say that you eight scorpions on toast? Is that right? Right? Is that sort of like a soft shell crabs? What do they actually taste like? Actually that was in Singapore in a in a restaurant that specialized in special sort of medicinely beneficial foods, supposedly, and this is scorpion on toast. It was sort of like eating crispy shrimp. But it had a little bit of a bite to it, you know, a little bit of a speed taste to it. And I assume they removed the poison first, or is that is that just digest they do. They do remove most of the poison, but some of the sting was still there. It's it was very similar to in Japan if you have had fugu the blowfishes, it still has this tinging sensation on your lips, which is supposed to be part of the experience. I understand Singapore has become the food capital of Asia. What's it like there? It is true, that's the Singapore has an incredible variety of dishes because you've got not only all the Chinese cuisines, which as you know, very varied. I mean you've got cuisines in China that go from very very spicy, too very bland, and so forth. But then you have the Malaysian and Indonesian foods, and added to that, of course, you have the Indians of foods. So it is true. It's Singapore is quite buried in its menu. Huh. Quite mouth watering. So let's talk a little bit about Franklin's Tappleton. No less than Sir John Templeton asked you to run their Emerging Markets division in tell us what e M was like back then. I have to think the world has changed a lot in the ensuing thirty plus years. Oh, that's for sure. I mean in nineteen eight seven, I was sitting there in Taiwan running these that uh, the the fund management company that was doing the Taiwan Fund International Investment Trust, and I get a call from actually one of the deputies of John Templeton. I had made presentations to him in his space in Nasal Bahama's a number of times, and I guess he remembered me. And uh, as you know, at that time, emerging markets were just the term was coined by the International Finance Organization and they had they had launched the Emerging Markets Fund, and then Templeman said that he wanted to do the same thing. So he approached me and said, let's raise a hundred million dollars in New York, uh and do this Emerging Markets Fund um. And it was a great temptation for me because it enabled me to really expand out of Taiwan into something really exciting. But it was a tough decision as well, because we didn't really know what I was getting into. And we opened a small office in Hong Kong, had I hired two analysts to Chinese analysts, who, by the way, stayed with me for the thirty years I was in frank And Yeah, and we started with only six countries. You must remember in those days, most countries did not welcome fun investment. Uh, they were also either socialists or communists, like China and Proussia. Eastern Europe was out of the question, of course. So we had only six markets in which to invest, and then we started the expanding. Gradually markets opened up and eventually we were investing in something like seventy different countries around the world. Do you recall what the original six countries were. They were Hong Kong, of course, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Mexico. H No Japan, No South Korea, that's right, No Japan, No South they were considered they were no longer considered e M countries. You know, actually it's tore It was, but it was closed for one reason or another. There were difficulties in getting in it. Must remember, you know, the whole idea of getting a custodian they keep your securities. All of these technical issues were there. And Japan, of course, had it graduated into a developed country by that time. So back in the n I'm going to assume there was no remote access. It was always boots on the ground. Is that how research was done? Oh, that's for sure. Don't forget no internet no laptop, computer, no cell phones. Um. You know, the technology has to really change things tremendously. So tell us what do you learn from traveling as opposed to just a phone call, assuming you can actually call anybody. Well, you know, it's true that we're able to do a lot on the phone these days, and particularly with video conferencing, because you could see the people. But there's nothing like being in a country, smelling the smells that you get, looking at the people, getting a feeling for how people are living. Um. And then you walk into a company, you look around, you observe what the nature of the company is like, what is the morale of the staff, etcetera, etcetera. So there's nothing that beats that being on the ground and seeing for yourself what's going on. UM. So we always think that it's important to be traveling and visiting companies as much as possible. So let's talk a little bit about your process. Is it top down you start in a country and then dig into individual companies or do you go bottoms up, start with the company and then work your way through that local either country or region. Well, we like to say that we're bottom up invests in the sense that we look at the companies intensely, but that doesn't mean we ignore the macro the top down approach because obviously, you know, let's say, if we wanted to invest in Sri Lanka today, Uh, obviously you don't have to look at what's happened to the currency, what's happened to interest rates, what the government is doing, what kind of restrictions are taking place, uh for foreign investors to invest, that sort of thing. But after those critical issues currency ability to move money in and out, then we dig in to the individual company because that's the key. Because one of the things that I found over the years that a company can survive in a very difficult environment, and you shouldn't be afraid to go into a country where the environment is not ideal as long as you can get money in and out. That's really the key. Even the currency, if the currency is declining or getting very very weak for one reason another, there's still opportunities because, for example, an export oriented company can do very well in such an environment because they're earning in dollars and their courts are in local currency. So uh, I would say, yeah, we're more ground up and more fundamentally company oriented in the way we approach things. So today I could fly into a different country where I don't speak the local language, use my iPhone with Google Translate or any one of a dozen other translation apps, and be able to communicate with people. What did you do back in the eighties and nineties, I'm assuming you don't speak dozens and dozens of languages. What happens when you show up and you're not fluent? Well, that's what they very interesting and great good thing that we found when we travel and went to these countries is that you always found people who spoke English, particularly and you were visiting listed companies, companies listed on various stock exchanges, which is where we were looking. Um. Inevitably, in every company you would find somebody who's going to be able to translate for you. And more often than not, the top management were English speaking, English educated, um, you know, so they were. It was quite easy to get information and get face to face communications with these people. There's some exceptions, but not that often. It was quite good and quite easy to get people to communicate. Um. And even if a company uh officials did not speak English, we were able to find translators easily enough. And who else did you speak to. I mean, obviously you spoke with management, but but did you speak to local customers or or workers at at various places. How comprehensive was your boots on the ground due diligence. Well, that's one thing we found much too to our chagrin, that don't talk to just the top management. We made many mistakes by just talking top management. But you've got to talk to the staff, talk to the customers, talk to competitors. Competitors are great source of information because if you have a competitor who is speaking very highly of the company, that's a pretty good sign of the quality of the company you're talking about. Uh. And then we also talk to government officials. You know, are there any transit transgressions on the part of the company, or any problems in the industry. So you really have to open up the wide variety of sources. And by the way, that's one of the advantages of being on the ground as well, to say the least. So when we look at the environment today, active by side managers they use a lot of financial models, they use big data, they have the ability to crunch a lot of economic assumptions. What was it like in the eighties and nineties. I'm going to assume you didn't have access to all that modern technology and AI. That's right, they were not available. Of course, I don't forget. This was