Mobius, considered an emerging market guru, said that Romania’s problem is not a lack of money, but rather a lack of confidence and management. “We have been operating on the Romanian market for over 12 years, but things have just now started to move. The Romanian market will be much bigger than it is now. In the coming three-four years, capitalization and liquidity will double or even triple, while the number of listed companies will increase significantly,” Mobius, present at the official opening of the trading session at the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB), said.
Franklin Templeton has a global investment budget of $24 billion, and Romania is one of the countries in which part of this money will be invested. According to Mobius, Franklin Templeton currently has $15 million on the local market. He added that Templeton usually invests over a five-year time span.
“Romania has a great chance of performing better than Western countries, because figures show that the Romanian market is less expensive than others. The PER [Price-to-Earnings Ratio] in emerging countries is 14, compared to 6 in Romania. The P/BV [Price-to-Book Value] in Romania is below 1, while in emerging markets it is 1.8. This is why it is time to buy here,” Mobius said.
Templeton’s General Manager said that the crisis is over on stock markets. “In November I kept saying “buy, buy, buy”, because there are many opportunities. Now, I can say it is not a rally, but rather an ongoing bull market, although there are still fluctuations. On the capital markets, the crisis is over. The capital market tells you what will happen next year: you look ahead and see the rebound of the economy. The problem is that economists say that things look terrible because they are actually looking in the rearview mirror and seeing the crisis,” Mobius said.
