June 24, 2024 • 31 mins
Markets in India, Taiwan, and mainland China could be front and center for the Mobius Emerging Opportunities Fund, spearheaded by investing pioneer Mark Mobius, and expected to launch in late 2024. Mobius opens up about how a changing world has expanded emerging markets' reach far beyond their borders, with growth powered by technology, innovation, and a commitment to free market economies. David Ingles of Bloomberg Television and Rebecca Sin of Bloomberg Intelligence co-host the fourth installment of Tiger Money.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good nights wherever
you are in this vast beautiful planets. Welcome to tig
your money for. This is a Bloomberg podcast about investing
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trillions of dollars have flowed into global ETF in recent years,
so let's listen to really how funds are transforming these markets,
(00:40):
along products, themes, and everything in between. I'm David Ingless,
Bloomberg's non award winning journalists strictly all talk, especially no money.
I'm also the Chief Markets editor for the Asia Pacific
for Bloomberg TV, and I'm also the host of the
China Show. And together with me is my co pilots
Etfstage and Tiger Mom, Rebecca sim She's head of Asia
(01:01):
Pacific ETF Research at Bloomberg Intelligence, Bloomberg's pop research departments.
We have five hundred analysts across the world, covering more
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(01:22):
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Speaker 3 (01:27):
Rebecca, thank you David. Today we're very excited to have
doctor Mark Mobius join us on this conversation. He's one
of the most successful and influential money managers in the
past thirty years and currently chairman of the Mobius Emerging
Opportunity Funds. What you may not know is he didn't
become a fund manager until he was in his fifties.
Mark was hired by Sir John Templeton to run one
(01:48):
of the first emerging market funds in nineteen eighty seven.
At the time, he was tasked with opening Franklin's Templeton's
first Asia office, and he picked Hong Kong, where Dave
and I are situated, where it was originally had a
consulting business. Mark plans to launch a new hedge fund
in September this year, called the Mobius Emerging Opportunity Fund.
By then, he'll be eighty eight years old. In his
(02:10):
free time, he enjoys writing and has published thirteen books,
with the most recent publication the Book of Wealth, A
Young Investor's Guide to Welcome Happiness. Welcome Mark, and we're
so excited to have you on Tiger Money.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So Mart, what's keeping you most busy at the moment?
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Well, of course, you know, the launch of the Mobius
Emerging Opportunities Fund is really keeping me busy. You know.
To launch a fund registered in Delaware with the feeder
in Bridge, Virgin Islands is a big undertaking. I was
managing money so many years Franklin Templeton that I was
never involved in the nitty gritty of oh, you know what,
(02:47):
the legal side and the all the mechanical side and
the bureaucratic side. But now I'm involved in that and
it's quite something. It's a big experience.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Okay, So what do we expect the fund to launch?
Give us a sense of the timeline and where you
are in the process at the moment.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Well, September is a launch date and we're preparing very
carefully to make sure everything is in order, and so
that's when money will go in and we'll start investing,
and the approach, by the way, is very different from
what I've done before in the sense that, as you know,
emerging markets is where I really did most of my
work in investing. But I'm calling it the emerging opportunities
(03:25):
because I've seen how emerging markets have changed so much.
You've seen a lot of these countries come up. Previously,
the way you defined an emerging market was the low
and middle income countries on a per capital basis, And
you have a situation now where Korea has got a
per capita income higher than Spain. So is it an
emerging market or not? That's one thing. The other thing
(03:47):
is we found that a lot of these companies around
the world are getting earnings and profits from emerging countries.
So you have stocks listed in New York which have
a big share of their earn and profits from China, India, wherever,
all these emerging market countries. So we're going to look
for opportunities globally, but particularly the high growth areas. That's
(04:11):
the idea.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
So you started out investing in ems. Was it the
mid eighties? Correct me if I'm wrong, roughly yes, eighty seven
eighty seven. I mean, I would imagine that your investment
universe now is just vastly larger than the pool of
securities that you had to pick back then. And I'm wondering,
is it more difficult these days or is it actually easier.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Well, well, first of all, what we saw in nineteen
eighty seven, I remember we opened up a small office
in Hong Kong. It was the first overseas office that
John Templin had. He was based in Bahamas, you know,
that had a little office, a few offices in Florida,
but that was that. So that was a big change.
Number one. At that time, we only had five markets
in which to invest Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Mexico.
(04:57):
All these other markets were closed. You had the dictatorships
or socialist countries that didn't believe in market economy, et cetera,
et cetera. Of course, no China, no Russia, India was
closed as well. You know. We then started the process
of opening up these markets, and thanks to the IFC,
the World Bank economists finally concluded that in order to grow,
(05:19):
in order to become a rich economy, you've got to
have a market economy. And that's when things really began
to change. At the end of the day, it was
about seventy countries that we opened up and we started
investing in the stocks in those countries. So it was
incredible because we started with one hundred million dollars, which
was so difficult to invest at that time. And by
(05:41):
the way, that tied me in with my work at MIT.
You know, I studied economics and political science at MIT,
and at that time, the professors were asking the questions,
how can we get these countries to grow, the so
called Third World, the poorer countries, And some professors came
up with the answer, You've got to build a power plant,
you've got to build a railroad, whatever. But finally they
(06:02):
concluded you have to have a market economy. And that's
really an incredible revolution that's taking place. It's still taking
place around the world, and at the peak we had
about sixty billion dollars in emerging markets. And that's just
Franklin Templeton. Of course, there were many others that came in.
So it's been a revolutionary change.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So Mark, I'm curious, what do you think. You know,
there's been a massive change, and I'm stating the obvious here.
From the time you started investing in eighty seven to
fast forward over thirty years to where we are today.
For one, they're just more em markets to pick from then.
I would imagine what was your limited pool of choices
back then. And the other is you have this massive
(06:46):
economy that's come up almost from zero, not quite, but
all the way from zero to where it is today,
which is China. Where does it leave China, for example,
which has seen a lot of outlaws, I should say,
in recent years.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
You know, we've had an incredible wealth creation in China.
