What happened with BEN today?
No read yet
Uses news and trading volume to explain the day’s move and how it relates to the market.
Stop guessing. Get the call, a three-month target price, the best and worst cases, and a source for every claim.
Franklin Resources, Inc., since renamed Franklin Templeton Inc., operates through investment-management subsidiaries under Franklin Templeton and specialist-manager brands. They invest money for individual, institutional and wealthy clients through funds and separately managed accounts, and also manage portfolios for other companies’ investment products. Its own sponsored funds generate most revenue. Funds and account clients pay investment management fees, generally based on the value of assets managed; these fees provide the majority of revenue.
The company relies heavily on financial advisers, broker-dealers, banks and other intermediaries to sell its funds. It also receives sales and distribution fees from funds and fund-share purchases, but passes substantially all of these fees to the intermediaries. Most U.S. mutual funds’ ongoing distribution fees are subject to asset-based regulatory limits and fund approval each year.
Management-fee revenue depends on both the amount of money entrusted to the company and the kinds of investments clients choose. Market movements and client deposits or withdrawals change the assets it manages. A shift toward lower-fee products can reduce revenue even without a decline in total assets.
The risk section is the longest, dullest part of the filing. This keeps only what can really hurt you: where it hits, how hard, when it plays out.
Every company claims an edge. Each one is checked against hard numbers like margins and returns: which hold, and which line gives way first.
Invesco competes with Franklin Templeton for retail and institutional investors’ money worldwide, managing equity, fixed-income, multi-asset and alternative investments for fees. Watch its mix of active equity and alternative products versus lower-fee bond funds and ETFs: that shows the fee pressure facing Franklin’s overlapping business.
T. Rowe Price competes with Franklin Templeton for money from individuals, advisers and institutions through actively managed funds, dedicated investment accounts and funds it manages for other providers. Its active-fund flows offer a comparison for the investor demand that also shapes Franklin’s managed assets and fee revenue.
AllianceBernstein competes with Franklin Templeton to manage institutions’ portfolios, funds sold through financial advisers and wealthy clients’ investment accounts. Watch client gains and withdrawals across those three businesses, where customers can generally end their arrangements at any time or on short notice.
Virtus Investment Partners competes with Franklin Templeton through specialist investment managers that manage funds and dedicated accounts for individuals and institutions. Its managers’ investment performance and flows into those products provide a comparison for Franklin’s own specialist-manager platform, while Virtus earns fees mainly on the assets it manages.
Affiliated Managers Group’s independent investment firms compete with Franklin Templeton’s specialist managers for clients’ equity, alternative and multi-asset portfolios. Watch flows into those strategies through their funds and dedicated accounts as a comparison for demand facing Franklin’s specialist businesses.
BlackRock competes with Franklin Templeton for retail and institutional money in public-market investments, alternatives and cash management, generally charging a share of assets managed. Its investment-management fees are the relevant comparison for Franklin, rather than revenue from its separately sold investment technology and services.
Artisan Partners’ autonomous investment teams compete with Franklin Templeton’s specialist managers for clients’ global active equity and income portfolios. Watch assets in International Value and Global Value, its largest strategies, but distinguish weak demand from deliberate limits on new money to protect investment capacity.
Federated Hermes competes with Franklin Templeton for clients’ investment-management business and earns advisory fees mainly on assets managed, but its much heavier money-market focus makes it a less direct comparison. Its institutional cash business is more relevant to Franklin’s cash-management strategies than to Franklin’s equity-heavy asset mix.
Ares Management competes with Franklin Templeton’s alternative managers for institutional and wealth investors’ commitments to credit, real assets and funds that buy existing private-fund interests. Watch its fundraising from institutions and through intermediaries for a comparison of demand facing Franklin’s alternative funds.
Blackstone competes with Franklin Templeton’s alternative managers for investors’ private-equity, credit and real-estate allocations. Its revenue from fees and profit shares earned after specified investment returns offers a comparison for Franklin’s performance fees, whose fiscal 2025 increase came primarily from its alternative specialist managers.
Blackstone Inc. earningsBX
Blackstone’s report will show how fees and performance-related income from private-market assets are changing, offering a comparison for Franklin Templeton’s alternative managers.
Read Blackstone’s fee-earning assets alongside its performance-related income. Growth in both would show that private-market assets are providing a fee base and returns that generate profit shares, a supportive signal for Franklin Templeton’s alternative managers; steady fee-earning assets but weaker performance income would show that a stable asset base does not necessarily produce more performance fees.
AllianceBernstein Holding, L.P. earningsAB
AllianceBernstein’s report will show whether institutional, adviser and wealth clients are adding or withdrawing money, giving Franklin Templeton a read on demand for active management through the same channels.
Compare net flows into and out of AllianceBernstein’s institutional portfolios, adviser-sold funds and wealth accounts. Inflows across all three would show that demand for active managers is holding up in channels Franklin Templeton also relies on; broad outflows would point to a tougher market for gathering assets, but Franklin’s own flows must confirm whether it is affected.
Invesco LTD earningsIVZ
Invesco’s report will show whether investors are choosing active equity and alternatives or shifting to lower-fee bond funds and ETFs, a read on fee pressure in Franklin Templeton’s overlapping products.
Compare Invesco’s assets and flows in active equity and alternatives with those in bond funds and ETFs. Money moving toward active equity and alternatives would point to firmer demand for higher-fee strategies that overlap with Franklin Templeton’s; a shift toward lower-fee bond funds and ETFs would signal pressure on both active assets and the average fee rate in Franklin’s mix.
Fed Interest Rate Decision
For Franklin Templeton, the Fed’s decision on its benchmark interest rate matters because higher rates can lower the value of existing bonds in its fixed-income funds, reducing assets under management (AUM)—the money it manages—and the management fees it earns.
Expected4.0%Last release4.0%
If it comes in above expectations
If the Fed sets rates higher than expected, lower values for existing bonds may shrink fixed-income fund assets and the management fees Franklin Templeton earns from them; the effect also depends on client flows and the mix of assets it manages.
If it comes in below expectations
If the Fed sets rates lower than expected, higher values for existing bonds may support fixed-income fund assets and the management fees Franklin Templeton earns from them; the effect also depends on client flows and the mix of assets it manages.
Ares Management Corporation earningsARES
Ares Management’s report will show how much institutions and wealth clients are committing to alternative funds through intermediaries, a read on the fundraising environment for Franklin Templeton’s alternative funds.
Look at how much Ares Management raises from institutions and wealth clients investing through intermediaries. More fundraising would show that investor money and distribution channels remain available to alternative managers, a supportive signal for Franklin Templeton’s alternative funds; less would point to tougher competition for commitments. Fundraising does not immediately equal managed assets or fee revenue, so Franklin’s own flows and assets determine the conclusion for its business.
Franklin Templeton, Inc. earningsThis company
Franklin Templeton earns most of its revenue from managing client assets, so this report will show whether client flows and asset mix support fee income and whether that income reaches operating profit.
Read long-term net flows and average assets under management by asset class alongside the investment-management fee rate excluding performance fees; then check whether revenue is translating into operating profit. Stable flows in higher-fee strategies, a steady fee rate and a steady operating margin would show the fee base is holding up; persistent outflows, a shift toward lower-fee products or a weaker margin would show that assets are generating less fee income or costs are absorbing more of it.