the age before miss it, the mith It program, where you had to separate brokerage fees and research. Uh, and in those days we were able to get an awful lot of information pre of charge from brokers who we were dealing with. But you might not say pre charge because we're paying them brokerage commission, but we were going to give them owners anyway. So UM it was very easy to get information, a lot of research from brokers we're doing research, and they were also local research institutions who produced research. So gradually the knowledge built up. Of course, at the beginning in eight seven, there is almost nothing available, but by at time there was a lot of information throwing out of these various firms, really quite fascinating. So let's talk a little bit about UM traveling to different countries and hunting down specific companies. What do you recall as a particularly spectacular investment that you discovered after traveling to a country, and we're just really surprised by what you found researching a company, probably The best example was in China. Um. That was when we discovered a company that in China that made the gears for wind power companies. That it's about fifteen years ago. That's when you know, the whole area of wind power was coming up strong and this company was doing incredible work. We visited the factory and I noticed that the machine tools they were making were top notch, you know, automated machine tools, and they were doing very high quality work according to their customers. So we decided to invest in that company, and that turned out to be an incredible investment. Was you know, the double triple price we paid. So that was probably one good example of you know, doing on the ground research and finding something that other people were not noticing. And by the way, I think that's one of the features of good investing is finding something that other people are not finding. In other words, try to discover a company that has not been yet so called discovered by the market. What what about the opposite. Did you ever show up somewhere excited about a specific company and owing to discover, hey, this isn't what we were hoping for. Oh many, many, many times. Uh, and of course many times we were fooled by uh, the information we were getting um and you know, very very missteps along the way. It's it's it's it is the feature of investing anyway, as you know, but in emerging markets you have to be special and be very, very extra careful. So so when you started doing this in the late eighties, was anyone else from the United States or other US investment firms actually traveling the world looking at companies you sort of the Indiana Jones of this. How long did it take for other investment firms to say, hey, we need an e M or a developed x U s UM fund and we need someone like Mobius out kicking the tires. Well, it took about five years for you know, the field to grow where you know, once they saw the results that we were getting, a lot of people began to jump in the aggreing. And you must remember that the pioneer on this was the i f C, the International Finance Corporation. They started emerging markets and social funds about it liter earlier than we we started our funds. So they were on there, as you know, they were the precursor the index of course, there's capital and national was the They were the people that were doing researchers of companies all around the world. So you started venturing into Africa way earlier than just about everybody else. What led you to discover that continent and how I have the results been? Well, you know, as the assets expanded, we really had to find new opportunities everywhere, and Africa was wide open. It was just there was so much there. And of course visits initial business there really excited us because we realized this is ground that has not been uh killed in any direction, lots of opportunities where there's no information, which is an advantage because if you're on the ground, if you're able to travel these places and get information, then you have an edge on any competitor that wants to come in. So I saw tremendous opportunities in places like South Africa, in Nigeria, uh in Kenya, and of course Africa is so huge, there's so many countries, there's tremendous opportunities. Of course, the big challenge was to find a equity market of stock market and liquidity. Of course, one of the biggest challenges you get, of course is liquidity, getting enough liquidity to be able to invest significant amounts of money you have to be able to move in and out and not completely disrupt the price or the market exactly. And by the way, that was one of the reasons why we got involved in private equity because we found so many of these opportunities, but some of them, of course we're not listed. Some of them were listed, but there was no liquidity at all, and we decided, hey, why don't we do a private equity fund where you know, the holding periods for the clients would be five or six seven years. Then we can develop these companies uh and bringing them to the market with more liquidity as we expand. So that that was a very very good move for us. And anything stands out as a particularly exceptional or shocking story that didn't involve finance or a company. When you were when you were traveling all over the world, I have to imagine there were some pretty memorable snaff foods along the way. Well, we got caught in the revolution in in Philippines where they're shooting at the hotel and we were able to get out luckily by helicopter for the roof of the hotel. That was one example. But they were few post calls like that, but never deterred US for some reason. Maybe we were too innocent, but you know, we have to roll with the punches, so to speak. But there's always some kind of tremoil going on us. You know. I was recently in Sri Lanka and uh, you know, you can still work and you can still visit companies, but meanwhile people are demonstrating on the street. Wow, that's that's pretty amazing. So let's talk a little bit about emerging markets versus the United States. This I think the twelve or thirteenth year prior to two where the US has outperformed emerging markets. I think that's the longest run we've seen in a number of decades. What's it gonna take for e M to make its comeback against the United States and two? Maybe this is the year. That's a great question. Uh. One thing you've got to realize is that the world has changed to the extent that a lot of the emerging markets growth is now in the United States because US companies are manufacturing and selling and buying from emerging countries. When we saw in the whole premise of going into emerging markets was to capture the growth because these countries were these were the low and middle income countries on a per capita basis, UH, they were growing at more than double that of the developed countries US, Japan, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. UH. Now what's happened is that a lot of these companies, this is in the US, might even be called emerging market companies. For example, let's take Apple, Now what percent of their manufacturing is done in Asia, let's say, or elsewhere, and what percent of their sales are in emerging countries like China. So it's become much more different called to define what is an emerging market And if you travel to some of these countries, you'll be amazed at the growth, at the way they've developed. UH. And you know, just just the infrastructure is just incredible. What's happened in many of these countries. So it's become more and more difficult to define specifically what is an emerging market company UM. And even the definition of country to more country is blurred. For example, let's say Korea. Korea was a very poor country when we started in Today it ranks as one of the on a per capita basis, one of the richer countries. So UH, the Koreans have also always been saying recently that they are not an emerging market country, They're more developed country, which I think rings true. So do you still do the same degree of traveling you were doing years ago? Are you, you know, on the road eight months a year. What's it like today? Well, I try to travel as much as I can, but with COVID it's been so difficult. Thankfully, things are loosening up and I'm able to travel. I based myself now in Dubai, and of course I have a place in Singapore, but Singapore has been so restrictive. Thankfully they're opening up, uh and other countries are beginning to open up recently. As I said, I've been in Sri Lanka, in Thailand, um, and I'm trying to get out to more countries as they open up and they get rid of these lockups. Of course, China is off the chart in terms of restrictions, so that's out of the question at the stage. But yes, I'm trying to travel as much as I can, so Dubai and Singapore. You