The big change came in China when Deng Shaoping said, look,
I don't care if the cat is black or white,
as long as it catches the mice, and he said,
you know, it's glorious to be wealthy. That was a big,
big change in attitude and strategy for China. And now
(07:20):
India's coming along. But you know, the story for China
is not over, that's for sure. Yes, many investors lost
money in the big downfall in the market, but that's
a temporary thing as far as I'm concerned, because you
have an incredibly productive nation. And yes, they overdid it
on the property side, just as Japan did. As you know,
(07:41):
Japan went through the same process with a property boom
and bust, but they will recover, and they are now recovering,
and we'll see the market come back.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
That's a fantastic example on bringing up the Japan analogy
because to some that's actually a warning sign of what
could become of China. Japan entered two and a half
decades of deflation and it only now is starting to
re emerge from it. So I guess what you're seeing
is and correct me if I'm wrong. China is not Japan.
There's a difference there. What is the difference in your view?
Speaker 4 (08:12):
The difference is that Japanese people tend to be very,
very conservative and somewhat longer term in their thinking. So
when you have a crash like that, they tend to
gower into the corner and say, look, we're not going
to spend, We're going to save to make sure it
doesn't happen again, et cetera, et cetera. With Chinese they're
much more flexible and much more enterprising in that sense.
(08:36):
So the Chinese will get back to work and they say, no,
that was yesterday, it's today, and we're going to move
forward and create new wealth. So China is going to
be transformed from a property oriented economy to more of
a consumer oriented economy, and you're going to see a
big change, just as you now beginning to see in Japan.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I think from a funds perspective, we are definitely seeing
that in terms of assets under management. Our prediction is
that China will surpass Japan in the coming years, just
because we've seen so much growth coming out of China.
This year alone, we've had the National Team, which is
a sovereign wealth fund of China, invest close to fifty
billion dollars worth of ETFs into their own market, and
(09:20):
so we think that the growth in China is going
to be phenomenal in the coming years. If we shift
gear to India, I mentioned India previously. India has had
phenomenal growth. From a fund closer perspective, we've seen one
hundred and sixteen billion in ETF assets. A lot of
people are investing into India right now, and from funds perspective,
(09:40):
we've had new launches from Fidelity Global, Eggs, HSBC, Mire
who have all launched ETFs tracking India following the election.
How confident are you around the investment thesis surrounding India.
Do you expect any structural reforms to be delayed or
watered down, and if so, will this dilute your focus on India.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
I don't think the election will have much impact in
that sense, because remember Modi is still at the top.
Of course, now he has to make peace with the
opponent's bodies. But I think they all will realize that
India's got to keep on the same track towards digitization,
towards technology, and I think they're pretty much agreed on that.
(10:24):
And you know the interesting thing about India. I like
to call India the United States of India because these
states are very different one from the other, more different
than what you see in China or the US or
any other country. Different languages, different cultures. And the exciting
thing is that one state with maybe thirty or forty
(10:45):
or fifty million people can create an economy that is
quite productive and quite varied. So I think you can
see India moving ahead because these states compete with each
other to be the best, and because Modi his home state,
has started a more liberal investment system, which I think
(11:06):
other states are going to copy, so that will attract
more foreign investment.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Part of the conversation we've seen recently and this might
be cyclical, right, So you know, some of the weakness
mark we've seen in the Chinese equity market has inevitably
shifted some of the funds that would have been there.
They've now played in India, maybe a lesser extent. Some
have gone to Japan. And some of the new strategies
that have emerged because of that sort of phenomenon of
flows is that some EM fund managers have started em
(11:34):
X China strategies, for example, some have started a purely
India strategy because of the interest there from someone who's
been investing in ems for a very long time. Is
it time to stop looking at this group as one.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yeah, that's true. And that's the reason why my new
fund is called the Emerging Opportunities, because I think it
doesn't make sense to just say, Okay, I'm just going
to go into India or go into China, or go
into emerging markets. You got to look global. And of course, yes,
emerging countries are growing faster than the developed countries, no
(12:09):
question about that. Is double the growth rate. So therefore
there's going to be more opportunities in the emerging countries.
But there are so many companies listed in New York
and London other developed markets where the companies are actually
emerging market companies because their earnings are from the emerging
(12:29):
countries like India, China, Brazil and other countries like that.
So we've got to widen our scope if we want
to be good investors.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
If we shift gear and we look at where the
prizes had been in elections this year, you know, South Africa, Mexico,
India in the past few weeks. Do you think investors
have been too complacent around pricing in election risk and
do you see any potential election risk down the road,
especially with the UK and US elections coming up.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
You know, a lot of the the election news and
development is peripheral, really peripheral to the market because at
the end of the day, it's the economy that drives
the market. If the economy is doing well, regardless of
who's in charge politically, then the market will do well.
(13:19):
And in the case of the US, whether it's Biden
or Trump, there may be some changes on the fringe,
but the fundamental development of the economy is not going
to change that much. Same thing is true with China.
Within the it's the economy that really drives the markets
rather than the political system. Now, of course, if you
have a very dramatic change, for example, if Trump comes
(13:42):
in and said, look, I'm going to eliminate capital gain sex,
that's going to happen incredible impact. But it's unlikely to
happen in the short term, that's for sure. There'll be
a lot of discussion before something like that happens.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
This is an interesting case, right, So the US equity
market has just outperformed almost consistently when you compare it
to the EM basket for example, right, and I think
you and me and Mark we were having a conversa
I forget which year was this, a couple of years ago,
and you brought up the point that you just made
that if you simply take EM, there will always be
(14:16):
a year where one EM market underperforms and drags the
whole basket down. So I'm wondering, what is the argument
or what is the best case you can make against
US exceptionalism that there is a case to be made
to be long ems and simply not just leave your
money and close your eyes and wait. Say in an
S and P. Five hundred ETF.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
For example, Well, if you look at the long term
record we're talking about from nineteen eighty seven when the
Emerging Markets Index was formulated to now and the S
ANDB five hundred. According to numbers I have emerging markets
out performed. So if you stayed in that of course,
a lot of people don't have the guts and the
patients to do that. If you stayed in, you've done
(14:57):
better with emerging countries. But you've had incredible volatility, right
and recently you've seen emerging markets have outperformed certain periods
the S and P five hundred. But as I mentioned,
the S and P five hundred now contains so many
companies that are benefiting from the growth in emerging countries.
