The man who refers to himself as “the Indiana Jones of emerging market investing,” Mark Mobius, said Friday that he will step back from the investment company he helped found five years ago.
In his farewell, Mobius said the investment team’s “strong performance during the last five years…proves that a concentrated and differentiated portfolio of high-quality stocks can generate exceptional returns.” MMIT’s shares price is up 37% since inception, but year-to-date is flat. The fund’s top three investment regions are Taiwan, India and South Korea, with a 61% weighting to technology, followed by 12.9% in healthcare. Technology companies LEENO Industrial 058470, +0.62% and EPAM Systems EPAM, -1.27%, and medical device maker Classys 214150, +1.60% are its top three holdings.
He said they are focusing on three areas, the first India, “but not the India known to the regular emerging market investor. We’re looking at small and medium-sized companies, not very well studied or understood,” of which he says there are over 5,000 listed names. Also Asian consumers “love anything that’s made in Korea,” he said. They’ve recently added to their position in Park Systems 140860, +1.86%, which makes atomic force microscopy or high resolution scanning of almost any kind of surface.