Franklin Templeton Investments
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Franklin Resources, Inc. is an American multinational holding company that, together with its subsidiaries, is referred to as Franklin Templeton; it is a global
investment Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing i ...
firm founded in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1947 as Franklin Distributors, Inc. It is listed on the
New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
under the
ticker symbol A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. In short, ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols or characters (generally Latin letters ...
BEN, in honor of
Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
, for whom the company is named, and who was admired by founder Rupert Johnson Sr. In 1973, the company's headquarters moved from New York to
San Mateo, California San Mateo ( ; ) is a city in San Mateo County, California, on the San Francisco Peninsula. About 20 miles (32 km) south of San Francisco, the city borders Burlingame to the north, Hillsborough to the west, San Francisco Bay and Foster C ...
. As of October 12, 2020, Franklin Templeton held US$1.4 trillion in assets under management (AUM) on behalf of private, professional and institutional investors.


History

The company was founded in 1947 in New York by Rupert H. Johnson Sr., who ran a successful retail brokerage firm from an office on Wall Street. He named the company for American polymath
Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
because Franklin espoused frugality and prudence when it came to saving and investing. The company's first line of mutual funds, Franklin Custodian Funds, was a series of conservatively managed equity and bond funds designed to appeal to most investors. After Rupert Sr. retired, his son,
Charles B. Johnson Charles Bartlett Johnson (born January 6, 1933) is an American billionaire businessman, with an estimated net worth of around $6.1 billion. Early life Charles Bartlett Johnson was born in 1933 in Montclair, New Jersey, to Rupert Harris Johnson ...
(Charlie), took over as president and chief executive officer in 1957 at age 24. At that time, the funds had total assets under management of US$2.5 million. Rupert Johnson, Jr., Charlie's brother, joined the company in 1965. Franklin went public in 1971. In 1973, the company acquired Winfield & Company, a San Mateo, California-based investment firm, and moved Franklin's offices from
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
to California. The combined organization had close to US$250 million in assets under management and approximately 60 employees. In 1979, Franklin Money Fund began a growth surge that made it Franklin's first billion-dollar fund and launched the company's significant asset growth in the 1980s. Starting in 1980, the company's total assets under management doubled (or nearly doubled) every year for the next six years. The company's stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1986. In the same year, the company opened its first office outside North America in Taiwan. In 1988, Franklin acquired L.F. Rothschild Fund Management Company. Assets under management for Franklin grew from just over US$2 billion in 1982 to more than US$40 billion in 1989 (the crash of 1987 had little impact on Franklin's income and bond funds). In October 1992, Franklin acquired Templeton, Galbraith & Hansberger Ltd. for a reported cost of $913 million, leading to the common name Franklin Templeton.
Mutual fund A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV i ...
pioneer
Sir John Templeton Sir John Marks Templeton (29 November 1912 – 8 July 2008) was an American-born British investor, banker, fund manager, and philanthropist. In 1954, he entered the mutual fund market and created the Templeton Growth Fund, which averaged grow ...
was the owner of Templeton, Galbraith & Hansberger Ltd together with his son Dr. John Templeton and John Galbraith who together owned 70% of the firm. In November 1996, Heine Securities Corporation, known for the Mutual Series of funds, merged into the Franklin Templeton complex. In October 2000, Franklin acquired Bissett Funds to increase its Canadian presence, and Bissett remains a key brand from Franklin in the Canadian market. The Fiduciary Trust Company was acquired by Franklin Templeton in April 2001.
Fiduciary Trust Company International Fiduciary Trust Company International is a United States-based wealth management firm that provides investment management and wealth management services. It has served high-net-worth families, foundations, and endowments since 1931. , the firm h ...
, a member of the Franklin family, maintained an office of over 650 employees in
Two World Trade Center 2 World Trade Center (2 WTC; also known as 200 Greenwich Street) is a planned skyscraper as part of the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan, New York City. It will replace the original 2 World Trade Center, which was completed in 1972 and ...
at the time of the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
in 2001. 87 employees died in the collapse. The firm has specialized expertise across a full range of asset classes. It offers products under the Franklin, Templeton, Mutual Series and Fiduciary brand names, among others. Like other large investment companies, the firm offers a wide variety of funds but is traditionally best known for bond funds under the Franklin brand, international funds under the Templeton brand, and value funds under the Mutual Series brand. In April 2007, Franklin Resources was 445th in the
Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
, and 7th overall among securities companies. The same month, ''
USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...
'' listed BEN stock as the top stock pick for the last 25 years based on returns, claiming it is up 64,224% since 1982. As of July 31, 2008, Franklin Resources, Inc. managed over $570 billion in total assets worldwide. In February 2009, ''
Barron's Magazine ''Barron's'' is an American weekly magazine/newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. Founded in 1921 by Clarence W. Barron (1855–1928) as a sister publication to ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''Barron's'' covers U.S. ...
'' called Franklin Templeton "King of the Decade" among fund families over the ten-year period ending in 2008. In 2013, Charles Johnson retired as chairman and his son Greg Johnson became chairman of the board, CEO and president. In 2019, the firm acquired Benefit Street Partners, an alternative credit investment group. In 2020, Jennifer M. Johnson became CEO and President of the firm and Greg Johnson became Executive Chairman. In July 2020, Franklin Templeton acquired Legg Mason, Inc. and its multiple specialist investment managers, establishing Franklin Templeton as one of the world's largest independent, specialized global investment managers with a combined $1.4 trillion in assets under management (AUM) across one of the broadest ranges of high-quality investment teams in the industry. The combined footprint significantly deepens Franklin Templeton's presence in key geographies and creates an expansive investment platform that is well balanced between institutional and retail client AUM. In November 2021, Franklin Templeton announced its acquisition of Lexington Partners in a $1.75billion cash deal. The acquisition completed in April 2022. In January 2022, Franklin Templeton acquired O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, an asset management firm founded by James O'Shaughnessy. On May 31, 2022 it was announced that
BNY Mellon Investment Management BNY Mellon Investment Management (BNY Mellon IM) is the investment management division of BNY Mellon. It is one of the largest asset managers in the world with $2.4 trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2021. BNY IM uses seven di ...
would sell Alcentra to Franklin Templeton and the transaction was completed on 1 November 2022.