(15:18):
So you've got to be aware of the fact that
when you buy Apple, you are buying not the US
market only, but you're buying China, India, et cetera, et cetera.
So these countries are enabling the American companies, the multinational
companies to earn greater and greater profits, and there after
their stock reflects that. Right.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So your MOBIU is Emerging Opportunities Fund that's about to
come online. Are you saying that everything is fair game?
So a company like Apple, which you correctly point out,
you're effectively buying an EM stock if you think about
it longer term, because increasingly their pious China, India Tesla
is another one. For example, would you be would the
S and P five hundred companies or would stocks in
the US be part of your eligible investment universe? Is
(16:02):
what I want to ask you.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Yes, definitely, yes, there's no question about that. And don't
forget ADRs. Lots of ADRs are listed more and more.
You can see emerging market companies listed in New York
of course of liquidity.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
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Speaker 3 (16:32):
So one of the questions we get asked a lot
is can active and passive coexist? You know you're an
active fund managers, but we've seen a huge growth across
passive ETFs. AUM is at thirteen trillion. Now, there's some
estimates that say by twenty thirty three is going to
reach thirty trillion, Some say twenty thirty And so what
are your thoughts around active and passive coexisting.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Well, I love this differentiation because it enables us active
managers to do because as more and more people move
into index stocks, we can then outperform because we can
do something different. And I'll give you a good example
of that. There were so many people who were in
the emerging markets passively. They were buying the Emerging Markets index,
(17:18):
and they got terribly burned when China went down because
China represented thirty percent of the index. The index crashed,
they got burned. In our case, we weren't in China
at that time, so we benefited from this difference. I
like the fact that more and more people are going
into the indexed area because it gives the active measures
(17:40):
more room to play, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Okay, so top of your head, rough estimation, what do
you think your exposure breakdown would be for this fund?
Would it be, for example, twenty percent India, thirty percent China?
What would be your best guess at this point in time.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
At this stage would probably be something like I think
twenty percent in India would be a good sign point,
twenty percent in Taiwan and mainland China, or maybe a
little bit more so that's me thirty percent there and
then the rest in places like Brazil Turkey, but believe
it or not, despite the evaluation of the Turkish LERA
is doing very well. And then maybe a little bit
(18:17):
more in countries like Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
So in terms of investment opportunities, you've given us a
breakdown from a geographical focus, where do you think investment
opportunities are key drivers of growth? For instance, in the
fund space, we've seen a huge interest in virtual assets, crypto, bitcoin, ether,
AI has been a big theme and a lot of
people are incorporating AI into their investments. In terms of
(18:44):
virtual assets ETF, they've gathered more than one hundred billion
in assets under management this year. Tech has been a
big theme for a lot of investors. You know, it's
done very, very well in the past few years. Where
do you think the investment opportunities are beyond geographical focus?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Well, raise a very good point, and that is the
impact of technology on fund management itself. In our case
with our new fund, we're using what they call a
quantumental approach, in other words, using quant techniques plus fundamental systems,
and of course overlaying all of this is AI, because
(19:20):
with the AI tool we can cover much more data
like never before and much faster. So this combination of
technologies is going to be really useful to us in
running funds, and not only for us but for other
fund managers. And now that related to that, of course,
is where do you go in terms of picking stocks?
(19:44):
And what I always emphasize when I'm looking at a
company is to what degree is this company using technology
to improve profitability and growth? Because without technology, a company
is not going to do very well. They've got to
move with the times and use technology to improve their operations.
(20:05):
So it's a very important in reidds to what sector
you're in. Of course, currently very attractive to go into
the semiconductor space, particularly the software companies that do the
software for semiconductors. But any company that's using technology in
an effective way is going to be a winner.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Well, what's the most important financial metric you use to
value a company? I remember a few years back you
said you don't use PE for example, because that's not
very useful guide to measure a company's true value.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Yeah, it changes, you know, P was very very popular
and it's still very popular, and sometimes it's better and
not to use the same metric that other people are using.
In our case, we like to use a return on
capital or return on assets. Number one, debt load, debt equity,
and of course earnings growth. Those would be three criteria
(20:56):
that we look at very carefully.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Right, And I'm curious, is there one market you would
not touch? In other words, if one of your analysts
came to you and said, Mark, I have an idea.
Here's a stock, but it's listed in XXX, great company,
but it's in a certain market. Is there a market
that you would go, No, take that away and throw
it in the trash?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Can well, I mean a country like Venezuela, you can forget.
That's a bad place to be. You know. The main
criteria it is not so much the political environment itself,
but whether we can get money in and out of
the country very important. So the first question we asked
is number one, can we get money out when we
(21:35):
put money in? How they've exchanged controls or some other
problem that will borrow us from getting the money out.
Number two, how about the currency? What kind of currency
risk is there and what kind of currency opportunity is there?
By the way, because a lot of times, like in
the case of Turkey, a Turkish lyric devalued by what
(21:56):
eighty plus percent against the dollar. That provided an opper
tunity for many companies because some of the Turkish companies
were exporting in dollars and their costs were in Turkish lira,
so their profit gap was wider and wider as the
currency devalued. So that's the kind of thing we look at.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
You've done everything in your career, from winning awards to
writing books to be one of the most influential people
in finance. Why launch another fund right now?
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Thanks for the compliments. I don't know whether I've been
that influential, but anyway, why a new fund? Because I
like to try new things. I enjoy it. I don't
necessarily need the money, but I like the idea of
using the money I have to invest and also to
try something new, and that's really the reason. And of
course I enjoy travel, I enjoy meeting new companies, So
(22:50):
it's just something that I love to do.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Is it more a mental challenge for you than I mean,
delivering actual returns to investors is obviously important, but you
know personal challenge when you look at investing and out
performing and all these things. I'm wondering if that's more
personal then what seems to be the case.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Well, you know, it's really interesting. I never really look
at the performance in that sense. Of course, the clients
and colleagues look at performance, but don't I look at
what kind of companies we have? Are they profitable, are
they growing? Are they run by good people? And all
the rest of it takes care of itself. So I
(23:28):
think you have to be very careful not to be
too focused on what's your performance this week or this
month or this year, but more focused on what the
assets you have and how good they are basically, right.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
And do you think em fund managers these days, or
just fund managers in general, do you think they spend
enough time actually speaking with management. I mean, how important
is that to actually meet, like literally meet the company's employees.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
It's very, very critical, very important because at the end
of the day, companies are people. They're not things that people,
and companies are run by people, and if those people
are ethical and are capable, then you want to put
your money with them. You know. It's basically like we're
in a partnership. And by the way, That's the exciting
thing about going into equities and equity investing is because
(24:19):
you are forming partnerships with the companies in which you're investing,
So they're making money for you. So you've got to
understand them and understand what their problems are and where
the opportunities are through their eyes.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
So you mentioned people as being one of the most
important factors. You've, of course had a very successful career.
