Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call April 29, 2024 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Selene Oh - Chief Communications Officer and Head, Investor Relations
Jenny Johnson - President and Chief Executive Officer
Matt Nicholls - Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer
Adam Spector - Head, Global Distribution

Conference Call Participants

Craig Siegenthaler - Bank of America
Glenn Schorr - Evercore
Dan Fannon - Jefferies
Ken Worthington - JPMorgan
Alex Blostein - Goldman Sachs
Bill Katz - TD Cowen

Operator

Welcome to Franklin Resources Earnings Conference Call for the quarter ended March 31, 2024. Hello. My name is Sylvie and I will be your call operator today. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Selene Oh, Chief Communications Officer and Head of Investor Relations for Franklin Resources. You may begin.

Selene Oh

Good morning and thank you for joining us today to discuss our quarterly results. Statements made on this conference call regarding Franklin Resources, Inc., which are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These and other risks, uncertainties and other important factors are just described in more detail in Franklin’s recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the risk factors and the MD&A sections of Franklin’s most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q filings.

Now I’d like to turn the call over to Jenny Johnson, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Jenny Johnson

Thank you, Selene. Hello, everyone and thank you for joining us today to discuss Franklin Templeton’s results for the second fiscal quarter of 2024, and I’m joined by Matt Nicholls, our CFO and COO; and Adam Spector, our Head of Global Distribution. We’ll answer your questions in just a few minutes. But first, I’d like to review some highlights from the quarter. In terms of public equity markets, 2023 was, to some extent, a tale of 2 markets, the Magnificent 7 and the S&P 493 with the former contributing the lion’s share of returns.

So far in 2024, in the public equity markets, we’ve seen a significant dispersion emerge in performance among the Magnificent 7, being to a better environment for fundamental research to capture alpha and when augmented by robust risk management can deliver compelling portfolio results for clients. Given the current backdrop, we believe equity allocation should, in general, tilt towards sectors and regions that are being overlooked due to the heavy concentration in the largest companies.