After reviewing its fund range, the firm said it had decided to close the Franklin Strategic Bond Fund, Franklin Diversified Growth Fund and Franklin Diversified Income Fund, amid a raft of changes.
The three funds will officially close on 15 December.
The asset manager explained in a statement that “due to the small size of the funds, we believe it is no longer in investors’ interests to keep the funds open”.
Lagging behind peers
At the time of writing, the Franklin Templeton Diversified Income and Diversified Growth funds have £16.5m ($21.8m, €18.6m) and £4.3m of assets under management, respectively. Its strategic bond fund has close to £8m in assets.
All three funds were lagging peers in their respective sectors but the Diversified Income vehicle was the worst performer out of the lot during the last 12-months, returning 1.9% versus the IA Flexible Investment’s 12.9%.
The decision to close the trio of funds comes at a time when the group has been implementing a raft of changes, including launching a lower cost UK gilt fund and UK corporate bond fund back in February, with an annual management charge of 25bps and 35bps. By contrast, the soon to be shuttered Strategic Bond fund has an annual management charge of 55bps.
Most recently, it decided to slash the charge on its three core UK equity funds – the Franklin UK Rising Dividends Fund, Franklin UK Equity Income Fund and Franklin UK Opportunities Fund – to 45bps. Collectively, the funds have around £640m in AUM, with the FT UK Equity Income Fund accounting for £504m.
“We are confident that our current fund range represents a strong value proposition for UK investors and we are committed to building our offering in relevant sectors of the market,” the firm said.
“We have a number of new investment offerings in the pipeline which we will be in a position to announce over the coming months.”
