Turns out Mark Mobius isn’t one for retirement.
Less than four months after leaving Franklin Templeton Investments, the 81-year-old has set up a new asset management firm to invest in emerging and frontier markets. Mobius Capital Partners LLP has yet to line up outside investors and wants to raise about $1 billion within two to three years.
The active manager will run a concentrated portfolio of about 25 stocks after it starts in June and plans to hire nine investment managers. The firm will invest in India, China, Latin America and frontier markets.
“I wasn’t ready to retire and I was ready for something new after 30 years at Franklin Templeton,” Mobius, who has spent more than 40 years working in emerging markets, said on Wednesday. “With all this money going in ETFs and passives, there is a real role for active management where we go into companies and we try to achieve change,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview.