Veteran investor Mobius says "a big mistake" to ignore China
15/06/2023 13:05
By Summer Zhen
HONG KONG, June 15 (Reuters) - Mark Mobius, a guru of
emerging market investment, said global investors should not
ignore China or be too worried about regulatory tightening on
business as most companies there can operate in a free business
environment.
Despite U.S- China tensions and the crackdown on big tech
firms including Alibaba and Tencent, "there are incredible
number of enterprises in China who are free to do their
business," Mobius, 86, founder of Mobius Capital Partners, told
the Greenwich Economic Forum in Hong Kong Thursday.
"They do tremendous work not only in China, but globally."
Many foreign investors are reconsidering or reducing their
exposure to Chinese equities, citing mounting fears about
government reining in private business, a weak recovery and the
U.S.-China rivalry.
Both mainland China .dMICN00000PUS and Hong Kong stocks
have underperformed emerging market benchmarks .dMIEF00000PUS
this year.
Mobius said the biggest misconception by U.S. investors is a
lack of understanding of the variety within China, and people's
mindset was not one direction only.
"If you go from Guangdong to Shanghai, you got a different
language... You may have a very strong central government, but
still within this huge country there are lots of differences,"
he said.
"I think it's a big mistake to ignore China."
His biggest regional holdings at the moment are Taiwan,
South Korea and India, he added.
Mobius made name for his emerging market investment at U.S.
asset manager Franklin Templeton Investments for more than three
decades before retirement in 2018. He currently manages about
$300 million in assets for his own firm.
Earlier this year, Mobius told FOX Business he could not
take his money out of China due to the country's capital
controls. Later he said the issue was resolved.
(Reporting by Summer Zhen)
((summer.zhen@thomsonreuters.com; 852-3462-7739;))