What is one of the best career advice you would
give someone.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
I think the most important thing in this field and
investing is to be curious and humble. In other words,
don't think that you know everything, because you never do.
There's always something to learn. One of the reasons why
I like this business is because I've always been a
perpetual student. In fact, I almost never left the university.
(25:04):
I love to be learning in the diversity. So I
think that's important. If you want to be in this business,
you've got to be curious, humble, and willing to learn
and change your mind. You know, things are changing every day.
You've got to be willing to adjust to a changing situation.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Well, speaking of humility, what's your biggest investment regret? What's
the one Mark, what's the one that got away from
mister Mobius.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Well, it was in Brazil. We were invested in a
department store and two times a year we'd go back
and talk to the financial director. Everything seemed to be great.
Then suddenly the company was bankrupt and we couldn't understand why.
And the mistake there by the way, was that we
didn't meet the owners, the people who were really controlling
(25:50):
the company, and understand their background and their problems, and
so that was a big disaster.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
That's the thing too, I feel in just as a
side point, right, so there's this bifurcation between the US
and China, So I understand geopolitically, that's a rivalry that
will continue. What's happened, is Mark chime in. There seems
to be a gap that's formed between the communities of
both sides. So American investors who would have otherwise been
(26:18):
happy to go to China meet the companies, send their kids,
study language, and vice versa. That's not started to recede
as well. And are you optimistic that over time, while
the rivalry continues, that things normalize. Relations normalize is simply
on a people to people basis.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Well, I think they will normalize. They already If you
look at very closely and talk to Chinese people who
travel around the world, you know that so many of
them have their children in the US studying or visit
the US, often have property in the US. I'm talking
about the post and wealthy people, but even on the
ground in China there's an open mind. It's one of
(26:58):
the thing wonderful about the Chinese people is that they've
got a global view. They travel around the world, they
invest around the world, they ship products around the world.
So I think it will be very difficult to close
the door between the US and China. It's just I
don't see that happening.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Sorry, Mark, forgot to ask you as well, that you're
launching in your fund, do you have a target in mind?
How much money do you want to raise? How big
you need the fund to get?
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Well, the most that we could do in this strategy
would be about a billion dollars, but frankly, I prefer
to have it maybe at five hundred million around that range.
Why is that simply because if you get too big,
then it becomes more difficult to get liquid. The kind
of liquid stocks and the limited number of stocks you
have in the portfolio. So we plan to have anywhere
(27:46):
between eight to twenty socks, no more than that in
the portfolio.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Wow, okay, that's not a lot of stocks to begin with.
Do you have a try do you have a targeted
mind as far as performance or returns? I know that's
a difficult question, but what would be ideal and achievable?
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Well, the ideal is to do better than what you
would do by putting your money in the bank, putting
yourself your money into treasury bonds. So we're talking about
ten percent annually or more in that range because you
can't expect to get fifty percent, twenty percent. Yes, one
(28:24):
year you might get that, but it means taking a
lot of risk, and that's one thing we don't want
to do. So anywhere above ten percent is really where
we want to be.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
If we look at emerging market funds, one of the
questions we get asked a lot is why do I
need to invest in an active emerging fund when I
can access a ETF for seventy basis points? So, for instance,
the I Shares MSCI Emerging Market only charges seventy basis points?
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 4 (28:49):
A very good point because That's one of the things
that active managers have challenges about is the fee structure
compared to ETFs case, we're going to give clients the
opportunity to have zero fee, in other words, no fee
and only a carry. In other words, we take a
percent of the profits we make above a certain amount.
(29:12):
So that's I think a much better way to run
things because then you are really in partnership with your investors.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Okay, Mark, one final question for you, nothing to do
with market. I know you pretty much live on an airplane.
You live in a jet. I see you sometimes in Singapore,
I see you're in India. Your social media team, by
the way, do a very good job because I see
you enjoying Japan. For example. One day you're in Vietnam,
the next day you're in Brazil. Give us your top
three favorite places to live. I know you have residences
(29:42):
all over the world, let's put it that way. So
what are your top three favorite spots.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Well, I'm now in Dubai, so that's one. Singapore would
be the other one in Hong Kong. Really, those three
are the best, I would.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Say, Okay, and any go to meal, like if I
were to visit Dubai. What is something I have to
try in Hong Kong? What is your go to meal
in single for What would that be.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Here in Dubai. You have so many choices, but perhaps
some of the Lebanese food here is very very good
because that have terrific salads, They have terrific barbecues, that
sort of thing. So Lebanese food here in Dubai would
be good, but you've got everything here. In Singapore, of
course it would be Singapore noodles, and in Hong Kong
(30:23):
it would be canted these food you know, incredible surfried
vegetables and that sort of thing. I really enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Mark, You'll have to let us know next time you
come to Hong Kong, we'll take you up for some
dim sum or some Hong Kong local.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
Food and I look forward to that.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Thank you so much for joining us today. You've provided
us a lot of insights from career to investments to markets.
