Manager Research

We have recently completed our review of the Templeton Global Balanced fund. We have retained the Tier 3 rating on the fund. We have three primary concerns with the fund. Firstly, the fund has recently seen a change in managers in the equity sleeve, with both the lead and backup portfolio managers leaving the fund (Alan Chua and Peter Satori). They were replaced by Derek Tanner and Douglas Grant. This follows the manager changes we noted in 2019/2020 and regular changes to PMs lowers our ability to gauge how the fund will be managed and perform in the future. A positive is that the fund managers select stocks from the well-researched buy list. This buy list is the result of rigorous fundamental research aligned to the fund’s value philosophy.

Secondly, we have seen inconsistencies in how the equity sleeve of the portfolio is managed, which makes it difficult to assess how the fund will perform in the future. Thirdly, the same investment process and team that manage the Global Total Return fund, which is rated Tier 3 manage the fixed income sleeve on this fund and this is also a negative factor to this fund’s rating.