know, if you're bicoastal, if you're in New York and London, or New York and in Francisco, l A that's what they would call it. What do you call have splinting your time between Dubai and Singapore. Those just base of operations for when you're UM shooting off to those parts of the world. Yeah, Singapore is great for visiting the rest of Asia. You know, they're great. A lot of it has to do with the airlines. Singapore Airlines. We've had great connections all over Asia, and it's a great airline, great airline, and Emirates is even a better airline in some ways. Uh, Emirates goes all over the world, and I'm able to come here to Europe. I'm now in London and to the US very easily. Uh excellent airlines. By the way, there's two good examples of companies in what were emerging markets or maybe you could still call them emerging markets that have really surpassed uh, the USA air lines in terms of service quality, etcetera, etcetera. So, yeah, these two bases are good, probably because of time zones. In in Dubai, the time zone is very convenient, but also because of the convenience of travel really quite quite interesting. So so let's talk about some of the bigger issues going on UM globally. Today, Russia has become a bit of an anathema uh internationally given the invasion of Ukraine. Do we just write down our Russian stocks to zero? Are they ever going to be investable again in our lifetimes or are they just a total pariah state at this point. Well, in our fund, we were out of Russia about a year ago because we didn't like the corporate governance issues that we're popping up, you know, the Oligoux, we're taking over a lot of the companies. But I'm not writing off Russia by no means. I think we will. There'll be a day when we're able to go back in. And in fact, I personally keep an account in RUSSI you, and of course the stocks is a very small account, but the stocks on that account away down. But I think eventually this will come back. But for Fund, we will not go in until things change dramatically in Russia. And is that going to require Putin to leave power in order for the country to be investable again or can something significantly change to rehabilitate their image in the world. It will probably mean put leaving, probably because it would require complete about face, and it would require all of the Western countries to UH stop these sanctions because rust. Remember, even if I wanted today to invest in the Russian stock, I couldn't do it because the custodians. I'm not operating there. You know, you talk about talking about being canceled. It looks like very much like Russia was now. Previously, you were on the board of directors of Luke Oil. I'm assuming that ended some time ago, if I recall reading correctly, and you were also involved with O m V Petrome in Romania, tell us a little bit about those experiences. Yeah, m B Petrome came out about that was about ten years ago. UM we got the contract to run the country fund for the Romanian government. It was quite an unusual situation where they wanted to compensate people who had lost their assets during the Chitsco period, and they put about all the government companies into a fund and UH we won the contract to run that and one of the companies was Petrom UH and omb the rush of the Austrian company H came in as a majority shareholder of that company and we were still holding it and they asked me to be on the board. So we were looking at and getting very d to be involved in many of these Romanian companies, and it's a great example of where a country, you know, took the decision to sort of privatize state owned companies that were previously very corrupt and made a tremendous success of it. And also kudos go to the European Union because being a member of the European Union, whenever we went to court, there were tremendous amounts of court battles. Uh, the judges would be looking over their shoulders to Brussels. So we were often treated much fairly then we would have been if they weren't the members of the European Union. Alright, so so let's talk a little bit about China. Last year they pretty much went after their own um tech sector. Do we first, do we still consider China an emerging market? And second, are they another country that's becoming increasingly uninvestable. Yes, it's still an emerging country defined there's a low and middle income country, so that's definitely there. The problem with China, of course, has gotten too big in the the spectrum of emerging market economies, because if you look at the Emerging Markets indexes, you will find that it's thirty or so China. So whenever China gets hit, emerging markets look terrible. And that's the reason why a lot of people have been sort of turned off because as you know, so many people are buying et f s and index funds um. But it's a good example of where government policy can have a very big impact on your companies. And the measures that China took against the large tech giants in China really damage the market dramatically because of the impact of those v companies on the China Index. So there are cases where you've got to pay attention to those macro moves by the governments, but you have to focus on the economic uh or financial aspect rather than purely political aspects unless and there is a very important point, unless the political structure begins to change against free enterprise, against companies. And a good example of that was in Venezuela. We were in Venezuela when Chavez came into power and he started talking about taking over companies, about nationalizing companies, and immediately we got out because we realized that this was not going to be very conducive. And it's good we did get out because companies that we owned of really crashed and there was a very bad situation. So, but that doesn't recently, that hasn't happened that often. But China is probably a good example where government policies can really have a very damaging effect on individual companies. What about inflation, It's been a giant topic here in the US, and we've seen numbers around the world have spiked up. How does inflation affect emerging markets? Well, you know, the great thing about inflation is that if you're equity investor in other ways, an investor in companies that can adjust their pricing in line with higher prices, then um inflation is not a problem. In fact, sometimes it's it's an advantage because you see prices moving and if you're in a company, as I mentioned, with that pricing power, you can do very very well because they're moving up prices that are rapid rate. It's interesting if you look at the correlation between inflation numbers and let's say the S and P five is very o correlation in those numbers, and that's probably one of the reasons because good companies, you know, that are adjusting their prices in line with the devaluation of the currency can do very well. By the way I pointed out in the book I just came out with about inflation. It's called the inflation myth. And I mentioned this this phenomenon, that that emerging market inflation is actually not a problem. That's great provided and this is the big proviso you're in companies that have pricing power. Really interesting, the inflation myth and the wonderful world of deflation. Yes, and you know I mentioned that. The reason why I put that in the Wonderful World bastion because most economists hate deflation. But I argue that deflation is a good thing because deflation means that costs are going down and people are benefiting from lower and lower costs. And what I point out in the book is that technology is taking things better and cheaper in terms of pricing power, in terms of earning power. Um. And I've seen that in my lifetime. You know, when I had my own research from I had to carry around a selectric typewriter. There were no laptops, you know, no Word, no Excel, nothing of that sort. Um. And when you know what I mentioned the young people, I had a selectric typewriter, They asked me, what is that so? Um? The technology has really made life so much easier and more affordable for so many people. I don't disagree. We've been in an era for the past I don't know, thirty years that's been primarily deflation. With these casual spikes of inflation. I find it kind of hard to understand how all of these older economists keep talking that we're going back in the nineties seventies, when the world today it seems so different than it was back then, exactly exactly. You talk to any young person, you realize that they are even benefiting more because they know how to use this technology better than old times like me. So before I get to my favorite questions, I have one last question for you, and it has to do with back in two thousand and nine, in the middle of the financial crisis, you pretty much called the start of the new bull market. Tell us