Thank you so much for your time and for making
effort all the way from Dubai.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Well, thank you. It's a pleasure speaking with you.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
See you in Hong Kong, and so our audience, thank
you for joining us today, and thank you for listening
to the Tiger Money, your Bloomberg podcast about investing funds
and financial markets in the region and beyond. If you
like what you hear, please do not forget to subscribe,
to like and to share Until next time. You can
find us on the Bloomberg inside a terminal, on LinkedIn,
(31:14):
and across other platforms as well. We look forward by
the way to hearing from you. This podcast was produced
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good nights wherever
you are in this vast beautiful planets. Welcome to tig
your money for. This is a Bloomberg podcast about investing
financial markets and ETFs capital chases. The best returns and
trillions of dollars have flowed into global ETF in recent years,
so let's listen to really how funds are transforming these markets,
(00:40):
along products, themes, and everything in between. I'm David Ingless,
Bloomberg's non award winning journalists strictly all talk, especially no money.
I'm also the Chief Markets editor for the Asia Pacific
for Bloomberg TV, and I'm also the host of the
China Show. And together with me is my co pilots
Etfstage and Tiger Mom, Rebecca sim She's head of Asia
(01:01):
Pacific ETF Research at Bloomberg Intelligence, Bloomberg's pop research departments.
We have five hundred analysts across the world, covering more
than two thousand companies ninety industries in one hundred market benchmarks.
Keep in mind this conversation is strictly non confidential, so
if you like what you hear, do not forget to
(01:22):
subscribe to like, and of course do share with everyone
that you know.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Rebecca, thank you David. Today we're very excited to have
doctor Mark Mobius join us on this conversation. He's one
of the most successful and influential money managers in the
past thirty years and currently chairman of the Mobius Emerging
Opportunity Funds. What you may not know is he didn't
become a fund manager until he was in his fifties.
Mark was hired by Sir John Templeton to run one
(01:48):
of the first emerging market funds in nineteen eighty seven.
At the time, he was tasked with opening Franklin's Templeton's
first Asia office, and he picked Hong Kong, where Dave
and I are situated, where it was originally had a
consulting business. Mark plans to launch a new hedge fund
in September this year, called the Mobius Emerging Opportunity Fund.
By then, he'll be eighty eight years old. In his
(02:10):
free time, he enjoys writing and has published thirteen books,
with the most recent publication the Book of Wealth, A
Young Investor's Guide to Welcome Happiness. Welcome Mark, and we're
so excited to have you on Tiger Money.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So Mart, what's keeping you most busy at the moment?
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Well, of course, you know, the launch of the Mobius
Emerging Opportunities Fund is really keeping me busy. You know.
To launch a fund registered in Delaware with the feeder
in Bridge, Virgin Islands is a big undertaking. I was
managing money so many years Franklin Templeton that I was
never involved in the nitty gritty of oh, you know what,
(02:47):
the legal side and the all the mechanical side and
the bureaucratic side. But now I'm involved in that and
it's quite something. It's a big experience.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Okay, So what do we expect the fund to launch?
Give us a sense of the timeline and where you
are in the process at the moment.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Well, September is a launch date and we're preparing very
carefully to make sure everything is in order, and so
that's when money will go in and we'll start investing,
and the approach, by the way, is very different from
what I've done before in the sense that, as you know,
emerging markets is where I really did most of my
work in investing. But I'm calling it the emerging opportunities
(03:25):
because I've seen how emerging markets have changed so much.
You've seen a lot of these countries come up. Previously,
the way you defined an emerging market was the low
and middle income countries on a per capital basis, And
you have a situation now where Korea has got a
per capita income higher than Spain. So is it an
emerging market or not? That's one thing. The other thing
(03:47):
is we found that a lot of these companies around
the world are getting earnings and profits from emerging countries.
So you have stocks listed in New York which have
a big share of their earn and profits from China, India, wherever,
all these emerging market countries. So we're going to look
for opportunities globally, but particularly the high growth areas. That's
(04:11):
the idea.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
So you started out investing in ems. Was it the
mid eighties? Correct me if I'm wrong, roughly yes, eighty seven
eighty seven. I mean, I would imagine that your investment
universe now is just vastly larger than the pool of
securities that you had to pick back then. And I'm wondering,
is it more difficult these days or is it actually easier.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Well, well, first of all, what we saw in nineteen
eighty seven, I remember we opened up a small office
in Hong Kong. It was the first overseas office that
John Templin had. He was based in Bahamas, you know,
that had a little office, a few offices in Florida,
but that was that. So that was a big change.
Number one. At that time, we only had five markets
in which to invest Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Mexico.
(04:57):
All these other markets were closed. You had the dictatorships
or socialist countries that didn't believe in market economy, et cetera,
et cetera. Of course, no China, no Russia, India was
closed as well. You know. We then started the process
of opening up these markets, and thanks to the IFC,
the World Bank economists finally concluded that in order to grow,
(05:19):
in order to become a rich economy, you've got to
have a market economy. And that's when things really began
to change. At the end of the day, it was
about seventy countries that we opened up and we started
investing in the stocks in those countries. So it was
incredible because we started with one hundred million dollars, which
was so difficult to invest at that time. And by
(05:41):
the way, that tied me in with my work at MIT.
You know, I studied economics and political science at MIT,
and at that time, the professors were asking the questions,
how can we get these countries to grow, the so
called Third World, the poorer countries, And some professors came
up with the answer, You've got to build a power plant,
you've got to build a railroad, whatever. But finally they
(06:02):
concluded you have to have a market economy. And that's
really an incredible revolution that's taking place. It's still taking
place around the world, and at the peak we had
about sixty billion dollars in emerging markets. And that's just
Franklin Templeton. Of course, there were many others that came in.
So it's been a revolutionary change.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So Mark, I'm curious, what do you think. You know,
there's been a massive change, and I'm stating the obvious here.
From the time you started investing in eighty seven to
fast forward over thirty years to where we are today.
For one, they're just more em markets to pick from then.
I would imagine what was your limited pool of choices
back then. And the other is you have this massive
(06:46):
economy that's come up almost from zero, not quite, but
all the way from zero to where it is today,
which is China. Where does it leave China, for example,
which has seen a lot of outlaws, I should say,
in recent years.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
You know, we've had an incredible wealth creation in China.
