Templeton Manager: Korean Shares to Rebound Within 6 Months, Currently Undervalued (EWY)

This article from The Korea Herald identifies the Templeton investment manager it quotes as "Mike G. Holowesco." But I think the reporter means Mark G. Holowesko. He managed Templeton's flagship Growth Fund when Sir John Templeton stepped down in the early 1990s. Holowesko gave up running the fund several years later, managing private funds through Templeton I believe.

After giving up managing the Templeton Growth Fund, Holowesko assumed a much lower profile. So it caught my eye when I came across this piece:

Korean shares are still discounted and they are likely to rebound within six months, Mike G. Holowesco, the senior fund manager at Templeton Capital Advisor Ltd. said. Short-term and momentum investors are bailing out of the emerging Asian markets amid inflation and asset bubble concerns, and the region - including Korea - is likely to see outflow of capital, Holowesco said at the Eighth Korea Exchange Global Investors Conference held in New York yesterday.

"Nearly 50 percent of capital that has flowed into the region is expected to evacuate, 25 percent of which already has - the region's market will continue go under additional corrections," he said. However Holowesco also said local shares are still undervalued in terms of lead financial indicators, namely by price-earnings ratio, price book-value ratio, and return on equity.

"Korea's market and economic fundamentals still remain strong; I expect the Korean market to undergo short-term corrections, to resurge by the yearend," he said.

Holowesko also manages a fund called the Holowesko Global Fund. It's not registered in the US and (to my knowledge) not available to Americans. I don't know much about it except that Sir John Templeton has some money invested in it.

[Editor's Note: The South Korean market is covered by the iShares MSCI South Korea Index Fund ETF (EWY)]

EWY 1-yr chart: