Veteran investor Mobius says "a big mistake" to ignore China

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.

Many foreign investors are reconsidering or reducing their exposure to Chinese equities. Both mainland China and Hong Kong stocks have underperformed emerging market benchmarks 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.

His biggest regional holdings at the moment are China 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.