Mark Mobius, a pioneering investor who spent over four decades identifying emerging market opportunities, has died at 89. He passed away in Singapore, according to his spokeswoman Kylie Wong.
Mobius, known as the 'Bald Eagle' for his shaved head, spent 30 years with Franklin Templeton Investments, where he became an evangelist for investing in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.
He founded one of the first mutual funds dedicated to emerging markets and oversaw the Templeton Emerging Markets Group until 2016. The fund returned 13.4% per year on average from 1989 to 2018, beating the MSCI Emerging Markets Index by 1.9% per year.
Mobius was a global cheerleader for emerging markets and correctly predicted the start of a bull market in 2009. He also identified Africa as a promising frontier market and set up the Templeton Africa Fund in 2012.
He founded Mobius Capital Partners in 2018 and continued to seek out investing opportunities until his death.
Mobius was born in New York in 1936 and studied dramatic arts at Boston University. He earned a Ph.D. in political science and economics from MIT and worked in various roles, including as a pianist in a nightclub and a researcher in Thailand and Korea.
He was hired by Vickers Da Costa to start a Taiwanese fund management company and later worked with John Templeton to launch an emerging markets fund.
Mobius wrote more than a dozen books on investing and economics and served on the World Bank's Global Corporate Governance Forum.
