In a transfer that reaffirms its guess on providing alts to the wealth channel, asset supervisor Franklin Templeton has appointed George Stephan to the newly created place of world chief working officer of wealth administration alternate options.
Stephan, who beforehand spent 5 years at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. as the top of technique and enterprise improvement for the agency’s world shopper options enterprise, will report back to Adam Spector, Franklin Templeton’s govt vice chairman and head of world distribution.
Stephan will oversee different funding product improvement and investor providers and help with enterprise improvement, administration and operations. Stephan may even work with the agency’s distribution leaders worldwide to assist drive the general distribution technique along with advisor schooling for the choice investments enterprise within the personal wealth channel.
In recent times, Franklin Templeton has acquired or partnered with a number of specialised funding managers to construct a product suite for monetary advisors, together with restricted liquidity automobiles, SMAs and customized portfolios. It has sub-brands reminiscent of Clarion Companions, a non-public actual property funding supervisor, and Profit Avenue Companions, an alternate credit score supervisor, amongst others.
These are a part of a broader development of high-profile asset managers, together with Blackstone, Apollo, BlackRock, KKR and others, which can be closely targeted on constructing merchandise for the wealth area.
General, 16% ($264 billion) of Franklin Templeton’s $1.65 trillion in AUM is dedicated to different investments, based on the agency, though that determine contains institutional investor merchandise in addition to these for retail buyers.
“With greater than 40 years of expertise in alternate options and 382 different funding professionals world wide, we have now been deliberate about constructing our capabilities in a number of methods— by way of acquisitions of specialists like Profit Avenue Companions, Lexington and Clarion and by onboarding our choices to key advisor platforms to make them extra accessible to buyers,” Spector mentioned in a press release. “The result’s that Franklin Templeton is without doubt one of the few conventional asset managers to construct a profitable alternate options enterprise unfold throughout a broad vary of methods and geographies.”
Stephan’s extra earlier expertise contains stints as COO and head of investor relations for KKR’s world wealth options enterprise within the Americas. Previous to becoming a member of KKR, Stephan spent 9 years at Morgan Stanley’s wealth administration division.
