Legendary emerging markets investor Mark Mobius — who’s known for his bullish views on China — is now setting his sights on India

• Legendary emerging markets investor Mark Mobius is bullish on India.
• He told Bloomberg that India — whose GDP growth hit 7.2% in the last year — is the “real future.”
• He’s also positive on South Korea due to the influence of its entertainment industry.

Legendary emerging markets investor Mark Mobius is known for his bullish take on China, but he now has a shinier target: India.

“To me, India is the real future,” Mobius, the cofounder of Mobius Capital Partners, told Bloomberg on Tuesday. “Of course, the market has done very well and we’re near the top of the recent past, but nevertheless we are finding big bargains in wonderful companies.”

The South Asian country has been under the spotlight recently, particularly after it overtook China as the world’s most populous country. India’s government has also been on a drive to spur the country’s economy through investments to unseat China as the factory of the world.

Mobius cited India’s high growth rate — GDP growth is expected to come in at 7.2% for the last financial year that ended on March 31 — for his bullishness.

“A rule of thumb is that if the country has a 7% growth rate, then a reasonably good company should be able to double that,” he told Bloomberg. His investment firm insists on returns of 20% on investment, he said.

Among Mobius’ major investments in India are APL Apollo Tubes, which manufactures steel tubing for the construction industry. “Building is booming in India — you travel around and see roads, bridges, tunnels being built,” he told Bloomberg.

Mobius told the news outlet he wasn’t put off by a short-seller report targeting the Adani conglomerate earlier this year. “One such incident, just like any such incident in the US market, would not deter us, since there are so many excellent companies in India,” he said.

Mobius is still invested in China even though there appear to be rising risks of a conflict with Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory. This is despite his complaint to Fox Business in early March he’s wasn’t able to withdraw his funds from his HSBC account based in Shanghai, citing Chinese government capital controls.

He was eventually able to get his money out and told the South China Morning Post in late March he was still positive on China.

Other than India, Mobius is also positive on South Korea — specifically its technological developments in facial aesthetics — due to its massive influence on pop culture. 

“I was at the Expo in Dubai and one of the boy bands was entertaining and it’s an Arab audience and they all knew the words,” Mobius told Bloomberg.