Morningstar said the Templeton Emerging Markets Group was “heading in the right direction” with its succession planning in the wake of Mark Mobius’s reduced focus on day-to-day investing.
Templetion earlier this week said that from April 3 it will initiate a number of portfolio manager appointments as Mobius reduces his role.
Germaine Share, senior manager research analyst at fund rater Morningstar, said: “We think that Templeton Emerging Markets Group is heading in the right direction and investors should not be concerned about the announced portfolio manager appointments.
“This latest announcement is a sensible step in further paving the way for Mobius to step back, and there are no immediate Morningstar analyst rating implications following this change.”
Share said Mobius has not been involved in the day-to-day management of the strategies for some time and in most cases the newly named portfolio managers have been “doing the heavy lifting” for a long period.
For example, Allan Lam, who will officially be named the lead portfolio manager on Templeton Asian Growth fund, has been the final decision maker of the strategy since 1999, Share said.
“This development therefore improves accountability at the portfolio manager level, providing better transparency to investors.”
Chetan Seghal and Carlos Hardenberg are taking over the Templeton Emerging Markets strategy, which resulted in an upgrade from Morningstar to neutral from negative in December 2016.
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