Mark Mobius Buying Up Indian Equities
Legendary emerging markets investor Mark Mobius is buying Indian stocks these days. According to Bloomberg’s M.C. Govardhana Rangan and Anil Varma this morning:
Mark Mobius is leading a return of fund managers to India as the nation’s biggest banks say demand for cars and homes will help them ride out a global recession.
“Domestic industries can build high profits and growth,” Mark Mobius, 72, who manages more than $24 billion in emerging-market assets as executive chairman at San Mateo, California based Templeton Asset Management Ltd., said in a Nov. 22 interview. He is buying Indian consumer-related stocks.
Mobius, along with a couple of other fund managers, are buying Indian equities after many gave up on the region. From the Bloomberg piece:
Templeton, Aberdeen Asset Management Ltd. and F&C Management Ltd. are buying Indian stocks as strategists predict a rebound in the rupee, after it fell 9 percent since Sept. 15 to 50.09 per dollar. That’s when the bankruptcy of New York- based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. caused credit markets to freeze, prompting investors to hoard cash and pare investments in everything but the safest government securities.
The median forecast of 17 strategists in a Bloomberg survey is for the currency to strengthen to 48.3 by the end of June.
“We are positive on India,” said Devan Kaloo, who overseas $30 billion as head of global emerging markets in London at Aberdeen, Scotland’s biggest independent money manager. “The key drivers for growth are domestic, with the prospect of rates coming down sharply into 2009.”
Kaloo and Mobius are buying after many global funds gave up on the market. Overseas investors turned net sellers of Indian equities this year, dumping a record $13.4 billion, according to data provided by the Securities and Exchange Board of India. They bought a record $17.4 billion in 2007.
Source:
“India Emerging for Mobius Followers Picking Bottom (Update2)”
M.C. Govardhana Rangan, Anil Varma
Bloomberg, November 24, 2008
