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Remembering Legendary Investor Sir John Templeton

The brief video below is in appreciation of Sir John’s life and the influence he still has on Franklin Templeton Investments’ perspective and our employees.  Enjoy!

 The 29th of November marks the anniversary of what would have been Sir John Templeton’s 100th birthday, someone who helped shape my career as a portfolio manager, and who I admire greatly as a human being.  I first met the late Sir John more than three decades ago when I was working as an analyst for a broker based in Hong Kong. I traveled a few times to Nassau to make presentations to the Templeton portfolio teams, which is how he and I first became acquainted.

One day Sir John approached me to manage a new emerging markets group that he was starting and was very excited about. I jumped at the opportunity. This was a great chance to do things globally rather than just focus on Taiwan (where I was head of the country’s first investment management company at the time), and there weren’t many—if any—other portfolio managers focusing on global emerging markets. So, it was quite an opportunity!  This year is the 25th anniversary of what’s now the Templeton Emerging Markets Group. The markets certainly have changed a lot since then, but our core investment philosophy remains true to Sir John’s timeless approach. (more…)

The Strategy Of John Neff

MUST READTaken from the April 26, 2013 issue of The Validea Hot List

Guru Spotlight: John Neff

Most investors wouldn’t give a fund described as “relatively prosaic, dull, conservative” a second glance. That, however, is exactly how John Neff described the Windsor Fund that he headed for more than three decades. And, while his style may not have been flashy or eye-catching, the returns he generated for clients were dazzling — so dazzling that Neff’s track record may be the greatest ever for a mutual fund manager.

By focusing on beaten down, unloved stocks, Neff was able to find value in places that most investors overlooked. And when the rest of the market caught on to his finds, he and his clients reaped the rewards. Over his 31-year tenure (1964-1995), Windsor averaged a 13.7 percent annual return, beating the market by an average of 3.1 percent per year. Looked at another way, a $10,000 investment in the fund the year Neff took the reins would have been worth more than $564,000 by the time he retired (with dividends reinvested); that same $10,000 invested in the S&P 500 (again with dividends reinvested) would have been worth less than half that after 31 years, about $233,000. That type of track record made the understated, low-key Neff a favorite manager of many other professional fund managers — an “investor’s investor”, if you will. (more…)

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