Mark Mobius has announced his retirement from Franklin Templeton Investments.
Mr Mobius has been an employee there since 1987, and was one of the earliest dedicated investment managers in emerging markets.
He has said when he first joined Templeton, the emerging markets asset class was much smaller, as eastern europe, much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, did not have stock markets.
Mr Mobius’ retirement has been well signalled to the market.
In March 2017 Mr Mobius relinquished listed manager status on several of Templeton Emerging Markets Group's (TEMG) funds amid a reshuffle of portfolio duties aimed at developing the "next generation of leaders".
However Carlos Hardenberg was appointed lead portfolio manager of the £2.6bn Templeton Emerging Markets investment trust on October 1 2015, when Mr Mobius stepped down from lead manager responsibilities though remained as a portfolio manager.
The trust is the absolute top performer in the AIC Global Emerging Markets sector over the past year to 8 January, returning 35 per cent, compared with 21 per cent for the sector average.
Since stepping away from the management of those funds, Mr Mobius had acted as executive chairman of the Templeton Emerging Markets Group, a role that included contributing research for the fund managers.
It has now been confirmed he will leave the company at the end of January.
Greg Johnson, chairman and chief executive of Franklin Templeton said: “There is no single individual who is more synonymous with emerging markets investing than Mark Mobius. My colleagues and I are deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to work alongside a legend, and we thank Mark for his many years of dedicated service and tremendous contributions to the firm.”
David.Thorpe@ft.com