Mutual funds and ETFs

Franklin Templeton has 455 open-ended mutual funds and seven
closed-end fund A closed-end fund (CEF) is a fund that raises capital by issuing a fixed number of shares which are not redeemable, and then invest that capital in financial assets such as stocks and bonds. Unlike open-end funds, new shares in a closed-end fund ...
s. Included in these are 27 state and federal tax-free income funds, an area of investment pioneered by Franklin. Prominent funds include the Templeton Growth Fund, Inc. (opened 1954), the Mutual Shares fund (opened 1949), and the Mutual Discovery Fund (opened 1992) and the Templeton Growth (Euro) Fund. The Franklin Income Fund (FKINX) is a
mutual fund A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV i ...
in Morningstar's "conservative allocation" category and "large/value" style box. The fund was created in 1948 and has paid uninterrupted
dividend A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-in ...
s for 60 years. The Franklin Income Fund is constructed primarily of dividend-paying stocks and bonds (2%). Franklin Templeton launched its first exchange-traded fund (ETF) in 2013. This included 55 active, smart beta and passively managed ETFs in the U.S, with US$9.7 billion in assets under management in 2021. In 2021, Franklin Templeton launched the first "tokenised" US mutual fund as a pilotit uses a
blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...
to process transactions and record share ownership. The technology is provided by the Stellar network and Blockchain Administrator, a Delaware company. The OnChain US Government Money Fund pilot started with $1.4M of seed money and investment from employees. The automated administration can trade around the clock and removes the need for brokerages, which should result in a "highly significant decrease in fees". However, the fund actually has a high level of costs because of its small size and the fact that, as a pilot, it is maintaining traditional records in parallel.


See also

* List of mutual-fund families in Canada


References


External links

*
Fiduciary Trust memorial page
for employees who died in 9-11 {{authority control Investment management companies of the United States Mutual funds of the United States Holding companies of the United States Companies based in San Mateo, California Financial services companies based in California American companies established in 1947 Financial services companies established in 1947 Holding companies established in 1947 1947 establishments in New York City Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange 1970s initial public offerings