about what you were seeing at the end of the Great Financial Crisis and what made you so confident that was a great time to jump back into equities. Well, you know, my studies showed that all of these bear markets are very short duration, maybe they're one or two years at most three years, um, you know, and unfortunately, uh many people measure a bear markets from the peak of the previous bull to the peak of the next. Uh. And that's the wrong way of measuring it. You should measure it from the peak to the bottom. And as soon as you get to the bottom and starts moving, you're in a new bull market. And it's a wonderful time to invest because you know the percentages are in your favor. So that's what I saw. I looked at the history and I forgured, hey, this is not gonna last forever. People are very pessimistic. Uh, it's a great time to be investing. And it turned out to be right. And by the way, that happened two years ago, three years ago. Now, um, you know, when we had the COVID situation, it was an incredible time to invest. And you know that was less than a year that the market crashed and then started recovering, right. That drop took place over six weeks, and I think by August we were back to break even. It was pretty pretty impressive. We only have you for another five minutes, so let me get to my five favorite questions I asked all my guests. You can think of this as a speed round. Let's quickly run through all five of these, starting with tell us what you've been streaming during the lockdown. What was keeping you entertained on either Netflix or Amazon Prime or or whatever you were doing to entertain yourself. Well, I found that YouTube is incredible educational media and incredible programs. And of course I also plick on Bloomberg and look at News. If I want to know something about a country, I put News and in the country and a lot of sub pops up. So those are the two sources that I found to be very very good. Tell us about your early mentors who helped to shape your career. Well, John Templeton was really that man. He was an incredible investor, a wonderful person. Um, he really was an inspiration. Uh and as you know, he lives on through his Templeton Prize. You know, Templeton Prize is larger than the Nobel Prizes because, yeah, he believed that a prize for religion, for you know, the science of religion was the most important. So he said he specified that his prize should be bigger than the Nobel Prize, and of course it still is. They've got an incredible foundation. Tell us about some of your favorite books and what you're reading right now. Well, I just finished a book called Double Entry, which is a wonderful book. You know, it sounds boring, sounds like bookkeeping, but it's not. It's about the history of the Double Entry accounting, but it goes into the whole revolution that took place in the Middle Ages and now people in the Middle Ages adopted the Arabic script um and and the calculations that came out of the ad world, and it was It's an incredible book. So I'm reading that. I love history. I'm also I started a book on Leopatra, not necessarily because I'm fascinated by the woman Cleopatra, but by the era. It tells about what kind of environment she lived in, which is fascinating. So I think Cleopatra, Cleopatra. Yeah, any others, any longtime favorites that you really want a reference. Well, I also like books about archaeology, so I've been reading a number of books on I think the Latin American archaeology, because I think it's a lot in Latin America has been overlooked. You know, there's so much emphasis on Egyptian archaeology, but I think Latin American archaeology is incredibly fascinating, really intriguing. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college graduate who is interested in a career in either investing or emerging market and frontier market investing. Well, first of all, travel, I mean, you're young, you can get out. You can travel to all these countries, and that's a tremendous learning experience to go these different countries and stay humble, you know, listen to what other people are saying, Read as much as you can, and keep on asking questions. Don't think you have all the answers. Remember John Tevilan once said, those people who think they have all the answers don't even know the questions. And I think young people should you know. Remember that it's very important. And our final question, what do you know about the world of investing today that you wish you knew thirty five years ago when you first started in the m investing. It's not all in the numbers. In other words, you don't. When we thought it, we looked at the balance sheet, the provent law statements, and we thought that was the most important thing. It's not the most important thing of the people who is running the company. Uh, one of the associates of that person doing it's very important to get to know the people, but people create well quite fascinating. Thank you Mark for being so generous with your time. We have been speaking with Dr Mark Mobius, now of Mobius Capital, previously with Franklin Templeton Investments. If you enjoy this conversation, and I do believe this is now the four hundred one that showed up on iTunes, be sure and check out any of our previous three hundred such discussions. You can find those at Spotify, iTunes wherever you get your podcasts from. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Follow me on Twitter at rid Halts. You can sign up for our daily reading list at dults dot com. I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack team that helps with these conversations together each week. Mohammed Ramaui is audio engineer. Batika val Brunn is our project manager, Paris Wald is my producer. Sean Russo is our head of research. I'm Barry Results. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

M. This is Mesters in Business with Very Renaults on Bluebird Radio. This weekend. On the podcast, I once again have an extra special guest, and I really mean an extra special guest. Dr Mark Mobius is a legend in the world of emerging market and frontier investing. He's one of the first people, first Americans, who went out and actually started kicking tires and looking at various companies all around the world. He's been doing this so long that when he first began, there were only six investable countries that you could put your money into. The rest of the world either didn't have public companies or public markets you couldn't get cash in, and now if there weren't custodians. It's amazing that this is the guy that essentially created e M. There were a couple of other folks doing something like this, but no one quite the way that Dr Mark Mobius uh did. I found this conversation to be absolutely fascinating. I had like another three hours worth of questions for him. We we barely got through an hour. If you're at all interested in what the process is like of doing e M investing, what you find that either makes you more enthusiastic about a company or a company you're enthusiastic that when you go and kick the tires you start to find out that hey, this isn't has presented. Um. This is just an absolutely tour to force fascinating conversation. So, with no further ado, my interview with Dr Mark Mobius. This is Mesters in Business with very Results on Bluebird Radio this week. My extra special guest is Dr Mark Mobius. He is the founding partner of Mobius Capital Partners. Previously, he spent forty years working and traveling in emerging market and frontier markets. Before Mobius launched in twenty eighteen, he worked with Franklin Templeton Investments for more than thirty years, where he was executive Chairman of the Templeton Emerging Market Groups. During his tenure there, he helped to expand the assets under management from a hundred million dollars to over fifty billion dollars throughout Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe. UH he ran a series of open ends, closed ends and private uh e M funds, including private equity funds. He has also been on the World Banks Global Corporate Governance for him UH. Dr Mark Mobius welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you. It's great being we do so. That is quite a storied career. Let's start in the early parts of it. You you took a very different route than most people in finance. You worked at a talent agency. You were a community Asians teacher, a political consultant. And am I reading this right? Did did you actually market snoopy merchandise in Asia? Yeah? I did, that's right. Uh. When I was in Hong Kong, I had a consulting firm and one of my clients was looking for people to manufacture of products. So she had it was a company in San Francisco quoted Term Productions. They had the rights for all of the snoopy merchandise, all the penis missiondise and she asked me to look for manufacturers in Asia. And one day I said, why don't you start selling in Asia? And they didn't think about that, so they said why don't you do it? And of course that's how I got involved in distributing these products in Asia, or at least in Hong Kong and the greater China area. Is that how a kid from Hempstead you grew up like forty five minutes from where I'm I am right now? Is that how you got involved in international business and investing? That happened the way before that, because I got a scholarship to study in Japan after I got my master's degree at bu UM and that really changed my life because you know, the culture shock of being in Japan, completely different culture of an incredible country growing very rapidly at that time. Uh, that was really what changed me, and I decided to go back. I got my pH d and M I T and then went right back to Asian sat and working so Bu Masters Kyoto postgraduate work. M I T. pH d. You also studied at Wisconsin, Syracuse, New Mexico. That seems to be a very heavy focus on education. It was. I was a professional student. I really didn't want to leave a university UM and that's the reason why I did a sort of round robin of these different universities. But then finally when I got my pH d, I said, Okay, let's let's get real, let's find out what I you know, what I should be doing in this world. And how did you end up at the Mega International Investment Trust in Taiwan? Oh? That was? Yeah? International Investment Trust was they Before that, I was working for a broker in Hong Kong, uh it was a British broker because DaCosta, and they sent me to Taiwan to open an office and also sit on the board of a joint venture they had with local banks and some other British firms, which was the very first investment management firm in Taiwan called International Investment Trust Um. And eventually the guy that was running it to a left and I took over. So I became the head of that company, which they launched the Taiwan r OC Fund, which I think the remnants of it are still listed in New York, I believe. So over the course of your career, you've traveled well over a million miles, You've into a hundred and twelve countries. I have to ask what are some of your favorite places to travel and what are some of the favorite foods you've eaten. You know, it's really interesting when I racked my brains and try to figure out where I like it the best, I really can't come up with an answer because every place I've been I've liked in some way or another. But probably if you ask me right now, where would you like to be, and probably would be the beach at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil that might be a place that would be nice to be, or a beach at Cape Town, South Africa. I love bout or life. I love beaches and that sort of thing. But frankly, I lived in Japan and Korea and Taiwan, Philippines. I love all these places. I really can't think of anyone that's particularly favorite. Let's let's talk about food, because I recall you hearing you once say that you eight scorpions on toast? Is that right? Right? Is that sort of like a soft shell crabs? What do they actually taste like? Actually that was in Singapore in a in a restaurant that specialized in special sort of medicinely beneficial foods, supposedly, and this is scorpion on toast. It was sort of like eating crispy shrimp. But it had a little bit of a bite to it, you know, a little bit of a speed taste to it. And I assume they removed the poison first, or is that is that just digest they do. They do remove most of the poison, but some of the sting was still there. It's it was very similar to in Japan if you have had fugu the blowfishes, it still has this tinging sensation on your lips, which is supposed to be part of the experience. I understand Singapore has become the food capital of Asia. What's it like there? It is true, that's the Singapore has an incredible variety of dishes because you've got not only all the Chinese cuisines, which as you know, very varied. I mean you've got cuisines in China that go from very very spicy, too very bland, and so forth. But then you have the Malaysian and Indonesian foods, and added to that, of course, you have the Indians of foods. So it is true. It's Singapore is quite buried in its menu. Huh. Quite mouth watering. So let's talk a little bit about Franklin's Tappleton. No less than Sir John Templeton asked you to run their Emerging Markets division in tell us what e M was like back then. I have to think the world has changed a lot in the ensuing thirty plus years. Oh, that's for sure. I mean in nineteen eight seven, I was sitting there in Taiwan running these that uh, the the fund management company that was doing the Taiwan Fund International Investment Trust, and I get a call from actually one of the deputies of John Templeton. I had made presentations to him in his space in Nasal Bahama's a number of times, and I guess he remembered me. And uh, as you know, at that time, emerging markets were just the term was coined by the International Finance Organization and they had they had launched the Emerging Markets Fund, and then Templeman said that he wanted to do the same thing. So he approached me and said, let's raise a hundred million dollars in New York, uh and do this Emerging Markets Fund um. And it was a great temptation for me because it enabled me to really expand out of Taiwan into something really exciting. But it was a tough decision as well, because we didn't really know what I was getting into. And we opened a small office in Hong Kong, had I hired two analysts to Chinese analysts, who, by the way, stayed with me for the thirty years I was in frank And Yeah, and we started with only six countries. You must remember in those days, most countries did not welcome fun investment. Uh, they were also either socialists or communists, like China and Proussia. Eastern Europe was out of the question, of course. So we had only six markets in which to invest, and then we started the expanding. Gradually markets opened up and eventually we were investing in something like seventy different countries around the world. Do you recall what the original six countries were. They were Hong Kong, of course, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Mexico. H No Japan, No South Korea, that's right, No Japan, No South they were considered they were no longer considered e M countries. You know, actually it's tore It was, but it was closed for one reason or another. There were difficulties in getting in it. Must remember, you know, the whole idea of getting a custodian they keep your securities. All of these technical issues were there. And Japan, of course, had it graduated into a developed country by that time. So back in the n I'm going to assume there was no remote access. It was always boots on the ground. Is that how research was done? Oh, that's for sure. Don't forget no internet no laptop, computer, no cell phones. Um. You know, the technology has to really change things tremendously. So tell us what do you learn from traveling as opposed to just a phone call, assuming you can actually call anybody. Well, you know, it's true that we're able to do a lot on the phone these days, and particularly with video conferencing, because you could see the people. But there's nothing like being in a country, smelling the smells that you get, looking at the people, getting a feeling for how people are living. Um. And then you walk into a company, you look around, you observe what the nature of the company is like, what is the morale of the staff, etcetera, etcetera. So there's nothing that beats that being on the ground and seeing for yourself what's going on. UM. So we always think that it's important to be traveling and visiting companies as much as possible. So let's talk a little bit about your process. Is it top down you start in a country and then dig into individual companies or do you go bottoms up, start with the company and then work your way through that local either country or region. Well, we like to say that we're bottom up invests in the sense that we look at the companies intensely, but that doesn't mean we ignore the macro the top down approach because obviously, you know, let's say, if we wanted to invest in Sri Lanka today, Uh, obviously you don't have to look at what's happened to the currency, what's happened to interest rates, what the government is doing, what kind of restrictions are taking place, uh for foreign investors to invest, that sort of thing. But after those critical issues currency ability to move money in and out, then we dig in to the individual company because that's the key. Because one of the things that I found over the years that a company can survive in a very difficult environment, and you shouldn't be afraid to go into a country where the environment is not ideal