The big change came in China when Deng Shaoping said, look,
I don't care if the cat is black or white,
as long as it catches the mice, and he said,
you know, it's glorious to be wealthy. That was a big,
big change in attitude and strategy for China. And now
(07:20):
India's coming along. But you know, the story for China
is not over, that's for sure. Yes, many investors lost
money in the big downfall in the market, but that's
a temporary thing as far as I'm concerned, because you
have an incredibly productive nation. And yes, they overdid it
on the property side, just as Japan did. As you know,
(07:41):
Japan went through the same process with a property boom
and bust, but they will recover, and they are now recovering,
and we'll see the market come back.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
That's a fantastic example on bringing up the Japan analogy
because to some that's actually a warning sign of what
could become of China. Japan entered two and a half
decades of deflation and it only now is starting to
re emerge from it. So I guess what you're seeing
is and correct me if I'm wrong. China is not Japan.
There's a difference there. What is the difference in your view?
Speaker 4 (08:12):
The difference is that Japanese people tend to be very,
very conservative and somewhat longer term in their thinking. So
when you have a crash like that, they tend to
gower into the corner and say, look, we're not going
to spend, We're going to save to make sure it
doesn't happen again, et cetera, et cetera. With Chinese they're
much more flexible and much more enterprising in that sense.
(08:36):
So the Chinese will get back to work and they say, no,
that was yesterday, it's today, and we're going to move
forward and create new wealth. So China is going to
be transformed from a property oriented economy to more of
a consumer oriented economy, and you're going to see a
big change, just as you now beginning to see in Japan.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I think from a funds perspective, we are definitely seeing
that in terms of assets under management. Our prediction is
that China will surpass Japan in the coming years, just
because we've seen so much growth coming out of China.
This year alone, we've had the National Team, which is
a sovereign wealth fund of China, invest close to fifty
billion dollars worth of ETFs into their own market, and
(09:20):
so we think that the growth in China is going
to be phenomenal in the coming years. If we shift
gear to India, I mentioned India previously. India has had
phenomenal growth. From a fund closer perspective, we've seen one
hundred and sixteen billion in ETF assets. A lot of
people are investing into India right now, and from funds perspective,
(09:40):
we've had new launches from Fidelity Global, Eggs, HSBC, Mire
who have all launched ETFs tracking India following the election.
How confident are you around the investment thesis surrounding India.
Do you expect any structural reforms to be delayed or
watered down, and if so, will this dilute your focus on India.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
I don't think the election will have much impact in
that sense, because remember Modi is still at the top.
Of course, now he has to make peace with the
opponent's bodies. But I think they all will realize that
India's got to keep on the same track towards digitization,
towards technology, and I think they're pretty much agreed on that.
(10:24):
And you know the interesting thing about India. I like
to call India the United States of India because these
states are very different one from the other, more different
than what you see in China or the US or
any other country. Different languages, different cultures. And the exciting
thing is that one state with maybe thirty or forty
(10:45):
or fifty million people can create an economy that is
quite productive and quite varied. So I think you can
see India moving ahead because these states compete with each
other to be the best, and because Modi his home state,
has started a more liberal investment system, which I think
(11:06):
other states are going to copy, so that will attract
more foreign investment.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Part of the conversation we've seen recently and this might
be cyclical, right, So you know, some of the weakness
mark we've seen in the Chinese equity market has inevitably
shifted some of the funds that would have been there.
They've now played in India, maybe a lesser extent. Some
have gone to Japan. And some of the new strategies
that have emerged because of that sort of phenomenon of
flows is that some EM fund managers have started em
(11:34):
X China strategies, for example, some have started a purely
India strategy because of the interest there from someone who's
been investing in ems for a very long time. Is
it time to stop looking at this group as one.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yeah, that's true. And that's the reason why my new
fund is called the Emerging Opportunities, because I think it
doesn't make sense to just say, Okay, I'm just going
to go into India or go into China, or go
into emerging markets. You got to look global. And of course, yes,
emerging countries are growing faster than the developed countries, no
(12:09):
question about that. Is double the growth rate. So therefore
there's going to be more opportunities in the emerging countries.
But there are so many companies listed in New York
and London other developed markets where the companies are actually
emerging market companies because their earnings are from the emerging
(12:29):
countries like India, China, Brazil and other countries like that.
So we've got to widen our scope if we want
to be good investors.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
If we shift gear and we look at where the
prizes had been in elections this year, you know, South Africa, Mexico,
India in the past few weeks. Do you think investors
have been too complacent around pricing in election risk and
do you see any potential election risk down the road,
especially with the UK and US elections coming up.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
You know, a lot of the the election news and
development is peripheral, really peripheral to the market because at
the end of the day, it's the economy that drives
the market. If the economy is doing well, regardless of
who's in charge politically, then the market will do well.
(13:19):
And in the case of the US, whether it's Biden
or Trump, there may be some changes on the fringe,
but the fundamental development of the economy is not going
to change that much. Same thing is true with China.
Within the it's the economy that really drives the markets
rather than the political system. Now, of course, if you
have a very dramatic change, for example, if Trump comes
(13:42):
in and said, look, I'm going to eliminate capital gain sex,
that's going to happen incredible impact. But it's unlikely to
happen in the short term, that's for sure. There'll be
a lot of discussion before something like that happens.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
This is an interesting case, right, So the US equity
market has just outperformed almost consistently when you compare it
to the EM basket for example, right, and I think
you and me and Mark we were having a conversa
I forget which year was this, a couple of years ago,
and you brought up the point that you just made
that if you simply take EM, there will always be
(14:16):
a year where one EM market underperforms and drags the
whole basket down. So I'm wondering, what is the argument
or what is the best case you can make against
US exceptionalism that there is a case to be made
to be long ems and simply not just leave your
money and close your eyes and wait. Say in an
S and P. Five hundred ETF.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
For example, Well, if you look at the long term
record we're talking about from nineteen eighty seven when the
Emerging Markets Index was formulated to now and the S
ANDB five hundred. According to numbers I have emerging markets
out performed. So if you stayed in that of course,
a lot of people don't have the guts and the
patients to do that. If you stayed in, you've done
(14:57):
better with emerging countries. But you've had incredible volatility, right
and recently you've seen emerging markets have outperformed certain periods
the S and P five hundred. But as I mentioned,
the S and P five hundred now contains so many
companies that are benefiting from the growth in emerging countries.
(15:18):
So you've got to be aware of the fact that
when you buy Apple, you are buying not the US
market only, but you're buying China, India, et cetera, et cetera.
