| Birth Name: | Joseph Bernhard Mark Mobius |
| Birth Date: | 17 August 1936[1] |
| Birth Place: | Hempstead, New York, US |
| Citizenship: | United States (renounced) Germany |
| Alma Mater: | Boston University (BA, MS) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD) |
| Occupation: | Businessperson |
| Years Active: | 1987–present |
Joseph Bernhard Mark Mobius[2] (born August 17, 1936) is an American-born German emerging markets fund manager and founder of Mobius Capital Partners LLP.[3] He was previously employed at Franklin Templeton where he ran the Templeton Emerging Markets Group for over three decades.
Joseph Bernhard Mark Mobius was born to German and Puerto Rican parents in Hempstead, New York. He earned his B.A. and M.S. in Communications from Boston University, and received a Ph.D in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964.[4] He also studied at the University of Wisconsin, University of New Mexico, and Kyoto University in Japan.
Mobius worked at international securities firm Vickers-da-Costa, and later was president of International Investment Trust Company in Taipei, Taiwan. He once ran an independent consulting company that marketed, among other things, Snoopy cartoon merchandise.[5]
Mobius joined Franklin Templeton in 1987 after being asked by John Templeton to run the Templeton Emerging Markets Group. At Franklin Templeton he established and directed the research team based in 18 global emerging markets offices and managed more than $50 billion in emerging markets portfolios.[6]
In 2015, after leading the company for over a quarter of a century, Mark Mobius decided to step down as the lead manager of the Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust (TEMIT) and handed over control of the fund to Carlos Hardenberg.[7]
In 2018, Franklin Templeton announced Mobius' retirement from Franklin Templeton effective January 31, 2018.[8]
In March 2018, Mobius launched Mobius Capital Partners together with his former Templeton colleagues Carlos von Hardenberg and Greg Konieczny. The emerging and frontier markets asset manager is focused on a single long-only strategy based on actively partnering with portfolio companies to improve their corporate governance and to deliver a clear ESG pathway.[9]
Born a U.S. citizen, Mobius was also entitled to German citizenship by descent. He renounced his U.S. citizenship and is now a German citizen.[10]
Mobius has stated his preference for a Donald Trump victory in the 2020 United States Presidential election and called a potential win by the Biden-Harris ticket "disastrous" for the stock market and economy.[11]
On March 2, 2023, Mobius told Fox Business in an interview that he cannot take his money out of China due to the country's capital controls. He also said that he would be "very, very careful" investing in the country. [12] According to South China Morning Post, Mobius had sold a flat in Shanghai 18 years ago and deposited the money at a Shanghai branch of HSBC.[13] When he tried to transfer 3 million yuan ($432,270) to a HSBC Hong Kong account, he was asked to submit a lot of documents related to the sale and taxation records which delayed the process. On March 7, according to Bloomberg News, Mobius told Ming Pao that the issue "seems to have resolved". However Mobius has still remained critical of capital controls in China stating that removing capital outflow restrictions would benefit China's economy.