as long as you can get money in and out. That's really the key. Even the currency, if the currency is declining or getting very very weak for one reason another, there's still opportunities because, for example, an export oriented company can do very well in such an environment because they're earning in dollars and their courts are in local currency. So uh, I would say, yeah, we're more ground up and more fundamentally company oriented in the way we approach things. So today I could fly into a different country where I don't speak the local language, use my iPhone with Google Translate or any one of a dozen other translation apps, and be able to communicate with people. What did you do back in the eighties and nineties, I'm assuming you don't speak dozens and dozens of languages. What happens when you show up and you're not fluent? Well, that's what they very interesting and great good thing that we found when we travel and went to these countries is that you always found people who spoke English, particularly and you were visiting listed companies, companies listed on various stock exchanges, which is where we were looking. Um. Inevitably, in every company you would find somebody who's going to be able to translate for you. And more often than not, the top management were English speaking, English educated, um, you know, so they were. It was quite easy to get information and get face to face communications with these people. There's some exceptions, but not that often. It was quite good and quite easy to get people to communicate. Um. And even if a company uh officials did not speak English, we were able to find translators easily enough. And who else did you speak to. I mean, obviously you spoke with management, but but did you speak to local customers or or workers at at various places. How comprehensive was your boots on the ground due diligence. Well, that's one thing we found much too to our chagrin, that don't talk to just the top management. We made many mistakes by just talking top management. But you've got to talk to the staff, talk to the customers, talk to competitors. Competitors are great source of information because if you have a competitor who is speaking very highly of the company, that's a pretty good sign of the quality of the company you're talking about. Uh. And then we also talk to government officials. You know, are there any transit transgressions on the part of the company, or any problems in the industry. So you really have to open up the wide variety of sources. And by the way, that's one of the advantages of being on the ground as well, to say the least. So when we look at the environment today, active by side managers they use a lot of financial models, they use big data, they have the ability to crunch a lot of economic assumptions. What was it like in the eighties and nineties. I'm going to assume you didn't have access to all that modern technology and AI. That's right, they were not available. Of course, I don't forget. This was the age before miss it, the mith It program, where you had to separate brokerage fees and research. Uh, and in those days we were able to get an awful lot of information pre of charge from brokers who we were dealing with. But you might not say pre charge because we're paying them brokerage commission, but we were going to give them owners anyway. So UM it was very easy to get information, a lot of research from brokers we're doing research, and they were also local research institutions who produced research. So gradually the knowledge built up. Of course, at the beginning in eight seven, there is almost nothing available, but by at time there was a lot of information throwing out of these various firms, really quite fascinating. So let's talk a little bit about UM traveling to different countries and hunting down specific companies. What do you recall as a particularly spectacular investment that you discovered after traveling to a country, and we're just really surprised by what you found researching a company, probably The best example was in China. Um. That was when we discovered a company that in China that made the gears for wind power companies. That it's about fifteen years ago. That's when you know, the whole area of wind power was coming up strong and this company was doing incredible work. We visited the factory and I noticed that the machine tools they were making were top notch, you know, automated machine tools, and they were doing very high quality work according to their customers. So we decided to invest in that company, and that turned out to be an incredible investment. Was you know, the double triple price we paid. So that was probably one good example of you know, doing on the ground research and finding something that other people were not noticing. And by the way, I think that's one of the features of good investing is finding something that other people are not finding. In other words, try to discover a company that has not been yet so called discovered by the market. What what about the opposite. Did you ever show up somewhere excited about a specific company and owing to discover, hey, this isn't what we were hoping for. Oh many, many, many times. Uh, and of course many times we were fooled by uh, the information we were getting um and you know, very very missteps along the way. It's it's it's it is the feature of investing anyway, as you know, but in emerging markets you have to be special and be very, very extra careful. So so when you started doing this in the late eighties, was anyone else from the United States or other US investment firms actually traveling the world looking at companies you sort of the Indiana Jones of this. How long did it take for other investment firms to say, hey, we need an e M or a developed x U s UM fund and we need someone like Mobius out kicking the tires. Well, it took about five years for you know, the field to grow where you know, once they saw the results that we were getting, a lot of people began to jump in the aggreing. And you must remember that the pioneer on this was the i f C, the International Finance Corporation. They started emerging markets and social funds about it liter earlier than we we started our funds. So they were on there, as you know, they were the precursor the index of course, there's capital and national was the They were the people that were doing researchers of companies all around the world. So you started venturing into Africa way earlier than just about everybody else. What led you to discover that continent and how I have the results been? Well, you know, as the assets expanded, we really had to find new opportunities everywhere, and Africa was wide open. It was just there was so much there. And of course visits initial business there really excited us because we realized this is ground that has not been uh killed in any direction, lots of opportunities where there's no information, which is an advantage because if you're on the ground, if you're able to travel these places and get information, then you have an edge on any competitor that wants to come in. So I saw tremendous opportunities in places like South Africa, in Nigeria, uh in Kenya, and of course Africa is so huge, there's so many countries, there's tremendous opportunities. Of course, the big challenge was to find a equity market of stock market and liquidity. Of course, one of the biggest challenges you get, of course is liquidity, getting enough liquidity to be able to invest significant amounts of money you have to be able to move in and out and not completely disrupt the price or the market exactly. And by the way, that was one of the reasons why we got involved in private equity because we found so many of these opportunities, but some of them, of course we're not listed. Some of them were listed, but there was no liquidity at all, and we decided, hey, why don't we do a private equity fund where you know, the holding periods for the clients would be five or six seven years. Then we can develop these companies uh and bringing them to the market with more liquidity as we expand. So that that was a very very good move for us. And anything stands out as a particularly exceptional or shocking story that didn't involve finance or a company. When you were when you were traveling all over the world, I have to imagine there were some pretty memorable snaff foods along the way. Well, we got caught in the revolution in in Philippines where they're shooting at the hotel and we were able to get out luckily by helicopter for the roof of the hotel. That was one example. But they were few post calls like that, but never deterred US for some reason. Maybe we were too innocent, but you know, we have to roll with the punches, so to speak. But there's always some kind of tremoil going on us. You know. I was recently