So these countries are enabling the American companies, the multinational
companies to earn greater and greater profits, and there after
their stock reflects that. Right.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So your MOBIU is Emerging Opportunities Fund that's about to
come online. Are you saying that everything is fair game?
So a company like Apple, which you correctly point out,
you're effectively buying an EM stock if you think about
it longer term, because increasingly their pious China, India Tesla
is another one. For example, would you be would the
S and P five hundred companies or would stocks in
the US be part of your eligible investment universe? Is
(16:02):
what I want to ask you.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Yes, definitely, yes, there's no question about that. And don't
forget ADRs. Lots of ADRs are listed more and more.
You can see emerging market companies listed in New York
of course of liquidity.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
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where you can get exposure to themes ranging from AI
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to global search. HKX to learn more.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
So one of the questions we get asked a lot
is can active and passive coexist? You know you're an
active fund managers, but we've seen a huge growth across
passive ETFs. AUM is at thirteen trillion. Now, there's some
estimates that say by twenty thirty three is going to
reach thirty trillion, Some say twenty thirty And so what
are your thoughts around active and passive coexisting.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Well, I love this differentiation because it enables us active
managers to do because as more and more people move
into index stocks, we can then outperform because we can
do something different. And I'll give you a good example
of that. There were so many people who were in
the emerging markets passively. They were buying the Emerging Markets index,
(17:18):
and they got terribly burned when China went down because
China represented thirty percent of the index. The index crashed,
they got burned. In our case, we weren't in China
at that time, so we benefited from this difference. I
like the fact that more and more people are going
into the indexed area because it gives the active measures
(17:40):
more room to play, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Okay, so top of your head, rough estimation, what do
you think your exposure breakdown would be for this fund?
Would it be, for example, twenty percent India, thirty percent China?
What would be your best guess at this point in time.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
At this stage would probably be something like I think
twenty percent in India would be a good sign point,
twenty percent in Taiwan and mainland China, or maybe a
little bit more so that's me thirty percent there and
then the rest in places like Brazil Turkey, but believe
it or not, despite the evaluation of the Turkish LERA
is doing very well. And then maybe a little bit
(18:17):
more in countries like Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
So in terms of investment opportunities, you've given us a
breakdown from a geographical focus, where do you think investment
opportunities are key drivers of growth? For instance, in the
fund space, we've seen a huge interest in virtual assets, crypto, bitcoin, ether,
AI has been a big theme and a lot of
people are incorporating AI into their investments. In terms of
(18:44):
virtual assets ETF, they've gathered more than one hundred billion
in assets under management this year. Tech has been a
big theme for a lot of investors. You know, it's
done very, very well in the past few years. Where
do you think the investment opportunities are beyond geographical focus?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Well, raise a very good point, and that is the
impact of technology on fund management itself. In our case
with our new fund, we're using what they call a
quantumental approach, in other words, using quant techniques plus fundamental systems,
and of course overlaying all of this is AI, because
(19:20):
with the AI tool we can cover much more data
like never before and much faster. So this combination of
technologies is going to be really useful to us in
running funds, and not only for us but for other
fund managers. And now that related to that, of course,
is where do you go in terms of picking stocks?
(19:44):
And what I always emphasize when I'm looking at a
company is to what degree is this company using technology
to improve profitability and growth? Because without technology, a company
is not going to do very well. They've got to
move with the times and use technology to improve their operations.
(20:05):
So it's a very important in reidds to what sector
you're in. Of course, currently very attractive to go into
the semiconductor space, particularly the software companies that do the
software for semiconductors. But any company that's using technology in
an effective way is going to be a winner.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Well, what's the most important financial metric you use to
value a company? I remember a few years back you
said you don't use PE for example, because that's not
very useful guide to measure a company's true value.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Yeah, it changes, you know, P was very very popular
and it's still very popular, and sometimes it's better and
not to use the same metric that other people are using.
In our case, we like to use a return on
capital or return on assets. Number one, debt load, debt equity,
and of course earnings growth. Those would be three criteria
(20:56):
that we look at very carefully.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Right, And I'm curious, is there one market you would
not touch? In other words, if one of your analysts
came to you and said, Mark, I have an idea.
Here's a stock, but it's listed in XXX, great company,
but it's in a certain market. Is there a market
that you would go, No, take that away and throw
it in the trash?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Can well, I mean a country like Venezuela, you can forget.
That's a bad place to be. You know. The main
criteria it is not so much the political environment itself,
but whether we can get money in and out of
the country very important. So the first question we asked
is number one, can we get money out when we
(21:35):
put money in? How they've exchanged controls or some other
problem that will borrow us from getting the money out.
Number two, how about the currency? What kind of currency
risk is there and what kind of currency opportunity is there?
By the way, because a lot of times, like in
the case of Turkey, a Turkish lyric devalued by what
(21:56):
eighty plus percent against the dollar. That provided an opper
tunity for many companies because some of the Turkish companies
were exporting in dollars and their costs were in Turkish lira,
so their profit gap was wider and wider as the
currency devalued. So that's the kind of thing we look at.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
You've done everything in your career, from winning awards to
writing books to be one of the most influential people
in finance. Why launch another fund right now?
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Thanks for the compliments. I don't know whether I've been
that influential, but anyway, why a new fund? Because I
like to try new things. I enjoy it. I don't
necessarily need the money, but I like the idea of
using the money I have to invest and also to
try something new, and that's really the reason. And of
course I enjoy travel, I enjoy meeting new companies, So
(22:50):
it's just something that I love to do.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Is it more a mental challenge for you than I mean,
delivering actual returns to investors is obviously important, but you
know personal challenge when you look at investing and out
performing and all these things. I'm wondering if that's more
personal then what seems to be the case.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Well, you know, it's really interesting. I never really look
at the performance in that sense. Of course, the clients
and colleagues look at performance, but don't I look at
what kind of companies we have? Are they profitable, are
they growing? Are they run by good people? And all
the rest of it takes care of itself. So I
(23:28):
think you have to be very careful not to be
too focused on what's your performance this week or this
month or this year, but more focused on what the
assets you have and how good they are basically, right.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
And do you think em fund managers these days, or
just fund managers in general, do you think they spend
enough time actually speaking with management. I mean, how important
is that to actually meet, like literally meet the company's employees.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
It's very, very critical, very important because at the end
of the day, companies are people. They're not things that people,
and companies are run by people, and if those people
are ethical and are capable, then you want to put
your money with them. You know. It's basically like we're
in a partnership. And by the way, That's the exciting
thing about going into equities and equity investing is because
(24:19):
you are forming partnerships with the companies in which you're investing,
So they're making money for you. So you've got to
understand them and understand what their problems are and where
the opportunities are through their eyes.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
So you mentioned people as being one of the most
important factors. You've, of course had a very successful career.
What is one of the best career advice you would
give someone.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
I think the most important thing in this field and
investing is to be curious and humble. In other words,
don't think that you know everything, because you never do.
There's always something to learn. One of the reasons why
I like this business is because I've always been a
perpetual student. In fact, I almost never left the university.
(25:04):
I love to be learning in the diversity. So I
think that's important. If you want to be in this business,
you've got to be curious, humble, and willing to learn
and change your mind. You know, things are changing every day.
You've got to be willing to adjust to a changing situation.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Well, speaking of humility, what's your biggest investment regret? What's
the one Mark, what's the one that got away from
mister Mobius.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Well, it was in Brazil. We were invested in a
department store and two times a year we'd go back
and talk to the financial director. Everything seemed to be great.
Then suddenly the company was bankrupt and we couldn't understand why.
And the mistake there by the way, was that we
didn't meet the owners, the people who were really controlling
(25:50):
the company, and understand their background and their problems, and
so that was a big disaster.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
That's the thing too, I feel in just as a
side point, right, so there's this bifurcation between the US
and China, So I understand geopolitically, that's a rivalry that
will continue. What's happened, is Mark chime in. There seems
to be a gap that's formed between the communities of
both sides. So American investors who would have otherwise been
(26:18):
happy to go to China meet the companies, send their kids,
study language, and vice versa. That's not started to recede
as well. And are you optimistic that over time, while
the rivalry continues, that things normalize. Relations normalize is simply
on a people to people basis.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Well, I think they will normalize. They already If you
look at very closely and talk to Chinese people who
travel around the world, you know that so many of
them have their children in the US studying or visit
the US, often have property in the US. I'm talking
about the post and wealthy people, but even on the
ground in China there's an open mind. It's one of
(26:58):
the thing wonderful about the Chinese people is that they've
got a global view. They travel around the world, they
invest around the world, they ship products around the world.
So I think it will be very difficult to close
the door between the US and China. It's just I
don't see that happening.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Sorry, Mark, forgot to ask you as well, that you're
launching in your fund, do you have a target in mind?
How much money do you want to raise? How big
you need the fund to get?
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Well, the most that we could do in this strategy
would be about a billion dollars, but frankly, I prefer
to have it maybe at five hundred million around that range.
Why is that simply because if you get too big,
then it becomes more difficult to get liquid. The kind
of liquid stocks and the limited number of stocks you
have in the portfolio. So we plan to have anywhere
(27:46):
between eight to twenty socks, no more than that in
the portfolio.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Wow, okay, that's not a lot of stocks to begin with.
Do you have a try do you have a targeted
mind as far as performance or returns? I know that's
a difficult question, but what would be ideal and achievable?
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Well, the ideal is to do better than what you
would do by putting your money in the bank, putting
yourself your money into treasury bonds. So we're talking about
ten percent annually or more in that range because you
can't expect to get fifty percent, twenty percent. Yes, one
(28:24):
year you might get that, but it means taking a
lot of risk, and that's one thing we don't want
to do. So anywhere above ten percent is really where
we want to be.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
If we look at emerging market funds, one of the
questions we get asked a lot is why do I
need to invest in an active emerging fund when I
can access a ETF for seventy basis points? So, for instance,
the I Shares MSCI Emerging Market only charges seventy basis points?
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 4 (28:49):
A very good point because That's one of the things
that active managers have challenges about is the fee structure
compared to ETFs case, we're going to give clients the
opportunity to have zero fee, in other words, no fee
and only a carry. In other words, we take a
percent of the profits we make above a certain amount.
(29:12):
So that's I think a much better way to run
things because then you are really in partnership with your investors.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Okay, Mark, one final question for you, nothing to do
with market. I know you pretty much live on an airplane.
You live in a jet. I see you sometimes in Singapore,
I see you're in India. Your social media team, by
the way, do a very good job because I see
you enjoying Japan. For example. One day you're in Vietnam,
the next day you're in Brazil. Give us your top
three favorite places to live. I know you have residences
(29:42):
all over the world, let's put it that way. So
what are your top three favorite spots.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Well, I'm now in Dubai, so that's one. Singapore would
be the other one in Hong Kong. Really, those three
are the best, I would.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Say, Okay, and any go to meal, like if I
were to visit Dubai. What is something I have to
try in Hong Kong? What is your go to meal
in single for What would that be.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Here in Dubai. You have so many choices, but perhaps
some of the Lebanese food here is very very good
because that have terrific salads, They have terrific barbecues, that
sort of thing. So Lebanese food here in Dubai would
be good, but you've got everything here. In Singapore, of
course it would be Singapore noodles, and in Hong Kong
(30:23):
it would be canted these food you know, incredible surfried
vegetables and that sort of thing. I really enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Mark, You'll have to let us know next time you
come to Hong Kong, we'll take you up for some
dim sum or some Hong Kong local.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
Food and I look forward to that.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Thank you so much for joining us today. You've provided
us a lot of insights from career to investments to markets.
Thank you so much for your time and for making
effort all the way from Dubai.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Well, thank you. It's a pleasure speaking with you.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
See you in Hong Kong, and so our audience, thank
you for joining us today, and thank you for listening
to the Tiger Money, your Bloomberg podcast about investing funds
and financial markets in the region and beyond. If you
like what you hear, please do not forget to subscribe,
to like and to share Until next time. You can
find us on the Bloomberg inside a terminal, on LinkedIn,
(31:14):
and across other platforms as well. We look forward by
the way to hearing from you. This podcast was produced
by Clarenchant
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