in Sri Lanka and uh, you know, you can still work and you can still visit companies, but meanwhile people are demonstrating on the street. Wow, that's that's pretty amazing. So let's talk a little bit about emerging markets versus the United States. This I think the twelve or thirteenth year prior to two where the US has outperformed emerging markets. I think that's the longest run we've seen in a number of decades. What's it gonna take for e M to make its comeback against the United States and two? Maybe this is the year. That's a great question. Uh. One thing you've got to realize is that the world has changed to the extent that a lot of the emerging markets growth is now in the United States because US companies are manufacturing and selling and buying from emerging countries. When we saw in the whole premise of going into emerging markets was to capture the growth because these countries were these were the low and middle income countries on a per capita basis, UH, they were growing at more than double that of the developed countries US, Japan, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. UH. Now what's happened is that a lot of these companies, this is in the US, might even be called emerging market companies. For example, let's take Apple, Now what percent of their manufacturing is done in Asia, let's say, or elsewhere, and what percent of their sales are in emerging countries like China. So it's become much more different called to define what is an emerging market And if you travel to some of these countries, you'll be amazed at the growth, at the way they've developed. UH. And you know, just just the infrastructure is just incredible. What's happened in many of these countries. So it's become more and more difficult to define specifically what is an emerging market company UM. And even the definition of country to more country is blurred. For example, let's say Korea. Korea was a very poor country when we started in Today it ranks as one of the on a per capita basis, one of the richer countries. So UH, the Koreans have also always been saying recently that they are not an emerging market country, They're more developed country, which I think rings true. So do you still do the same degree of traveling you were doing years ago? Are you, you know, on the road eight months a year. What's it like today? Well, I try to travel as much as I can, but with COVID it's been so difficult. Thankfully, things are loosening up and I'm able to travel. I based myself now in Dubai, and of course I have a place in Singapore, but Singapore has been so restrictive. Thankfully they're opening up, uh and other countries are beginning to open up recently. As I said, I've been in Sri Lanka, in Thailand, um, and I'm trying to get out to more countries as they open up and they get rid of these lockups. Of course, China is off the chart in terms of restrictions, so that's out of the question at the stage. But yes, I'm trying to travel as much as I can, so Dubai and Singapore. You know, if you're bicoastal, if you're in New York and London, or New York and in Francisco, l A that's what they would call it. What do you call have splinting your time between Dubai and Singapore. Those just base of operations for when you're UM shooting off to those parts of the world. Yeah, Singapore is great for visiting the rest of Asia. You know, they're great. A lot of it has to do with the airlines. Singapore Airlines. We've had great connections all over Asia, and it's a great airline, great airline, and Emirates is even a better airline in some ways. Uh, Emirates goes all over the world, and I'm able to come here to Europe. I'm now in London and to the US very easily. Uh excellent airlines. By the way, there's two good examples of companies in what were emerging markets or maybe you could still call them emerging markets that have really surpassed uh, the USA air lines in terms of service quality, etcetera, etcetera. So, yeah, these two bases are good, probably because of time zones. In in Dubai, the time zone is very convenient, but also because of the convenience of travel really quite quite interesting. So so let's talk about some of the bigger issues going on UM globally. Today, Russia has become a bit of an anathema uh internationally given the invasion of Ukraine. Do we just write down our Russian stocks to zero? Are they ever going to be investable again in our lifetimes or are they just a total pariah state at this point. Well, in our fund, we were out of Russia about a year ago because we didn't like the corporate governance issues that we're popping up, you know, the Oligoux, we're taking over a lot of the companies. But I'm not writing off Russia by no means. I think we will. There'll be a day when we're able to go back in. And in fact, I personally keep an account in RUSSI you, and of course the stocks is a very small account, but the stocks on that account away down. But I think eventually this will come back. But for Fund, we will not go in until things change dramatically in Russia. And is that going to require Putin to leave power in order for the country to be investable again or can something significantly change to rehabilitate their image in the world. It will probably mean put leaving, probably because it would require complete about face, and it would require all of the Western countries to UH stop these sanctions because rust. Remember, even if I wanted today to invest in the Russian stock, I couldn't do it because the custodians. I'm not operating there. You know, you talk about talking about being canceled. It looks like very much like Russia was now. Previously, you were on the board of directors of Luke Oil. I'm assuming that ended some time ago, if I recall reading correctly, and you were also involved with O m V Petrome in Romania, tell us a little bit about those experiences. Yeah, m B Petrome came out about that was about ten years ago. UM we got the contract to run the country fund for the Romanian government. It was quite an unusual situation where they wanted to compensate people who had lost their assets during the Chitsco period, and they put about all the government companies into a fund and UH we won the contract to run that and one of the companies was Petrom UH and omb the rush of the Austrian company H came in as a majority shareholder of that company and we were still holding it and they asked me to be on the board. So we were looking at and getting very d to be involved in many of these Romanian companies, and it's a great example of where a country, you know, took the decision to sort of privatize state owned companies that were previously very corrupt and made a tremendous success of it. And also kudos go to the European Union because being a member of the European Union, whenever we went to court, there were tremendous amounts of court battles. Uh, the judges would be looking over their shoulders to Brussels. So we were often treated much fairly then we would have been if they weren't the members of the European Union. Alright, so so let's talk a little bit about China. Last year they pretty much went after their own um tech sector. Do we first, do we still consider China an emerging market? And second, are they another country that's becoming increasingly uninvestable. Yes, it's still an emerging country defined there's a low and middle income country, so that's definitely there. The problem with China, of course, has gotten too big in the the spectrum of emerging market economies, because if you look at the Emerging Markets indexes, you will find that it's thirty or so China. So whenever China gets hit, emerging markets look terrible. And that's the reason why a lot of people have been sort of turned off because as you know, so many people are buying et f s and index funds um. But it's a good example of where government policy can have a very big impact on your companies. And the measures that China took against the large tech giants in China really damage the market dramatically because of the impact of those v companies on the China Index. So there are cases where you've got to pay attention to those macro moves by the governments, but you have to focus on the economic uh or financial aspect rather than purely political aspects unless and there is a very important point, unless the political structure begins to change against free enterprise, against companies. And a good example of that was in Venezuela. We were in Venezuela when Chavez came into power and he started talking about taking over companies, about nationalizing companies, and immediately we got out because we realized that this was not going to be very conducive. And it's good we did get out because companies that we owned of really crashed and there was a very bad situation. So, but that doesn't recently, that hasn't happened that often. But China is probably a good example where government policies can really have a very damaging effect on individual companies. What about inflation, It's been a giant topic here in the US, and we've seen numbers around the world have spiked up. How does inflation affect emerging markets? Well, you know, the great thing about inflation is that if you're equity investor in other ways, an investor in companies that can adjust their pricing in line with higher prices, then um inflation is not a problem. In fact, sometimes it's it's an advantage because you see prices moving and if you're in a company, as I mentioned, with that pricing power, you can do very very well because they're moving up prices that are rapid rate. It's interesting if you look at the correlation between inflation numbers and let's say the S and P five is very o correlation in those numbers, and that's probably one of the reasons because good companies, you know, that are adjusting their prices in line with the devaluation of the currency can do very well. By the way I pointed out in the book I just came out with about inflation. It's called the inflation myth. And I mentioned this this phenomenon, that that emerging market inflation is actually not a problem. That's great provided and this is the big proviso you're in companies that have pricing power. Really interesting, the inflation myth and the wonderful world of deflation. Yes, and you know I mentioned that. The reason why I put that in the Wonderful World bastion because most economists hate deflation. But I argue that deflation is a good thing because deflation means that costs are going down and people are benefiting from lower and lower costs. And what I point out in the book is that technology is taking things better and cheaper in terms of pricing power, in terms of earning power. Um. And I've seen that in my lifetime. You know, when I had my own research from I had to carry around a selectric typewriter. There were no laptops, you know, no Word, no Excel, nothing of that sort. Um. And when you know what I mentioned the young people, I had a selectric typewriter, They asked me, what is that so? Um? The technology has really made life so much easier and more affordable for so many people. I don't disagree. We've been in an era for the past I don't know, thirty years that's been primarily deflation. With these casual spikes of inflation. I find it kind of hard to understand how all of these older economists keep talking that we're going back in the nineties seventies, when the world today it seems so different than it was back then, exactly exactly. You talk to any young person, you realize that they are even benefiting more because they know how to use this technology better than old times like me. So before I get to my favorite questions, I have one last question for you, and it has to do with back in two thousand and nine, in the middle of the financial crisis, you pretty much called the start of the new bull market. Tell us about what you were seeing at the end of the Great Financial Crisis and what made you so confident that was a great time to jump back into equities. Well, you know, my studies showed that all of these bear markets are very short duration, maybe they're one or two years at most three years, um, you know, and unfortunately, uh many people measure a bear markets from the peak of the previous bull to the peak of the next. Uh. And that's the wrong way of measuring it. You should measure it from the peak to the bottom. And as soon as you get to the bottom and starts moving, you're in a new bull market. And it's a wonderful time to invest because you know the percentages are in your favor. So that's what I saw. I looked at the history and I forgured, hey, this is not gonna last forever. People are very pessimistic. Uh, it's a great time to be investing. And it turned out to be right. And by the way, that happened two years ago, three years ago. Now, um, you know, when we had the COVID situation, it was an incredible time to invest. And you know that was less than a year that the market crashed and then started recovering, right. That drop took place over six weeks, and I think by August we were back to break even. It was pretty pretty impressive. We only have you for another five minutes, so let me get to my five favorite questions I asked all my guests. You can think of this as a speed round. Let's quickly run through all five of these, starting with tell us what you've been streaming during the lockdown. What was keeping you entertained on either Netflix or Amazon Prime or or whatever you were doing to entertain yourself. Well, I found that YouTube is incredible educational media and incredible programs. And of course I also plick on Bloomberg and look at News. If I want to know something about a country, I put News and in the country and a lot of sub pops up. So those are the two sources that I found to be very very good. Tell us about your early mentors who helped to shape your career. Well, John Templeton was really that man. He was an incredible investor, a wonderful person. Um, he really was an inspiration. Uh and as you know, he lives on through his Templeton Prize. You know, Templeton Prize is larger than the Nobel Prizes because, yeah, he believed that a prize for religion, for you know, the science of religion was the most important. So he said he specified that his prize should be bigger than the Nobel Prize, and of course it still is. They've got an incredible foundation. Tell us about some of your favorite books and what you're reading right now. Well, I just finished a book called Double Entry, which is a wonderful book. You know, it sounds boring, sounds like bookkeeping, but it's not. It's about the history of the Double Entry accounting, but it goes into the whole revolution that took place in the Middle Ages and now people in the Middle Ages adopted the Arabic script um and and the calculations that came out of the ad world, and it was It's an incredible book. So I'm reading that. I love history. I'm also I started a book on Leopatra, not necessarily because I'm fascinated by the woman Cleopatra, but by the era. It tells about what kind of environment she lived in, which is fascinating. So I think Cleopatra, Cleopatra. Yeah, any others, any longtime favorites that you really want a reference. Well, I also like books about archaeology, so I've been reading a number of books on I think the Latin American archaeology, because I think it's a lot in Latin America has been overlooked. You know, there's so much emphasis on Egyptian archaeology, but I think Latin American archaeology is incredibly fascinating, really intriguing. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college graduate who is interested in a career in either investing or emerging market and frontier market investing. Well, first of all, travel, I mean, you're young, you can get out. You can travel to all these countries, and that's a tremendous learning experience to go these different countries and stay humble, you know, listen to what other people are saying, Read as much as you can, and keep on asking questions. Don't think you have all the answers. Remember John Tevilan once said, those people who think they have all the answers don't even know the questions. And I think young people should you know. Remember that it's very important. And our final question, what do you know about the world of investing today that you wish you knew thirty five years ago when you first started in the m investing. It's not all in the numbers. In other words, you don't. When we thought it, we looked at the balance sheet, the provent law statements, and we thought that was the most important thing. It's not the most important thing of the people who is running the company. Uh, one of the associates of that person doing it's very important to get to know the people, but people create well quite fascinating. Thank you Mark for being so generous with your time. We have been speaking with Dr Mark Mobius, now of Mobius Capital, previously with Franklin Templeton Investments. If you enjoy this conversation, and I do believe this is now the four hundred one that showed up on iTunes, be sure and check out any of our previous three hundred such discussions. You can find those at Spotify, iTunes wherever you get your podcasts from. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Follow me on Twitter at rid Halts. You can sign up for our daily reading list at dults dot com. I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack team that helps with these conversations together each week. Mohammed Ramaui is audio engineer. Batika val Brunn is our project manager, Paris Wald is my producer. Sean Russo is our head of research. I'm Barry Results. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.